A day in the Paris of North America
Business Insider offers us a piece on a typical day in Montreal and yes, it calls us the Paris of North America and mentions croissants.
A writer for Wired experimented with Ray‑Ban’s AI sunglasses to test their translation skills on French in Montreal. No spoilers – the result is revealed in the headline.
CE 09:32 on 2024-06-26 Permalink
I interact with a lot of tourists through my work and a number have mentioned that Europe is too expensive so Montreal (and Quebec City) seemed like a good alternative (and they’re generally not disappointed).
For Americans from car-centric cities like Phoenix or Atlanta or dirty, congested, run down, etc. cities like Philadelphia or Baltimore (and even New York), Montreal does seem pretty European in comparison.
EmilyG 12:06 on 2024-06-26 Permalink
Whenever I think of Ray-Ban sunglasses, I think of how there used to be a large amount of spam ads for them on Facebook.
Blork 12:20 on 2024-06-26 Permalink
I wonder if they’d have any better success trying those glasses in Scotland, or the fishing bays of Newfoundland.
Blork 12:22 on 2024-06-26 Permalink
Oh wait… it translates written text not spoken. So the glasses are the problem I guess…
Kate 13:29 on 2024-06-26 Permalink
The first incident is she nearly walks into a construction zone. I don’t think a pair of translation glasses could help with that kind of obliviousness.
central dogma 13:51 on 2024-06-26 Permalink
Half Paris and half Bronx, you got the mix called Montreal. though this is a coarse analogy only applies to the eyes of tourists.
Kate 18:16 on 2024-06-26 Permalink
Someone, maybe it was on Reddit, said a combination of Barcelona and Manchester. But I’ve visited neither place so I can’t judge.
CE 20:13 on 2024-06-26 Permalink
I’ve always felt that if you took Brooklyn and Queens, mixed them together, switched English for French and Spanish for English, you more or less have Montreal.
Ian 19:09 on 2024-06-27 Permalink
Brooklyn in miniature, but yeah for sure. I even get people from Brooklyn noting it unprompted.