matt's boring

all good things...

Saturday, July 22, 2006

All right, so I've returned.
It was an extremely enjoyable week away from here, despite the fact that the whole time was spent with family.
Saturday I flew out of here, connected through Toronto, and arrived in Quebec City at midnight. I was originally only going to be in TO for 20 minutes, but the Air Canada women put me on standby for an earlier flight there, so I was able to have some more time to waste there. That allowed me to pay $9 for a cheeseburger, and $6.95 for 15 minutes of wifi access. You'll know these things if you read the entry before this one.

The day after arriving was spent just hanging out and visiting, which was enjoyable enough. The people I was there visiting are my dad's sister, and his mom. They don't speak english, so the whole trip was an exercise in active listening. I find it hard to understand french if I'm not actively listening. Even then, I far from understand every word, but 9 times out of 10 manage to get the idea what's being said.

The next day was the ritual trip to Place Laurier, a mall in downtown Quebec. Every time we used to head there to visit (every 2 years, for probably 12 or 14 years) we'd go to the mall where my brother and I would buy toys from the Toys R Us there. This time I had a different mission, to see if any lunetterie carried Alain Mikli frames. Alas, I didn't find any compelling frames to buy while there.

We headed out to Old Quebec on Wednesday for another ritual. Several hours of walking around, then stopping at a specialty grocer for homemade cheeses, terrines, and baguettes, then a picnic. Usually the picnic's on the Plains of Abraham, but this time it was in a park by some old armoury and foundry. Lots of walking (who knew chucks were so good for that?) and pictures later we ended up exhausted at back at home. The beginning of the week was ungodly humid, but thankfull that went away and things cooled down a bit for that walk. Overall we enjoyed beautiful weather, with thunderstorms only happening overnight (on 3 or 4 occasions).

Friday my mom, brother, dad and I headed out for a drive around Isle d'Orleans (another ritual trip). It's a gorgeous island, with an insane amount of gorgeous old, and old-style houses. Also lining the roads are many many small farm business, places like strawberry and raspberry picking farms, specialty cider and wineries, cheese places, and erabliers. My parents ended up stopping at some cider places and buying some liquers and ciders, and we spent (alltogether) $70 at a cabane a sucre, on maple syrup. Not that it was expensive, it was just so crazy inexpensive that we ended up buying a LOT. 1 litre of clear syrup for $10! The clear syrup is the top quality type, most stuff sold in stores as 'genuine maple syrup' is the medium grade, one or two levels below clear. I also had a killer sandwich, smoked lamb, some sort of wonderfully pungent Quebec cheese, and a great grainy mustard. I'm salivating just thinking about it.

Friday night was time for poutine and sugar pie.... heaven, nothing more can be said but that. Two things that I had been looking forward to since I booked the trip. I only wish I could have brought home a crate of St. Hubert sugar pie. So friggin good.

Tonnes more pictures are up on my flickr site, just click that link over on the right there, and be entertained.

posted on Saturday, July 22, 2006 at 6:12 p.m.. There are . If you want, you can leave your own response by clicking here. You may also send this post to a friend of yours via email, or bookmark it for yourself by using icons below;