Like Montreal, Like Brussels

Joe Ollmann, a Doug Wright Award-winning cartoonist, plays himself live and in his cheekily sketched world to expose the fish-out-of-water comedic anxieties of an Anglophone struggling to make himself understood in Francophone Montreal's Mile End neighbourhood.

On occasion I'll come across an article, a blog, or, in this case, an animation short that takes a decidedly humorous, albeit sardonic look at how visitors fit in, or don't fit in, in their new city.  Several years ago the Regional Vice President of a consulting firm I used to work for offered me a transfer from our Chicago to our Brussels office.  But after much consideration I declined it, and one reason was the challenge I anticipated in adapting to a French culture.  My family and I would've had a hell of time fitting in.