...Bloody Australians.

If Montreal is Eastern Europe then Quebec is definitely Western Europe. Quebec is a beautiful little city straight out of France with cobbled streets and old walls, cathedrals, and snow! Yes it snowed for two days after Millie left. Tragic really, but nice for me.
I met a nice girl on the bus, I can't remember her name now... Anyway what's her name was a lovely girl and she was coming from Ottawa to visit her sister in Quebec for the first time. She could see that i did not really know what I was doing or where I was going (because that was how I made it seem;) so she kindly offered to have her sister drive me to my hostel. We chatted some more and things seemed to be going quite well, i think we really hit it off. So, we drove through the streets in the snow and slush and her sister, also a lovely girl, filled us in on the history of this quaint little town. I wont bore you with it. Here we are, at the hostel, just down that road a little. Yep this is fine thanks. ok yep thanks very much. yes it was lovely to meet you too. ok "what's your name", bye. bye.... Ok. there they go... there she goes... ... Idiot.

I lamented not getting what's her names number for about two days after that because as soon as I got out of that car and they drove off, I realised what it was about this city that i had been enjoying so much but couldn't quite place up until then. It was obvious now that i think back; old stone buildings, thin winding cobblestone streets, snow falling and covering the ground... Quebec is a romantic city, and there i was standing in the snow, completely alone. Idiot.

I checked into my hostel and yep you guessed it, romantic. I decided to drown my sorrows so i sought out some local ales at the corner store and fortunately they brew them strong in Quebec.
Hanging out in the hostel was actually not too bad and i met some great people there. It was just a small place, which i think i prefer. Smelt less of men than a lot of the other larger hostels which I inhabited on my travels. Oh Millie, by the way. Remember that dorm room i checked into for my last night in Montreal, which did stink of man flesh? well it just got worse. It turns out that
the bunks in that room were all somehow intrinsically joined together so that when that strange guy that i was sharing the room with turned over in bed, which was about every 30 seconds, all the other bunks in the room moved with him. All the screws on all the bunks were loose, fortunately none were as squeaky as mine.

Next day i got up early to go and explore the town. It had stopped snowing and it was truly beautiful. I walked to the wall which surrounds the old part of the city. It even had a rampart!
I felt great as i traipsed through the snow alone. I could do this by myself, i didn't need anyone else to have fun. Then i saw them, people. Other tourists checking out the sights, they looked kind of my age too. I headed straight for them. Turned out that I knew one of them. I had met Andrew at a rainy bus stop in Vancouver about two months earlier! Weird, he had just been up visiting from California when i met him and now here he was, clear on the other side of the continent. His companion was John and both were Australian, Andrew from Perth and John from Adelaide, haha...

So we toured around the sites together, visiting the old war/fort thing, where we ran into some more Australians. Funny I hadn't been in the vacinity of any Australians since the end of first semester at UBC. In fact the only Australian contact I had had for nearly 12 months was the phone calls to people back home, in which i had been secretly chuckling with glee to myself over the funny accents, and Todd's insisting on talking to me in an Aussie accent at work. But here i was in French Canadian Quebec surrounded by them.



We moved on and ended up up the tallest building in Quebec which gave a nice view of the old city, freshly covered in snow. Our vantage point was educational too and we learned all about why this old city was where it was and why it was so fortified. Turns out the the Americans tried to invade, as did the British i think, during the American war of Independence, But they failed, I think.

So i hung out with these guys for the next few days in Quebec. We teamed up with another Australian, Marg and went out for drinks on the town. We ended up discovering a secret hidden away upstairs bar which was filled with real french Canadians, singing real french songs in french. It was cool and we felt cool, even if our presence as tourists kind of ruined the whole authenticity of the place. We met some nice frenchy girls here at this bar and ended up out at a shit night club afterward, and then ate Poutine, which is otherwise known in Australia as Jum's chips 'n' gravy.

The next day was great. I got up early and woke the others up. We organised a rental car and we headed out of the city to some waterfalls that had been recommended to us. It was really cold out there, and everything was snow. It was a fun drive too. After the falls we took some wrong turns and so some back roads but finally made our way to the Ice Hotel.






As we arrived we walked towards the igloo like structure with a bus load of tourists. A man spoke something incomprehensible to us and handed us all a sticker, which we stuck to our jackets copying the other people around us. That done we walked in and started to marvel at the structure and the ice sculptures within. We soon realised that no one had charged us anything to get in? It was supposed to cost $18 and we were obviously concerned that we had not contributed to the upkeep of such a fine establishment. Then the tour started and all became clear, well at least to Andrew who could actually understand Spanish. The bus load that we had unwittingly joined turned out to be a Spanish tour group and we were now apart of it. We stood for a few minutes nodding and smiling at the tour guide and Andrew translated the basics for us. Before to long we had to excuse ourselves for the giggling was becoming a distraction to the other members of the tour and we were starting to get funny looks from the other employees of the hotel. We made our way into the various rooms which had been made up in various themes. The rooms would be available to sleep in for those that had reserved them for the night at an undoubtedly exorbitant price. The beds were actually made of ice and clothed in firs which were surprisingly cosy. They had carved all manor of canadiana sculptures and were in the process of constructing a church for people to get married in.





















It was even colder in the hotel than it was outside. I know that john had lost feeling in his feet several hours earlier but he did not seem content with that and insisted on proving his worth by having us hold blocks of ice on his hands resting on the ice table. Now as we sat on chairs made out of ice blocks, drinking ice cold drinks out of cups made of ice in a bar made of ice, we made a toast to how fucking cold it is in Canada, all of us no doubt thinking of the warmth of home.



















Next couple of days were spent resting and seeing a few more sights. As i often do, i sort out the sanctuary of a church and Quebec has no shortage of them. I like to see the art work and check out the ornate architecture but there is also something comforting about being in a church. We walked the old streets and took a trip over to the other side of the St. Laurence to Levis, the bullied little brother city to Quebec which serves only to give nice views of the city.



















With that i said farewell to my Australian friends and we all went our separate ways. I reflected on my time in Quebec. What on earth happened with old what's her name? What would have come of me if i had not fatefully run into the guys and Marg? Why does America insist on invading every country conceivable? Why does Levis suck so much? What else can B possibly stand for? and why oh why is it so bloody cold here? Why indeed am i here traipsing through the snow of this wide continent? All will be revealed in the next chapter...