Au revoir, Quebec! It was great getting to know you first-hand!

We had such a great time! Our last day started quite early, and we pre-packed our stuff as we would have to leave our luggage in the luggage room after 12, and we didn't have to leave for the airport until four. Here is one of my favourite photos from our trip - Morgan checking out the St. Lawrence one last time before we leave the room at the Chateau Frontenac:

One of Morgan's projects was to create a funny photo of his dog to send around the world. Here, he is with the Chateau dog Santol (like the aquarium dog, Santol was a guide dog but now gets to visit all the neat people in the Chateau lobby). He's holding the two puppies side by side:

He gave one card to a concierge at the hotel, and she promised she would give it to another traveller. The idea is that they take the photo card of Shadow (instructions are on the back) and take a photo of themselves with Shadow's card in their hometown, then email the photo to Shadow's email address, and give the photo card of Shadow to another traveller. We'll see how far he gets! Morgan gave another card to a family from Maine who were quite excited about the project and promised they would take it to Atlanta with them in a couple of weeks to give it a jump start. Only time will tell if Shadow goes anywhere! Farewell to Santol, such a sweet puppy:

Morgan than went in the elevator on his own to the 17th floor to mail his postcards to his grandparents. The hotel still uses an old mail chute - I stood at the bottom and took video so he could see his postcards falling into the big bin lol. The postcards and the elevator from the 17th floor arrived at pretty much the same time....hmmm....

From the hotel we walked to Ashton for our last poutine of the trip. It was tasty, of course! Along the way, I stopped at this soap store and dropped off some samples for the owner - I told her I could do the labels in French if she was interested in importing them for her shop. So we will see. 

We also stopped in a couple of other gift shops, and the second medieval themed store, but didn't really see anything we wanted to buy. There was lots of beautiful art, glasswork, and jewellry, but I was very restrained. Morgan bought his souvenirs mostly at la Citadelle - go figure!

At two, we had  a tour booked for the ice hotel. Wow! What an amazing piece of work! Here is the main entrance (there are about ten chambers this size all in a row - built with blocks of ice, then insulated with a thick layer of snow):

Each room had a different theme - this was a tree of life theme or something similar. The beds are made of ice, but have regular mattresses and furs on top:

Some had fireplaces!

Us on an ice bench:

One chamber was even  beautifully carved church, with ice pews (too bad you can't see the front in this photo):

And no ice hotel would be complete without a Sword of Damocles light fixture:

The hotel itself is truly impressive but Morgan and I were quite disappointed that there were so many people there touring through it. It's become a major tourist attraction and we both felt that while beautiful, our experience wasn't as nice because there were raging hordes everywhere - tour groups, school groups (from preschool right through high school), there were people everywhere. In fact it was way more crowded than Carnavale, but I guess Carnavale doesn't squish you into small rooms :) We didn't even bother to take the tour we paid for - we wandered through and saw everything on our own, and then sat and waited for our tour bus to come back.

We then retrieved our luggage and shoved it all in a taxi to the airport. After our first and only rude encounter with someone who was mad that we didn't speak fluent French (Tim Horton's staff at the airport hint hint), we boarded our slightly delayed flight out of Quebec City. We easily made our connection in Toronto. Morgan has quite the aptitude for directions and was finding our way for us around Quebec City by the time we left, and I let him find our way from the tarmac in Toronto to the gate, which he did no problem, even though we had to walk for EVER. We boarded and had a pretty quiet trip home - watched a movie on the plane and otherwise tried to nap, unsuccessfully. I was surprised that Morgan went so long without sleeping, but he was so pumped to be going home to Dad. Kim met us at the airport; so great to be home!

This morning I unpacked my mug. I have a lot of mugs from the places that I've been (I don't have one from St. John's and it bothers me!). This ended up the only thing we brought home that actually had the word "Quebec" on it. In it, is the first cup of good tea I've had since I left. It's really hard to make tea in coffee makers - even the clean ones lend a certain horrible taste to the tea. The hotels had tea available in the rooms, but no way to make it without the coffee aftertaste, ew. Even Morgan thought it was gross smelling.

Here is what I would change if I were packing again for a similar journey:

• We didn't actually use our ski pants once. But if we hadn't brought them, we would have needed them.
• All my black pants have white salt stains about a foot up the legs. I think I need taller boots. 
• I could have brought half as many shirts, and three times as many socks (or, waterproof boots for me). 
• Ten year old boys don't require a choice of shirts, they just need A shirt; alternates aren't required and won't be used if they are brought anyways. 
• Wearing your winter gear (ie long underwear, boots, heavy jackets) on the plane home is HORRIBLE, especially if you've been using that gear all day already. I thought my feet might actually rot after being wet from 10 a.m. til 1 a.m.. We could not possibly have been sweatier and stinkier than when we got off that flight. Next time, re-think the packing so we can change shoes and outer gear before heading to the airport.

