In Montreal is Monday every day. It is a melancholic city that hides its beauty under coats and umbrellas, a piece of Europe transplanted in the New World that, as a long-time expat, doesn't remember anymore to where it belongs - and perhaps this is why in Montreal every day looks like the day after Christmas.
But then it's the hidden beauty, the secret passions, the understated sensuality. Then it's finding by chance (if anything ever happens by chance) what it was possibly the most extensive and impressive exhibition of contemporary Cuban art ever seen outside the island, 400 amazing pieces from the end of the XIX century to today at the Fine Art Museum - my Cuban mates Giorgio and Deny would have been very proud of it (see www.mmfa.qc.ca/micro_sites/cuba/expo_en.html).
Of that exhibition they don't allow to take pictures but they allow to take pictures of a small permanent exhibition they have on African Art. There was this one piece that says something that we all understand because we all had or have at least once in our life a moment when we felt like this:
Things in Montreal that made me temporarily forget about that nail in my chest:
the lounge of the W Hotel
this duck that was looking at me while having lunch at Le Marché de la Villette in Old Montreal (simple, great atmosphere, great people, great food, inexpensive, what else do you want?)
the road, the rain and the secrets of the night. And also a beautiful, very pleasant dinner but of that there are no images.
But you know, Montreal is Montreal, a city of Mondays. So when you start to be too happy it attacks you from inside, planting excruciating, existentialist questions in your brain:
(Are you sure you chose the right bank?). And it was with that question in my mind that I jumped on the next plane.
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