Montreal

[green_amber]

Unbelievably fabulous hotel, with not only free hi speed wi fi and ethernet, and glass lifts, and a revolving resturaunt at the top, but also free canapes between 5 and 7 plus happy hour, and Posh Lounge for Speshil Peepul like er me (yes, Wiscon folks, I finally made it into the Governors Club effectively, tho no free chocolate martinis :(

But cleverest of all, a docking station for IPods so I can play my own music in room!! How clever is that - of course 99% of travellers have an iPod these days not CDs with them.. Montreal TV surprisingly French - of major English speaking US TV channels could only find NBC last night. (No I didn't go out - luggage only turned up this am so I had no clothes to change into after 10 hrs travelling!) Taxi driver however reassured me that my French was not only comprehensible but "as good as his". yeh right :-) So far actually impossible though to make anyone else speak French to me!! as everyone instantly switches to English when you open your mouth. And I have already heard some of the worst French accents EVER!!

OK off to find Judith, and Conference no 2!

Comments

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

So long as you make the effort by starting out in French and letting them be the ones that change, you've done the polite thing and they'll like you.

(Or at least, that's the tactic that works for us with Parisian waiters, who have a notorious reputation for scorning English speakers.)

[grytpype-thynne.livejournal.com]

You're probably not aware of the Canadian racing driver Gilles Villeneuve, especially since he's hardly a recent star, but his English had an accent that made Gordon Kaye sound like Alain Delon.

We stayed in an hotel in Scarborough recently. Wifi but no extraction in the bathroom. Being in Yorkshire there was, of course, no happy hour, just a "slightly less grim thirty seconds".