Here is the biggest thing I would change about the journey as an educational tour, but I knew this before we went:

• Bring more people. 

More kids means the fun level for those kids is multiplied. I hope that the next journey Morgan and I take is one that includes you! Plus, when families travel together, they save money on accommodations, they can share suites and use kitchenettes, they can save on tours and activities by accessing group rates, and there are that many more people for those kids to learn from. 

What I wouldn't change:

• Everything else :) I'm so glad we went. There is no better way to understand your country than to travel it personally. No better way at all. Quebec City was beautiful, friendly, and a lot of fun; and that's entirely beside the historical significance. 

Carol-Lynne

La Citadelle

It was supposed to be a lovely day today....and it started out beautifully! It was so nice to wake up to sunshine, as we haven't seen the sun since the day we arrived! This is what we woke to:

So we decided that it was such a nice day, and such a quick walk to la Citadelle, that who needs boots, ski pants, etc? We were taking a tour at the museum! Sadly, once again, we underestimated Quebec. It was fine to walk to the Citadelle street...but then it was another twenty minute walk to find the freaking guard gate, into the teeth of the wind off the river, the sudden snow, and the suddenly grey skies. We finally had to ask a friendly soldier for directions, I'm sure they are used to it. Poor Morgan was freezing, and then when we got there, we were told the majority of the tour was outside. Even I was cold, and I don't usually get cold, and spent most of my time blocking the wind for Morgan. He had gloves, toque and scarf, but this was the one and only day that I would have had us wear the ski pants we brought halfway across the continent. Happily, the guide managed to have us walk outside a bit, then spend time in the warmer parts for a bit, so no one froze anything too terribly important. It's been the coldest day of our trip, and the windiest. We gave up on the rotating restaurant and the observatory - too cloudy! 

The Citadelle itself is very neat, at least what we managed to discern throught the wind and snow. This is an original powder house, which held thousands of barrels of gunpowder. It's one of the few original French buildings here - I believe the Citadelle itself was built by the English to protect the St. Lawrence and Quebec from the Americans after the War of 1812, and that fort incorporated some of the buildings from the 18th century, such as this one. Now it's a museum building.

Duelling pistols!

This was neat. This gun is named Rosalie, and belonged to a member of the Royal 22e Régiment in WWI. He would carve the name of each battle he took part in, and also carved the name "Rosalie" into the stock. Morgan and I identified Vimy, Passchendaele, Arras, Courcelette, etc. When he returned to Canada, he had to pay the damages on the gun he'd so carefully carved. He lost track of Rosalie after that, and finally saw her again in a museum - more than 30 years later! Quite the story.

This won't stay rotated no matter what I do, but it's cool. It's Canada's first observatory. Also, the ball on the right was raised and dropped once a day so the ships on the river would know the correct time for the tides - once a day lol.

Another of the original buildings that was incorporated into the Citadelle - with musket slits facing into the fort in case the fort is overrun.

Looking out a musket slit from the inside. Shooting blind, as far as I can tell!

Vimy Ridge.

After the tour we hustled back to the hotel and finally met Santol, the dog at the Chateau. Once again, like the Aquarium dog Cascade, this is a companion dog who could no longer do the work, but loves to be around people.

More exploring and we found lots of cannons!!

After our tour of the Citadelle and the exploring, we took the ferry to Lévis across the river. It took about half an hour round trip, it's about a kilometre across at this point - right under the hotel. This is the view looking back at Quebec City. The Chateau is on the right, the Citadelle to the middle, then the Plains of Abraham to the right of the Citadelle - that's where Carnavale is as well.

What was really neat about the ferry ride is that the ferries act like mini ice-breakers. In fact, this channel is kept open in the winter by ice breakers as it would freeze solid otherwise. Here is a video showing how the ice reacts when the ferry goes through it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOe0pfg5Dz8

And here is a video showing the ice moving past the boat on the current. The boat is tied up and not moving, but it sure feels like it is!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbJMZzQ4j_o

Our visit here is coming to an end and this will be the last update from Quebec City, but we will for sure update tomorrow evening or Saturday once we are settled back at home. I have a lot of things I'd do differently, and have a lot of things I'm really pleased with, that I would like to share with you. The one thing I can say right now that I am happy about is that Morgan seems to have a pretty good grasp of the significance of this area and its history, and has had a good introduction to its culture, and this was the whole point of this journey. He was surprised to discover two of his history books for sale at la Citadelle - maybe it made it a little more "cool" than it was before :)

Good night from Quebec,

Carol-Lynne

Guns Guns and What I Said Before

Herro. Today we did a tour of the Citadelle that has museums with guns guns and more guns below. And we did a ferry across the St. Lawrence. The Citadelle had museums that used to be gunpowder stores that held 2188 kegs of gunpowder!And it was cold on the ferry ride. 

a gun!

another gun!

more guns!

another gun.

more guns.

another guns rack

what I said before.

