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but they couldn't understand what I was trying to say.

Oh, they understood you alright. I've found that most young people in Quebec understand English just fine, but it's just not PC to admit it.

That's true in most big cities up there, but I've found that small towns are unusual in two ways: 1) English is less common, and 2) the people try harder to work with you even though they don't understand you.

I stopped once in a convenience store right up the road from St. Jean in the town of La Prairie (Mario Lemieux's hometown). Whenever I traveled up to Montreal I had always stopped in this same store to withdraw some Canadian cash from their ATM, but when I got there this time I found out that they didn't have an ATM anymore. I asked the kid behind the counter about the ATM.

I didn't speak a word of French, and the kid behind the counter never said a word in English, but after 30 seconds of "conversation" I somehow knew that I was supposed to walk across the parking lot to the new bank that had just been built next door. LOL.