2015-06-23: Blue Light District

Montreal has lots of little side streets that are insanely pretty. I am assuming that they are pretty in winter too. I tend to wander around looking for shiny things but have had to learn to keep my damn fool eyes on the ground in snow ridden wastelands so I doubt I would see the prettiness in Montreal's winter.

Cultural Observations: License Plates

For some reason Canada doesn't require license plates at the front of cars. I assume this is a politeness thing. If a Canadian can see you they will happily introduce themselves and therefore you don't need identification at the front of a car.

Not sure a license plate would ruin the styling. I am sure someone thinks so.

If you are behind a Canadian they might not notice you were there and so identification on the back of car is a good idea. Mostly because the Canadian will be mortified that they accidentally ignored you and it would be rude to create a situation where either person was embarrassed.

Rating: 6/10 (If I liked cars a lot I would care more I guess, I know some people moan about how license plates ruin the styling of their automacars)

I am not aware of another city which uses blue light on so many of their pretty things

The Canadian politeness has some weird artefacts. A Lady started chatting to me today, she grew up in Montreal and was checking I wasn't lost. I'm not sure if she was just checking because that's what they do or if I had some kind of confused expression on my face. Probably the latter, even when I know where I am I can look quite lost.

To be fair the blue sky makes things blue too

I was asking about the Bi Lingual nature of Montreal. She is of the opinion that in the early eighties the government decreed that French had to be everywhere and a lot of the people that only spoke English basically left. She is not happy about this and blames the Francophones in government.

In Sydney blue lights are used in train station toilets to dissuade intravenous drug users from shooting up

She still likes the real French though. She also knows some french swear words which she lobbed at the government. I did not mention the Belgian francophones.

Admittedly we didn't see any junkies so I guess it works here too.