Tonight is our last night at Quebec and I want to go home!!!!!!!!!!!! I've had fun but am ready to be home.

Morgan

Yes it's True, I Scream Like a Little Girl

We are starting to feel the end of our journey approaching here, so of course I'm starting to panic about all the things we haven't done yet. It's what I do best. I know we won't be able to see everything we'd like to, but today we got to the Quebec Aquarium and had a great time. What we didn't realize is that the mammals are all OUTSIDE while the fish are inside. We decided that since we were taking a taxi to the aquarium and back again, we really didn't need toques and scarves (aren't we clever to think ahead?) Thankfully I had stashed some mitts in my purse so at least we had that. The Aquarium is a pretty neat facility, not as big as some I've been in, but still new information and new experiences and you can't beat that. They are also building an entirely new building as expansion, it's bigger than the existing building to our eyes so I'm curious to see what this Aquarium will look like in two years.

They have two polar bears who were pretty lazy, but it was neat to see them lift their snouts and sniff us as we came to the fence - we were definitely upwind of them and they kept sniffing the air. "Mmm, lunch! Ennh, let's have a nap instead." These two are rescued animals and have quite a large enclosure which they obviously make use of - just not when we were watching. The walruses were awesome!

Inside, the Aquarium is unusual in that it has pretty much equal displays of freshwater and saltwater. From what I can tell, the St. Lawrence around Quebec City starts to be both brackish and freshwater, and they find both saltwater and freshwater fish here. We were also surprised to note tonight that the ice is flowing in the opposite direction, and I remember a guide saying there are regular daily tides here, but I didn't really get it until I saw the river going the opposite direction.
Here, Morgan is face to face with a cod. We talked about the Grand Banks and the cod fisheries there, and connected it with an old map we had seen at the Musée de la Civilisation that showed huge shoals of fish off Newfoundland. Since Morgan loves to watch River Monsters, he's pretty quickly made the connection between overfishing fish like cod, and hey, maybe we should just use the same tactics for the snakehead. Apparently it's good eating too.

My Dad used to tell my brother stories about the Muskellunge. They are creepy! A freshwater fish.

Here the display shows the length of the largest Northern Pike (on the left) with the Muskellunge (on the right). See that image of the fish and the man? Yes, apparently, Pike get ALMOST as long as a six foot man, and muskies do! Aaaahh!

There are thirteen species of whales (including the blue whale) and seven species of sharks (including occasional Great Whites and many blues) found in the St. Lawrence. Here is a scale model of a diver in the front with all the different species of whales that have been seen in the river. The diver is the complicated looking figure between the humpback and the blue:

After the Aquarium, we went exploring in Quartier Petit-Champlain. The area is decorated for winter, and is magical. These are all shops with apartments above.

We stopped at Le Cochon Dingue for supper. When Morgan ordered pasta, plain, no sauce, just salt pepper and parmesan, our server was quite shocked. She insisted on bringing him the sauce and vegetables on the side, and laughed when I said they were simply going to be decoration. But she felt better! He ate the entire plate of spaghetti, half of my fries, and then devoured this double chocolate cake (he has up to this point preferred vanilla but by the look on his face he might have a change of heart):

We then made our way back to Carnavale to work off the sugar high that resulted from Morgan eating all but two bites of that cake. Morgan is getting to be so good at finding his way around - he told me I could call him my "organic guide to Quebec City". I think he'd be able to find his way somewhere safe if he needed to here. He's still reticent to speak to anyone but even that is improving. He said tonight that he wants to go home, because he misses Dad, the pets, etc, but he's sad to leave on Friday "because Quebec is so freakin' cool!".

We went up a "Nocturne Alley" as Morgan calls them, up the funiculaire to the upper city (you can see the top of the Chateau at the very top of the photo). Then we walked past the Citadelle to the Carnavale grounds.

We found the beautiful ice sculptures! This is a carousel - really amazing, and surrounded by tons of other beautiful ice sculptures as well.

And here is Morgan going down the snow rafting lane ALL BY HIMSELF in this giant raft. If you watch closely, on the second and third bumps he just about gets tossed out. He thought it was awesome. I only went once, screamed all the way, then sent him back up on his own ha ha! You can witness the screaming on his posting tonight.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NCTfWvwjKs

Here is the view from my room tonight:

Tomorrow, we have an ambitious day. We are heading for a tour of the Citadelle (less than an hour), then to the Observatoire to see the city from up high on what will be our only clear day since the day we arrived, then to the Ice Hotel, a swim, and maybe Carnavale. Friday is our last day, and since we don't leave for the airport until 3:30 we do have some time to catch up on those things we didn't get a chance to so far - maybe a sleigh ride in the park, or the ferry to Lévis just for the journey across the river. We'll see! Morgan is just starting to settle in and really enjoy his time here, and it's time to go home - but we will get in as much as possible!

