la vie a montreal

It's morning and I'm sitting on the pavement outside my sister's first floor walk up. I'm surrounded by piles of beaten-up shoes, and laundry baskets overflowing with a few decades worth of Value Village finds. It's a civic holiday in Montreal, and like in all rustic cities, the pedestrian quarters have descended into giant flea markets. The street-corners are piled with slightly bruised pieces of furniture and girls in APC selling yesterday's trends to latte-wielding passerby's. It's a scavenger's paradise - pretty different from the hollow cement channels swamped with the suit-and-tie bureaucrats of Ottawa. This city pulses. Tattooed couples in jean shorts and summer dresses march hand in hand, best friends cross the streets munching through thick slices of cheesy pizza, and gray-haired women in floral vests eye the racks of musty smelling garments. Everyone seems to know it's probably the last weekend of summer. With the chilly bite of fall creeping in with the sunset, jackets and scarves are selling fast.