So, remember how I was telling you about the snow in Montreal? And I said that the cars on the side of the road were going to be buried? I thought I would show you what I mean. This was Thursday, looking down our street:

This was during the day, and there were No Parking signs (as they were going to clear the snow) so there's no cars parked, really, but you can see how it piled up.

The thing is, that because the population is so dense, most people don't have a driveway. Or the driveway belongs to their downstairs / upstairs neighbour, or they live in an appartment building. So when it snows, and people are parked on either side of the road, and the snowplows come and plow snow over their cars, and there is a foot or more of snow around their car, then you have really thin lanes for traffic to actually drive through.

On the main streets it is even crazier, because delivery trucks are stop in the middle of the street to deliver things, and people are trying to get in and out of parking spaces that have a foot or more of packed snow covering them and people are digging their cars out and shovelling the snow onto the road and busses are driving by and the roads are a little slippery where its been plowed. We even saw someone gently bump into the person in front of him, but because it just hit his bumper the guy didn't even stop.

This is Sherbrooke street, the main street by our house. In the background that is Dave helping someone get out of their parking spot.

Then there is the snow harvesting (no photo of this, sorry). Basically, the snow just needs to be cleared away as quickly as possible, so what they do is post no parking signs on the streets they are going to clear the next day. Eveyone who does not move gets their car towed. Then they bring along a giant grater which heaps the snow in piles. Then a huge snow blower collects up the piles and blows them out a chute into giant dump trucks. I think its funny because it looks almost exactly like harvest time in Saskatchewan with the giant blowers and the big trucks.
In any case, today about half the streets are already cleared and the rest will probably be clear by Monday. It is above 0 celcius today, so the snow is melting in any case. As long as it doesn't all freeze icy (which is actually easily solved with a day of salt and sunshine), everything will be back to normal by next week.