Montreal.

My biggest impression from being in Montreal for a conference -

It was very jarring to hear French everywhere, and see an integrated society. It made me realize that I associate foreign languages with people being racist assholes and English with progressivism on integration, but that doesn't have to be the case... It's funny to think that Europe could be like that someday, with all these rinky-dink languages being used in multicultural societies.

My other big impression was that I had two of my bags opened up in the airport. One was because I had my (empty) thermos in it, but they swabbed the outside to make sure there wasn't traces of explosives or drugs in there, and then the other one because I had 4 coffee cans in it...

Actually, I also had 2 big plastic bags of really good paprika that I had gotten at a Hungarian deli, and I was wondering if it scanned as cocaine when it went through the x-ray machine, but no, it was the coffee can. The younger (Quebecois) dude who stopped me looked a little confused when I pulled out all those coffee cans from my luggage and he had to swab them, so I was like, "I collect coffee cans, and I found many new coffee cans on this trip."

"Oh," he was like, looking a little confused.

Then, looking at all of the cans I had unpacked, he was like, "Where is your can of Tim Hortons?", and I explained that I had gotten one of those at a Tim Hortons in the Detroit area last year, since the chain is expanding into America.

"The can is bilingual," I said, "although I bought it in the United States. One side says 'always fresh', and the other says 'toujours frais', and there is pictures of people skating on it. It is a Christmas can."

"Yes," he was like, "Tim Hortons produces seasonal cans."