29 October 2008

Grading the Expansion Candidates VII: Montreal

Poutine: don't knock it 'til you've tried it.
Alright folks, here it is, the final chapter in our Expansion Opus...Montreal! Home of Formula 1 racing, poutine, and a bunch of other cool stuff!

Dining: 5 From cheap eats (poutine) to world class (and pricey as hell) restaurants, Montreal's got it all. Seriously. The food is fantastic.
Entertainment: 5 They have a casino. Allow us to repeat that: they have a casino. It is open 24 hours a day.
Site-Seeing: 3 It's not really a great city for site-seeing...then again, there's so much in the way of eating, drinking, entertainment, and "entertainment" going on that you really wouldn't bother visiting a bunch of world-class museums, even if they did have them.
"Entertainment": 5 Home of the world famous "Canadian Ballet." Remember, the ladies who don't quite make the cut at Cirqe de Soleil still have to make a living...
Drinking: 4 Bonus point for drinking age of 18.
Climate: 4 It can get hot and humid in the summer, and when it does, there isn't much in the way of AC available...however, it's generally more pleasant than the usual suspects (I'm looking at you, Houston, DC, and Frisco, TX).

Final Score: 26 out of 30! Tied with Portland! Of course, since there are two slots available, we don't have to pick a winner...but this is America, and we like winners and hate ties, Doug Logan said so, so we've got to settle this somehow...oh yeah! This is America! So we'll give the win to the American city, Portland, because those silly Poutine-Eating Surrender Monkeys won't care whether they win or lose! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

not a great city for sight seeing?
are you retarded?
Have you ever been there?
Quebec is one of the founding provinces of Canada and Montreal is one ofthe oldest.
Pathetic that youd speak so highly about a casino and then talk poorly about the sightseeing.
This is coming from someone from Toronto btw.

EdTheRed said...

Yeah, I've been there. Multiple times. I actually never made it to the casino - but that's the sort of thing I'd do on a soccer road trip, which isn't exactly a typical family vacation.

By site-seeing, I'm referring to typical tourist destination-type places. What I enjoy about Montreal is walking around the neighborhoods and popping into various restaurants and cafes. That sort of thing is reflected in the Dining, Drinking, and Entertainment scores.

I mean, the biodome is cute and all (who doesn't love penguins?), but it's not exactly the Smithsonian, or the Field Museum, or the Metropolitan Museum of Art. You know, touristy stuff.

I'd give Quebec City a 4 or 5 for site seeing, but lower scores than Montreal for just about everything else (except for climate), because, well, all those fun sites to see result in a boatload of mediocre tourist trap restaurants and bars - I had to walk about two miles out of the old city to get a decent meal that wasn't over-priced. But they're never getting an MLS team, so I guess that's moot.

Finally, please remember that, well, this isn't really a serious website, dude. So just breathe deeply and count to ten. Now exhale.