Time for Some French
Je mappellez Dan. Ce va? Comment allez vous? (who knows if I did this right but it is supposed to mean “My name is Dan. And you? How are you?) This very much sums up our trip through Quebec. English was definitely a second language here. People greeted you in French. The menus were in French. The street signs were in French. French, French, French….it was really cool! As one person said while we were here, it is more exotic.
Let me begin by telling you we started to understand what we were getting into when we were just outside of Quebec in Edmunston, New Brunswick. We camped just outside of this city. We went into town to a place a lot like a “Denny’s”, an average restaurant with average décor and food. The wait staff spoke broken English. The other diners were speaking in fluent French. It was fun.
We went on to Quebec City. What a fabulous place!!! High town is an old walled city with a fort on one side. It was like walking into the 1700’s. We visited an old church while we were there as well as walked around. It is a very hilly place so there was a lot of up and down walking. Steep streets, tall stair cases, old moody bars, 200+ year old houses, fantastic restaurants… and almost at the top of it all (at the top of a hill), Chateau Frontinac are just some of the fantastic sights we saw. This was definitely a great stop on our trip. Outside of High town is “low town”, a regular city as we know it with skyscrapers, parks, etc. We walked this area for a while as well as part of the next day. We ate at a couple of places the first day as well as a drink or two at a local gay bar. The next day we would eventually have lunch at a local “German” sports bar. But before I continue on, I’ve got to tell you what we did that morning. We were going to go on a hike at Mont Saint-Anne. That didn’t pan out because we couldn’t find the entrance to the place and because it began to rain a bit. But before we went looking for this park entrance, we stopped at the Basilica of Saint Anne. It was beautiful. Gothic, gold, ornate…Wow! Best church yet, although we would see “better” later in Montreal. Anyway, after our morning adventure, and after eating at said “German” sports bar, we went to the Bibliotech. This means “library” in French. Librarie in French means “bookstore”. Go figure. We needed access to the internet and after a frustrating search for wifi; we just decided to go to a library we saw the previous day. It was once a church. It was very neat on the inside.
We continued on our journey and went to Montreal. We particularly wanted to go to “the Village”. This is the “gay area” of town. Wow. Queer friendly to say the least. 5 story bars, the top floor is on the roof. Very nice, professional people at the restaurants and such we went to. One waiter after talking with us in English for a while went and got us all the gay magazines for all the happenings in the city since the weekend we visited there was “Quebec Day”. This is a big deal for all those in Quebec because some still want to be their own country, not part of “Canada”. Their blue and white flag with 4 fleur de lis (did I spell that right?) was hanging everywhere in the city. A Drag Queen at the local drag club called the Mabo was really nice. She was the MC at this drag lounge and there were a lot of people there on a big holiday. After speaking a lot in French, she took time out to ask if there were any Anglophones (English-only speakers) in the room. Only 3 of us raised our hands in the whole crowd. She asked where we were from and then made us feel welcome. Later, during the show, she took time out to explain in English about the drink situation/specials happening in the bar…for only 2 people out of over a hundred on a big French speaking holiday! She was really nice…in a drag queen snappy way. We stopped at several bars earlier that night and one or two afterwards. A small jazz place where piano and bass with a singer were playing was one place. Another place almost right out of Queer as Folk called “Parking”. It looked a lot like the bar they always go to. Another place, 5 floors high with a pool/jacuzzi on the roof was jammed with people. Several other bars we visited were stop, go in, see, and leave types. The “Village” was huge. We walked around a lot that evening. Jake walked with us during the day but as soon as it was evening and there was shade, in the truck he would go for a rest (for us as well as him. He requires a lot of energy to watch as we walk through a city).
This is where a downturn happened after we returned to our campsite/RV park.
I don’t want to spend a lot of time on this since it still upsets Tim and me.
When we returned to our campsite at about 2 am, there was a teenage party going on near us which was barely under control for noise level. The camping place said noise was prohibited between 11pm and 7 am. These kids were somewhat loud. We decided to not say anything. We were almost asleep when one of the kids laughingly tripped over one of the strings of our tent. What was he doing near our tent? Who knows? We woke up completely but figured it was an accident. A few minutes later, they passed near our tent again. Playfully one of the kids slightly trips again on the rope. THEN SOMEONE BOUNCES OFF OUR TENT. This was not a “trip” since it was delayed after the playful hit on our rope. The tent tarp was ripped at the stitching about a foot and a half where the rope was attached. Later Tim would sew this back together so we could still use the tent. But the “bounce” did something else. It bent our tent poles. We still have yet to replace these poles so the tent is still goofy shaped now, not a “dome”. We talked to the kids who spoke French and couldn’t communicate effectively with them and they laughed at us as well as made comments about our dog (I know barely enough French to understand that). We got the owner of the Camping Park out to help us. I’m not going to get into all that happened. Let’s just say, we were going to stay 2 nights but left after one sleepless night after getting our money back and a promise out of the owner to pay our tent fix bill since he didn’t uphold his own quiet rules. The kids were HIGHLY (I can’t stress that enough) disrespectful…and the owner (who knew the kids because they were his daughter’s friends) indulged them. We were not happy.
Other than that, our stay at Montreal was awesome. The next day we went to the Oratory of St Joseph. It is the second largest Cathedral outside of Rome. It was Huge!! It was amazing!! There was an entire big room lit with candles as a remembrance prayer area. The votives they were in were colored red, green or white depending on the design and placement they were in. The main Cathedral area reminded me of our own Cathedral in St. Paul, Minnesota. It is a very big place. We also went to “the Mont” as the people from Montreal call it. It is a park on the top of a hill overlooking the city. It was very crowded but it is big enough that there are many areas you can go to feel “alone” if wanted. Jake loved it since all he’s had lately has been streets and truck. We later had dinner at a place called the A to Z Cafe. It was a very chic place to look at as we ate tasty tapas. We walked the Village some more and then went back to our “new” campsite at the KOA. We slept like contented happy lazy babies since I only had about 3 hours of sleep from the morning to afternoon and Tim had no sleep at all.
Our Trip continues in the next blog.
Sneak Preview: Sault St. Marie, Pictured Rocks National Park.
Dan
Tags: Montreal, U.S. Segment 1
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