What Makes Canada Special?

Ever wonder what genuine kindness feels like when it permeates an entire city? After celebrating our 40th wedding anniversary in Montreal, I returned with more than just fond memories—I came back with a profound lesson about how we might all approach life differently.

What struck me most was the noticeable calm and enjoyment of daily life evident in Montreal's residents. Despite facing the same global uncertainties as Americans, they seemed unburdened by the chronic anxiety that characterizes so much of American life today.

The experience has me wondering: What if we all tried living "a little more Canadian" in our approach to community and daily interactions? Could intentionally choosing kindness transform our collective experience?

Listen now to hear the full story, and remember—be safe and be kind.

LINKS TO EPISODES MENTIONED:

www.talesfromsouthflorida.com 

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2192481/episodes/16362536-behind-the-scenes-podcasting-with-dave-campbell

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2260646/episodes/17004229-on-the-road-montreal-canada

https://youtu.be/v7BEB9pMSWw?si=ujKB06mSKl-VFn_4

Chapters

• 0:00 Introducing the Montreal Experience
• 2:10 Apprehensions About Visiting Canada
• 4:14 Encountering Extraordinary Montreal Kindness
• 7:37 Learning to Be More Canadian
• 10:41 Call to Visit Canada
• 11:50 Closing Thoughts and Podcast Reminders

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to Bill Monty's Guide for Gettin' Older. Hello, my friends, welcome. This is your friend, bill Monty, here to talk to you about something that I did recently that I felt would make a good episode. Let me first say how much I appreciate you taking the time hitting that play button to listen to this episode, and if you're new here, I'm so glad you've joined us, really welcome. Let me just say that again, this is a podcast not about getting old, but about getting older. So what is the process and what are the lessons that life teaches us on this incredible journey?

Speaker 1: 0:42

In the last episode, I gave you my five tips for having a long marriage or a long relationship. That came out of my wife and I celebrating our 40th wedding anniversary. Also in that episode, I talked about how to celebrate. We were going to take a trip to Montreal, which we did. As you can tell we're back now. We had a fantastic time. It was a great, great trip, but something happened on that trip that I thought would make for a good episode here. Hopefully I'm right. If you're interested in what we did, the places we stayed, the places we ate, if you want a review of our trip to Montreal, head on over to my other podcast, tales from South Florida. I go into great detail about where we stayed, where we ate, the airlines that we took up, the airline that we took back. I give you a review of most things that we did and if you want even more in depth, then you go over to our YouTube channel, tales from South Florida, and you can see our video of the places we went and also hear some of the reviews. So I hope that you'll hop on over there for Tales from South Florida to get more information about Montreal.

Speaker 1: 1:59

This is not going to be so much about the trip but about one thing that happened on the trip and that was encountering the wonderful people of Montreal. So let me just say first off, we were slightly apprehensive about this trip. Would our Montreal neighbors welcome American visitors? Given the political climate right now, with all the talk about tariffs? It is hurting our friends to the north. Would they welcome us? Now? I have friends. You've heard me talk about this before.

Speaker 1: 2:36

I actually did a podcast episode about five or six episodes ago with a friend of mine, dave Campbell, who is a Canadian podcaster, and I know from my relationship with him and other people from Canada that I know from the podcasting industry how wonderful and kind they really are. But what I didn't know was would this translate to an entire region or city, especially one? So Dave lives in Ontario. We were going to Montreal so we were apprehensive about would they hold it against us that we were American? And also it's a mostly French speaking region of Canada. My French is very, very limited. I didn't know how well we'd be able to do limited. I didn't know how well we'd be able to do. Which leads us to what I want to talk about today.

Speaker 1: 3:30

The people of Montreal were extremely kind and welcoming, and I don't mean like every other one of them. I don't mean like. I don't mean when things were good, they were kind and nice. I don't mean when things were good, they were kind and nice. When I tell you that every person that we encountered, every single one, was so delightful, was so nice.

Speaker 1: 3:58

One of the things that happened quite frequently because we had never been to Montreal before, we were completely unfamiliar with the area. Frequently, because we had never been to Montreal before, we were completely unfamiliar with the area. So we were occasionally occasionally meaning four or five times a day lost. So we had our phones out, we had our GPS on Google Maps trying to find out where we had to go. Even with all of that, we would always end up on a corner looking like the typical perplexed tourist. Most times, someone would approach us and offer to help. Now, living in South Florida, I can tell you, if you're standing on a corner and someone walks up to you and starts asking you questions if they can help you, you put your hand on your wallet. You are a little skeptical of why they're talking to you and you just kind of nod and say no, no, no, we're fine, and you walk away. Not so in Montreal. The people of Montreal were incredibly caring about taking care of us and they most all of them realized we were tourists. So I'm talking about servers and restaurants, I'm talking about the staff at the hotel, but mostly I'm talking about those people who stopped what they were doing on a street to help us.