Carol-Lynne

Mom Screams Like a Little Girl Mixed with a Chicken

Hello. Today, we did a lot. What we did today is we went rafting and we did some tubing and the aquarium, and we went out to The Crazy Pig,  it is a restaurant. Rafting was so funny, because Mom screams like a little girl mixed with a chicken.

seal!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

walrus!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! it was weird he looked me in the eye.

polar bears!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

puppy.She was trained as a guide dog but got sick so she became the puppy of the aquarium.

octapuss!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

we'll put in a link to youtube for private video of Mom and me going down the snow rafting where Mom screams like a little girl. Ha ha!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlgwHmg-fPU

Morgan

A Day of Congruence

Today seemed to be one of fortuitousness. When we got up, we packed our stuff as we moved hotels to the Chateau Frontenac today. The Hotel Manoir Victoria was awesome, no doubt, we had just planned to experience a couple of places and today was the day to move! We thought we’d take a walk through the old city again looking for some play daggers for Morgan (can a ten year old boy have too many?). We were surprised that there is no where that sells little plastic dagger or axes or anything. Especially given the history of this area, we were indeed surprised. While we were passing by, we stopped to ask what time check in was at the Chateau and the lovely lady at the front desk, checked us in four hours early with a free upgrade to a river view room. Yay! The room has a great view:

Now officially checked into two hotels, we continued down the funiculaire to more souvenir shops. One woman did send us back down to past our original hotel to a medieval shop, so, we went up the funiculaire, and hiked our way downhill again. Wow – I only wish I was able to take photos, but they wouldn’t let me. What a fabulous place. It makes medieval inspired clothing but appropriate for modern wear, along with of course swords, axes, muskets, armour, jewellery, and in general really cool stuff. The woman we spoke with does LARP and also D&D and was very interesting to speak with. Morgan was enthralled. He bought a dagger that is made in Quebec using a formulation similar to the Nerf swords, but handpainted/coloured and with flexible handles. He’s been flipping it around in his hands ever since.

Then we picked up our bags at the old hotel and checked out. When the bellman heard we were going to the Chateau, he asked us with a grin to tell Sandra at the front desk of the Chateau that supper would be ready when she got home J  We grabbed a taxi, and for seven dollars the taxi hauled us and our stuff up the hills to the Chateau, and since we were already checked in, we just waltzed up and dumped our stuff. I never did see Sandra, but I assume she got supper.

Having eaten nothing and it now being after 1:30, and having been up and down the hills of Old Quebec on foot about four times, we were recommended a hotel that was a fair hike from the Chateau. We started off. It was cold, snowy, windy, slushy, and generally unpleasant, but as we went along, we kept getting distracted. First we found the ice palace for Carnavale; it wasn’t what we expected. Basically, it was a twenty second tour through it with some displays set up, but you couldn’t really get in it, or anything at all. There is a stage out front so I expect it’s a backdrop to late night concerts etc. It’s too bad, as we got excited to get inside of it when we saw it, but....disappointment. It happens! Here is what it looked like in part:

After the ice palace we discovered we were back at the main site for Carnavale. Reluctant to walk still farther to the restaurant, we simply ate at the Metro at the main site. Morgan had pizza and I had tourtiere – very tasty! We went tubing...yes I went myself and had a blast...Morgan explored some games in the kids area, and he took a chance on this giant ice slide. He only went down once because you have to haul the sled uphill the entire length of it – these photos show the top and the middle, but not yet the bottom! He said it was very bumpy and no matter what he did to try to steer or slow it down, it just kept going faster, and he only hoped it wouldn’t crash.

Believe it or not, today was only our second chance to partake in the fun of Carnavale. We were only there for about an hour, but will go again maybe tomorrow evening.

Oh yeah, then Morgan vented all his week long "I have to spend too much time with my Mom" frustration on me while we battled here:

On our way back to the hotel, we of course had to pass through the fortifications. We spied this little walking tunnel, and right after I snapped this photo, Morgan fell on his butt and slid about four or five feet into it. Happily he went first, or it would have been me unaware of the ice buildup!

Back at the hotel, we treated ourselves to room service – Morgan was pretty excited. Except he didn’t like his pizza, though it looked great. I enjoyed the nachos; it was weird to be served nachos and pizza on a cart with linen ha ha! Then we went for a swim at the pool, which is very nice.

So today was less a history lesson and more a relaxing and physical exertion day. Those poor ten year old prairie legs don’t know what hit them.

Until tomorrow,

Carol-Lynne