Montreal drives me insane!

I was born and raised in Montreal. It was a great city to grow up in. It is an exciting cosmopolitain city of people and restaurants. You can hang out at the corner of Peel and St. Catherine--the center of the universe-- and you will undoubtedly meet someone you know within 15 minutes. But I absolutely just hate going back to Montreal. St. John's Blvd. is a virtual parking lot with 100 unsynchronized traffic lights every 100 feet. All the major roads and bridges are chronically under repair; parking is a nightmare; on Ste. Catherine there are rivulets of piss in different phases of freshness and length and multi-coloured vomit splashes are artistically sprinkled on the sidewalks; pornographic ads and garbage are everywhere on the street swirling in dynamic vortexes--and this is on Good Friday.

My parents are still there, my friends still live there and I do not know how they live in this city with all its infrastructure faults and social ills. I came back home from a brief visit with my parents, a meeting with Gordon Sheppard and the Cabaret Vehicule poetry reading and a quick 2am pizza with a close friend. On my way home from the downtown core I took the 720 leading to Decarie hoping to take the TCH 40 West to Ottawa... there were no signs. I got on to Decarie...no traffic. Good. I get to the appropriate exit to hit 40 west.... bloody Trans Canada Highway was closed! The whole highway was bloody closed! What the hell?! Montreal is like a bloody black hole. You can easily get there but try to leave...