Hachi’s blog

I went to Montreal in 2004 and I thought it was an wonderful place.

First, I was fascinated with the snow all around, because I had never seen that before. I lived in São Paulo during all my life, so I really didn’t know what I could see there.

Montreal, in 2004, was classified as the 9th city most liveable in the world (Melbourne being the first). The criterias were: climate, housing, crime rate, transport, education, focus on the environement, culture and events, diversity, connections with the rest of the world, health services and recreational activities.

I think that one of the reasons that made Canada be placed in this position is the fact that Montreal is an extremely cold city during winters. And normally that’s a negative point.

I remember that, one day, the temperature was -41ºC! But it was a new expreience for me so I was fond of it.

Even though, I think Montreal has two important positive points. The first one, is about transport. Here in São Paulo, buses may take more than 30 minutes to arrive while in Montreal, they take only 5 minutes.

The other point is about education. Actually, in Montreal, there are 248 000 students enrolled in post-secundary education, which is one of the highest numbers in the world. What is also nice, is that there are two “types” of schools: for those whose first language is French, and for those who first language is English. But at the end, people learn two languages, which is wonderful!