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Montréal is all about breaking stereotypes. The stereotype about Canadians with nice manners? Montréalers eagerly prove that wrong. Stereotypes that Canadians are courteous drivers? Montréalers will run you straight off the street to put that perception to rest. Now, we don't mean to generalize, but we come from a city of horrible drivers. With as bad as Louisville traffic is, Montréal takes the cake. We stayed in a small apartment (read: basement) in Rue Radisson during our visit. Every apartment in this city looks exactly the same. It was a nice, clean apartment with two twin beds and a kitchen so we were able to cook some food. We spent the night to rest and enjoyed the free wifi this apartment provided to explore the places we wanted to visit. We actually planned to go to the Jardin Botanique de  Montréal until we found out that the ticket was $20.50  CAD   per person. We know, we know, we're cheapskates but Montreal was the 4th destination on our road tri...

Ottawa is within French Canada and as such, most people speak French as their first language. The signs of course are also mostly in French, which is interesting. We stayed in a motel in Gatineau area. It was a very old motel judging by the furniture but at least it serves breakfast for free and when on a budget vacation, we were not really picky about where we  are staying.  On our first night, we had dinner at a bistro not far from the motel. Upon our arrival, the waitress approached us by giving us the menu book and started speaking French. We were advised by some of our Canadian friends to say, "je ne parle pas français" which means I don't speak French as a polite response so they will speak English instead to us.  It actually felt like we were in a city somewhere in France instead of Canada. The next morning we visited Rideau Hall. Since 1867, Rideau Hall was the official residence in Ottawa of both the Canadian monarch and his or her representative, the G...