Je roule en la belle province!

MONTREAL – I first started taking French lessons in Grade 6 when I was about 11. In my head, I speak a pretty passable, if somewhat fractured, version of Canada’s other official language. Trouble is, it doesn’t always come out that way!

And I sure can’t comprehend it as fast as it’s spoken here in what used to be called la belle province. But I have to try if I want to get around for the next couple of weeks.

I put Ontario in general and Ottawa in particular in my rearview mirrors, crossing the Ottawa River into Hull, Gatineau, Quebec – my sixth province in the two months since I embarked on my trans-Canada journey.

After a bit of fumbling around with some rather confusing highway route markers, I found myself on QC Hwy. 148, booting along in glorious summer sunshine following the banks of the Riviere des Outaouais, as its known in Quebec. They've got a different word for everything in this province!

Again, it was good to get out in the land and rack up some miles after put-putting around the nation’s capital where I made some lifelong friendships during my 12-year stay there in the late 1980s and ‘90s.

Friends like Lou, a former pro soccer player and fellow Ottawa Sun day-oner, which used to mean something before the entire Sun chain turned into the crappy journalistic embarrassment it is today.

We watched Argentina play the Dutch to a 0-0 draw before finally winning it on penalty kicks. When I said the shootout is a horrible way to end any sporting event, Lou explained to me for the first time why it has to be that way. It had never occurred to me that going beyond 90 minutes, plus 30 more of added extra time was about the maximum a player could be expected to play before exhaustion rendered them unfit to continue. Not the first time I missed the obvious.

Lou’s now an award-winning teacher of music industry arts at Algonquin College and a pretty gifted bass player in his own band.

After the game, we went to check out some local acts appearing in a nearby bar. There we ran into Johnny, another former Sun hand I hadn’t seen in more than 25 years, and his wife!

I was staying with Melanie and Dave, more friends from my brief but memorable time at the Sun. They graciously opened their home to me and invited me to join them as they spent their evenings at Ottawa’s oddly named Bluesfest. Odd because, although there was a sprinkling of blues acts like Gary Clark Jr., the lineup spanned the widest possible range of popular music. Everything from Lady Gaga to Journey to Bombino and Blake Shelton.

I put in a visit to my former colleagues at the Ottawa bureau of the Canadian Press where some longtime colleagues like John, James and Bruce (looking good despite recovering from triple bypass surgery) still hold the national government accountable with some of the finest journalism being done in the country.

The time I spent covering Parliament Hill with these gifted reporters and editors will always be the high point of my checkered career as a gypsy journalist.

Later, I spent an all-too-brief hour or so with Alice and her beau Eric, who’s related to the makers of Beau’s all-natural beers, a tasty and fast-growing craft brew that is quickly becoming a favourite across Canada and the northeastern U.S. I hope it’s available soon in Alberta.

Summer’s a busy travel season and a lot of the folks I wanted to see weren’t available, but I couldn’t leave town without saying a quick hello to the mother of my friend Frank. She’s a lovely, down-to-earth Italian lady who never fails to make me feel at home. I’ve always enjoyed our visits in the 30-plus years I’ve known her son. Maybe it’s because she reminds me so much of my own mom.

My first stop to stretch my legs was at a belvedere or scenic lookout taking in the pastoral views of the river, where a couple from Montreal on a Goldwing were enjoying their lunch. We had a great conversation en français, where I learned that the translation of “I ride” is “je roule” – literally, “I roll.” I like that.

In brilliant sunshine, I rolled on through the riverside farmland stopping in the rustic beauty of Montebello amid a crush of motards, as bikers are known in Quebec. As I enjoyed un gros Mol, a quart of Molson Export Ale, in the blazing sunshine on la terrasse, a wedding procession of more than 100 motorcycles -- including both brides -- honked their way happily through the village. What a brilliant way to start married life!

Then it was on into Montreal and my hotel on Rene Levesque Blvd., named for the feisty little Radio-Canada journalist who led the province’s first separatist government.

I get the fact that Quebecers, especially the francophones, were tired of being treated as second-class citizens in their own country. But I doubt the French language and culture would be as vibrant and thriving as it undoubtedly is today as a petite nation francophone of 6 million in a sea of nearly 400 million anglophones.

Then again, it’s probable it wouldn’t be as strong a language and culture had it not been for Levesque and the Parti Quebecois putting the fear of God into the anglo establishment for the past 40 years.

I walked through Chinatown and into Old Montreal where the cobblestone streets were jam packed with Montrealers and tourists from around the world, filling every restaurant, brasserie and shop on a hot Saturday night. Buskers and street performers competed with them all for attention and dollars and it was lucky even got a seat at the bar of a great wine bar for some chilled Chardonnay and some amazing saucisses de Toulouse. Delicious!

Sunday found me doing my laundry; there are lots of buandries – laundromats to you and me -- catering to urban Montrealers whose apartments are too small to house a washer and dryer. I ate an amazing sandwich western for breakfast at l’Oufrier as I waited for my clothes to dry. I’ve never had better and I’ve been eating them all my life.

With the World Cup final just hours away, I made my way to Gallerie BBAM!, a funky art gallery-music shop-cafe, owned by Ralph, a fellow Sheridan College alum, who became a punk music publisher-impresario. He’s still one of the coolest cats I’ve ever met and it was an absolute pleasure to spend some time with him and his wife Allison and their big black cat Monsieur Magique as they prepared to host an afternoon of live folk music in their eclectic space.

I got back to the old city just in time to catch kickoff between the Albicelestes of Argentina and die Mannschaft, the heavily favoured German side. It took almost the entire 90-minute match plus 30 minutes of overtime before Germany prevailed in front of a wildly cheering audience of mostly German fans at Pub St. Paul, which was literally packed to the rafters for the event!

Outside, it was bucketing down and I was as wet as I’ve been on this trip. By the time I sloshed back into my hotel, even my riding jacket was soaked and my sneakers are still damp two days later!

My next stop is Trois Rivieres and Cap-de-la-Madeleine. Hopefully by then, my French will have returned enough that I won’t be composing sentences in my head before I try to speak them.

In the meantime, please consider a donation to my Ride for Sight page. I’m getting close to the final third of this journey and I had hoped to raise a bit more than the current total of $1,950, although that's pretty good. It doesn’t take long to make a donation and the research you’ll help fund could mean a better life for someone threatened by the diseases of the eye that lead to blindness. Thanks.