Speaker 1: 5:19

We were in one place called the underground city. Now, we had heard a lot about the underground city and it's 20 miles of offices and shops and malls and everything underneath the city of Montreal, and it's there for when the winters are really bad so people can go down there and do their business, etc. We wanted to experience it. We were having a lot of difficulty. It wasn't laid out the way we had been told it was going to be laid out and at one point a gentleman came up and even brought the mall security officer with him to help us. I was just blown away.

Speaker 1: 5:58

The point of this is, if you've been listening to me since episode one, you have heard me always close the show with the words be safe and be kind. Because I feel that in my little corner of the world, down here in South Florida or throughout Florida or places I've traveled and that would be places like Boston and New York and Chicago, all of those kinds of places you don't get a lot of warm, fuzzy interactions with people. Most of the time you're on the defensive. It just seems to me that we could take a few moments to sit back and think about how a people that feel the way they must feel, with certain anxiety or even resentment to us in America right now, how they can put all of that aside and just be charming, reach out a helping hand and be kind so that we could be safe. There really wasn't a time in Montreal, even walking at night in certain areas where we didn't feel safe. You always had that feeling that the people around you are looking out for you and it's not like the streets are crowded. This is not like a New York or Times Square where there's so many people around. We oftentimes were on a darkened street by ourselves and yet I always felt that help was just a little ways away and that it would really be as much help as we needed and it would be offered in the spirit of kindness. That's what I wanted to talk about today. I did an episode in the first years about being kind. You can go back and listen to that. It's literally called being Kind and I went in depth about it. So I'm not going to repeat a lot of what I talked about there.

Speaker 1: 7:52

But especially right now, my friends, in these times that we're going through, times of uncertainty economic uncertainty, political uncertainty, employment uncertainty for a lot of people if you are, like me, someone on social security, the anxiety level is so amped up right now because of rumors and stories. And is this happening? Is this not happening? Will it go? There's so much going on. The people of Canada reminded me that there is a way to put that aside, because the other thing I noticed about them these are the most relaxed people I have ever been around. I've been in spas where people weren't this relaxed and it just allowed them. They just seemed to be enjoying the day and their life so much. I was so envious that I had to leave this feeling of community that I felt there.

Speaker 1: 8:55

I think that's something that we can strive for, that we should probably try and get to in our lives. So, whether you're in a big city or a small town, or it's just your neighborhood, or maybe it's just your family, families right now are even feeling everything that we're going through, the stress, etc. Try to be a little more Canadian. You'll be better off for it and right now our Canadian neighbors could use our help. So if you are planning a vacation, I urge you. We are now going into the summer months and spring months of Canada. It's going to be gorgeous up there. So I ask you to consider a trip to Canada for your vacation this year. I can tell you this your dollar goes a long way there. When we were eating or going on an attraction or something and the charge was $23 or $24 Canadian, it actually ended up being about $16 or $17 American. The price for our hotel was something like $851 Canadian, but it was $545, tax included United States dollars. So you can even save some money. So hop on a plane, hop on Porter Airlines I go again to Tales from South Florida to find out why I like it so much Porter Airlines and go visit our friends in Canada and give them a big thank you from Bill Monte, because they really impressed me with their kindness and with the way they live their lives and that they approach life.

Speaker 1: 10:41

At this point, my friends, I want to remind you please, if you have been listening for a while or this is your first episode, please hit that follow or subscribe button. It doesn't cost you anything, it will just alert you when there's a new episode that's being dropped and it does help us to build the show. So I thank you so much for doing that. If you are inclined, you can also comment, like and share the podcast. That also helps grow the podcast and I do. Again I thank you for that. You can leave me a comment by just going down into the show notes. You can actually leave me a 90 second voice message. Just click, you know, leave a message for the host, and again, it doesn't cost you anything. You're just going to have to give me your name and maybe the email address. I think that's all it asks for, but nothing else beyond that. Don't worry, I'm not going to hit you with a bunch of spam. I'm going to put the links to the Tales from South Florida episodes video and audio in the show notes too, so please go down and look at those. And that's about it, my friends, for this episode.

Speaker 1: 11:44

We're back in the old USA. We love it here, we love it home, but it was nice to go and spend some time with our friends in the North. Until we talk again, I remind you please, for your sake and for my sake, because I would miss you if you weren't here. I would really miss you, and I hope that when I'm not here, you're missing me. Please remember to be safe and be kind. If it's warm outside but you're feeling cold, you're not sure what to do. Without a friendly shoulder, you're not alone, so start feeling bolder. Welcome to Bill Monty's Guide for Getting Older.