Thursday, July 17, 2008

Quebec City, QC, July 17th

I have left Canada and entered another country, Quebec, and particularly Quebec City. Yea, they might call it a province, but it’s nothing like the rest of Canada. Most of the signs I’ve seen throughout the other provinces and even territories are in English and French, but there’s no English here, all the signs are in French and only French and that’s why so many have told me I have to checkout Quebec City and compare it to Montreal in my travels. And the way I’m looking at the return trip home, it’s gonna be a party to celebrate the accomplishment, you might remember, North America?

Ok, maybe I need to start this story as of midnight last night, today being a new day, but you’ll just have to wait for the book version. It was a late night, or I guess you’d call it an early morning, but I had to get to bed because there’s more riding ahead of me and not only was Jessica having man problems, but April-Dawn as well. I don’t know what it’s been the last couple of days with women telling me their man problems, but it’s definitely not for me to solve it the way I’d like to, so now I’m just a therapist, but if they’d just follow my suggestions they’d forget about them all – right?

Good thing I had the alarm on my phone still set cuz that got me up at 9:00 Fredericton time which is still 2 hours behind central, but I did need to eventually get going. Ok, so this hostel isn’t the greatest of places to stay, but I’ve stayed at worse, that for a bed and shower it wasn’t too bad as well as in walking distance of the only happening place in town. On the road and when I stopped to fill up for gas, I just had to get a picture of Stephanie. How often do you see a hot chick checking her oil, not enough that like I told her, that’s great seeing someone like her checking under the hood. Sure I could’ve taken it further, but it was a quick gas stop and she just took it as a compliment, so no need for me to mess it up.

That does remind me of one thing that April-Dawn said to me which relates to something Lucy mentioned, remember Lucy from Kutter’s Harley, that good people attract good people and even though I stopped her and Jessica on the street, they didn’t feel threatened, instead intrigued to find out what it was that I was celebrating.

Once again, thanks to Kat for setting up accommodations for me in Quebec City and Montreal that she’ll be waiting for my critique of the places, that I have to make sure to get to Quebec City sometime today. Well, that wasn’t going to be a problem since it was only about 8 hours away, and again the way I drive, I might be able to shave some minutes, half hours or even hours off, that I had the entire day ahead of me. The only thing I have to beat are the showers they’re expecting later today. That means, today was mostly about hitting the pavement hard, what we like to call freeways back home and the east coast toll ways, but it was a comfortable ride and another great day for a bike ride.

The closer I got to Quebec the more I could see the change in the landscape. No I’m not talking about the mountains, hills, valleys and rivers, but just the road signs and radio stations being in French. Once in the province, it was apparent that this province isn’t like any of the others because everything is in French and without the English interpretation. I figured it’d be a good idea stopping in the visitor’s center which I’m glad I did. Even the maps I’ve been given are in French and don’t have any English, that it might be a little tough for me to find the hostel I need to find. Well, the young lady at the visitors center was a huge help because she even wrote out what roads I’ll be looking for, because you know me and names, their sometimes hard to remember and even harder if their all in French.

Part of the trip was along the Gulf of St Lawrence, the largest estuary in the world, just to get in the scenic tour and while going thru one of the cities, I noticed all of the bikes parked in front of one of the establishments, that I figured they were biker friendly. Sure they are, unless I’m speaking English. There were no problems because I did ask the waitress to translate for me, which happened more than twice for me today. Back on the road and I felt that tired feeling coming over me again, that this time instead of finding myself in the wrong lane, I might as well just pull over that I did just that for about 15 minutes. The clouds are still looking questionable, but as long as I can make it to the hostel without getting wet, that’ll do wonders.

Sure there wasn’t much to the trip, other than the change in scenery, signs that once I got into Quebec City I could really see the change. Again, everything is in French, but just listening to everyone around me, everything is in French. Good thing for those directions from the young lady at the info center cuz I found the hostel I was looking for, in the oldest part of the city within the stone walls. No, I haven’t checked out what the stone walls are all about, but it is a very interesting part of town. For the little time I’ve been here I’m thinking maybe I should extend my stay to see even more. Plenty of those hot Canadians walking around, that you never know.

Ok, a few things I found out from Annie at the local bar I visited. One, they don’t like people using endearing terms especially when they don’t know them such as honey, sweetie, hon, babe, etc. and worse yet don’t whistle. She did eventually tell me her name, but they don’t feel anyone should be using those endearing terms unless they really know that person, but I tried to explain our use, and yes, I only explained and didn’t say the way they do thing is wrong or anything. I did teach Annie something however, how some people just leave their change on the bar and when they order another drink, they just take what they need from the pile. Apparently most people around here don’t leave their change sitting on the bar to cover more drinks and working on the side she is, they don’t feel it’s appropriate to just grab the money from someone’s pile.

The finale to today’s events is going to the waterfront to watch the 400 year celebration on the largest screen monitors in the world. It was quite impressive if you were from Quebec City and understood its history, but I forgot to polish up on that before this trip. One thing I thing the celebration shows is how much the city of Quebec just wants to be it’s own entity and wasn’t happy that the vote to let them secede didn’t pass. Enough for tonight, I have to checkout the bars that are open until 3:00 in the morning to see what kind of action there is because today is done.

Another night to celebrate!

Quebec pix

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey Dale,

WOO HOO!!!!! Congrats on the North American Continent!!! Looking forward to the stories from the road. Hope to see you at the 105th or better yet, Fall Ride!~

7/18/2008 8:42 AM  

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