My name is Bob Rutledge, and I just moved to Montreal, Quebec from Pasadena, California. The two places could possibly be more different, if Pasadena were in Germany. But it's not; even so, the two are quite different enough.

I'm looking for an apartment this week. It seems Montrealners (which I'll use until I actually find out what they call themselves) all change apartments on July 1, due to an old law (repealed a few years ago) that the COULD NOT CHANGE ON ANY OTHER DATE. You gotta love socialism. Anyway, it seems that I'm the only one on the market this month, and so all the open apartment people have been calling me to say "We're dropping the price over what we discussed yesterday." Never had that happen in Pasadena. I've gone through a list of 52 apartments, called 30 of them, and seen about 15. Today, I have 2 more, and I think these will be my last two. I've already found a place which suits all my apartment needs, except it is not within 5 min of the metro, and does not have a great shopping street just around the corner. Its address is: 385 Avenue du Mont Royal . My second option is at 221 De La Commune , which is much much nicer, but far less practical, as there's no parking attached (so I do without a car?). It's in the cobblestoned part of Old Montreal, surrounded by the landmark buildings of the city. It would be harder to get to work than from the Mont Royal site, but it's right on the port.

Decisions, decisions.

- posted by Unknown @ 12/04/2003 11:25:00 AM