hi welcome to rosemont this is montreal
all right so since moving to montreal i've made a lot of videos showing off neighborhoods
like downtown old montreal le plateau you know the neighborhoods that a lot of tourists go to
they're neighborhoods that are beautiful and historic and have a lot going on
but they're not you know they're not the places that most montrealers live
so today i thought i'd take you to one of them that i particularly really enjoy walking through
and it's an area called rosemont it's just to the east of plateau
in fact to get there you actually got to pass by these huge train tracks
and you know you can go under the train tracks by taking this walking path a lot of times i
just cut through this little hole in the fence that kind of takes you through the train tracks
conveniently cut fences that happen to lead to the other side of the train tracks that is definitely
not legal so if you choose to follow my advice on that one look both ways they are active train
tracks don't get hit by train and then try to sue that random youtuber who told you about the
train track thing i take no responsibility for that um yeah no suing okay please be cool anyway
i'm here in rosemont it's a beautiful spring day one of the first real days of spring i would say
and because of that i mean montrealers are doing what they do best they're sitting in the park
they're barbecuing they're having some beers some people playing basketball
anyway i'm going to take you on a walk through old rose mall it's got a beautiful main street
and i think it's going to be fun let's go
yeah cafe and yoga you know a neighborhood i started gentrifying when you see the cafe
and yogas pop up no offense to that place but you know it's true it's a nice patio space behind me
i'm not sure if it's part of this cafe or if it's just a public space but
yeah it looks like it's just a public space
18 different poutines long live quebec
speaking of quebec this is a very french part of the city rosemont generally the further east you
go the more friendship becomes and you know you can learn a lot about a neighborhood or a city
just by reading some of the signs that they have on telephone poles and stuff like that
and i've seen two interesting signs in the brief period of time i've been in rosemont
the first one was advertising a a manifestation a protest for free quebec and that could mean a
couple things it could mean literally a separatist movement who wants quebec to be a different
country or it could be just people who want to keep quebec's culture and keep in particular keep
the french culture and french language as number one above english and this is a hot topic in
montreal these days i have come to understand the quebecois situation a lot more after moving here
and that's a big topic that's too much to get into right now but um suffice to say
that it's a hot topic as you can probably see i mean even the sign was torn in the corners
so maybe someone who doesn't like those signs decided to try and tear it off but that's kind of
a visual representation of what's happening right now in montreal a city that is struggling with its
cultural identity in a sense i mean i think it's beautiful that the city can function with both
english and french but the problem is when people who grew up speaking french find that they're no
longer able to get the same jobs that they used to because there's a lot of english speakers
youtuber anglophone on rosemont
so to all my french speaking quebecois i love you guys
i mean no disrespect i'm just not good enough to vlog in french yet maybe one day
oh yeah and the second sign i almost forgot the second sign was a notice uh informing
people that if your landlord tries to raise the rent you don't need to accept you can fight that
that connects to the other thing i was talking about the gentrification which is going on not
just in rosemont but in a lot of neighborhoods in montreal right now so like i said between
the gentrification issue and the language divide montreal is very much a city that is it's always
been a multicultural and a welcoming place but i think it's struggling in terms of uh
how to preserve the spirit of montreal and how to keep it the affordable city that it has been
for a lot of people it's far from the only city going through these struggles these days but
it's something i think is important to point out as i walk through the beautiful neighborhood
of rosemont there's some construction cones just in case you forgot we were in montreal
and that's actually a beautiful church behind me but uh
i don't know it's wearing its raincoat today so you can't see much
yeah neighborhood fruit shops neighborhood bakeries this is the montreal i know there's
a sense of community here when you talk about what needs to be preserved i think you know sometimes
i think sometimes people from outside of quebec think like oh why why do quebecers
like care so much about uh preserving their culture but i think it's more than just
the language i think there's a certain like dra de vivre as they say in french a joy of life
a way of living here that's a bit different than other parts of canada and
and so it's not just the language i mean of course the language is important but
i think what people in neighborhoods like rosemont are really fighting to preserve is the way
of life the feeling on the streets the little businesses that you can walk to from your home
this is a city that loves bicycles they love electric vehicles they love
farmers markets and locally grown produce
making friends everywhere i go
there's the joie de vivre i was talking about right there
you want to wave and say hello or something hi hi welcome to rosemont this is montreal thank you
that's good enjoy the beautiful way thank you bye so that was uh i believe her name was angie sorry
angie if i got your name wrong and her mother's name was veronica and yeah so angie and veronica
saw me filming and they were waving from the tim horton's window and then when they came out again
they were like hey what are you doing what are you filming so i explained i was doing youtube
and i asked if they were from rosemont i should have filmed the whole thing but basically they
said they're from rosemont and yeah they were saying it's the type of place where you walk
down the street and people wave people know your name you know so there is that community feel um
so yeah that makes me happy that uh some locals have seconded what i was saying because
i thought i thought i sensed the community feel to this place but
when you get some locals saying it definitely definitely add some street cred
oh my god that's so good okay so i know i just spent the whole video talking about how
rosemont is all about local neighborhoods and
yeah i should probably be supporting a local business but you gotta admit on a really hot day
there's nothing quite like an ice cap it just hits the spot so good
so what exactly is the real montreal what's the montreal that the tourists don't see
is it here in rosemont is it a real thing
or is it just something that youtubers like me use for click bait to get you to watch the video
that's for you to decide but if it does exist i think it has something to do with that sense of
community and that pace of life that you find in neighborhoods like rosemont that to me is what the
montreal experience is all about and i hope i've given you a little taste of it in today's video
speaking of a little taste i think my taste of this ice cap is almost done so it's time to wrap
up today's video i'm gonna leave you with a few more shots of the city as the sun begins to set
and uh yeah let me know if you like videos like this there's definitely more neighborhoods in
montreal i could show off as always i'm dan from the new travel i'll see you next time
you