A little drop of rain

Robin’s wake-up weather check was not promising: “heavy rainfall, chance of flooding”.  Yup, we headed into Quebec City, and the warning did not exaggerate.  It rained all day.  It never let up.  We had fun anyways (well I mostly hung out in the back corner of a dry backpack, but I checked things out when I could.  

We parked in the lower part of Old Quebec which may have seemed like a good idea on a flat map, but resulted in SO many stairs and hilled roads to get up to our first goal - the information centre (this will make more sense when you see pictures, if you haven’t been here).  Inside the info centre Robin and Clare went mad collecting booklets and brochures (multiple copies of all of them)!  Then they talked to the various companies that were there promoting to us tourists, but I kept hearing them say “next year we are…” and “when we bring a small youth group…”. Wait just a minute folks!  Is this trip just a giant front for a reconnaissance mission for a future Girl Guide trip?  Apparently it is, although they both assure me the two trips will be very different.  Yu-huh… next year I’ll have four awesome Rangers to keep me entertained AND I’ll be able to play really bad tour Guide :D

We hadn’t planned on doing a bus tour, but with all the rain, we decided it was worth a go.  Once booked, we had about an hour to kill so we searched out a bakery or cafe where we could get croissants.  We found a great little place where they were very patient while we attempted to order in French, and not only did we get croissants to-go (for later) but we sat down and tried maple pie (first for all of us).  

Boring info alert:  71% of the Worlds maple syrup comes from Canada, and 91% of THAT is from Quebec.  I guess that’s why I keep seeing maple stuff everywhere.

I think it’s melting

Finally we got on the bus.  We had been told when we bought the tickets that we were lucky as that tour would have a live tour guide (versus a recording).  What she failed to mention was why.  Turns out there is a massive 10 day music festival (evenings) at the Plains of Abraham, which results in random road closures near the park and sometimes they get closed in the afternoon, long before the music starts, AND those plains are one of the main features of the tour.  Yeah, so bus driver and live tour guide get to make it up as they go along.  This resulted in a fantastic tour of much of their usual stuff, but also a fun detour out to the marina where we got out to take pictures looking back at the city (quickly of course, as it was still raining).  Then came my favourite part (because you know I’m never one for the normal), the tour guide got all excited because we got the green light to cross the moveable bridge back to the mainland.  He’s been doing this 11 years and he’s never been over this bridge (the kind that lifts up and down to let boats through the boat lock below).  His excitement had us all cheering.  It’s the little things in life, what can I say.

With the tour over, we headed back into the incessant rain and found our way to the boardwalk in front of “the castle” as I kept calling it, “Château Frontenac” for those who prefer the more formal names of things.  We took a few obligatory photos, which I am not in as I chose to stay dry (ok maybe because Clare just wanted to get the pics and move on in the rain, either way, I’m not in them).  

We then headed up through an archway go inside the castle, only to find it was hollow.  Here I was thinking it was this massive building, only to find the entire middle of it is outside (and open to the beautiful, ever-falling rain).   For the curious among my readers, this massive castle is a hotel now.  We looked at staying there one night - I don’t think we could afford the pillow.  However, we ARE going to splurge and attend “High Tea” there on Wednesday (the whole reason we stepped foot inside was to see if there was any chance we could book High Tea - mission accomplished)

I must reflect for a moment, so forgive me as I recall my first tea party, oh about 13 years ago… wait, Clare, that can’t be right!  There’s no way that was 13 years ago!  *sigh* I’m getting old for a little bear.  Anyways, my dear friends in Utah taught me the ways of the tea party, sitting on blankets on the floor of their basement, drinking kool-aid out of a tea pot, little sandwiches off matching plates, and candies out of the sugar bowl.  Clare informs me this will be nothing like that, this will be a “real tea party”.  That one seemed pretty real to me!  I guess we’ll all have to wait until Wednesday to find out now won’t we.

Fancy tea booked, we proceeded to wander the foyer of this grand hotel for a washroom, for the simple reason that I wanted to do something mundane in The Castle, and using the toilets fit the bill.  We did find it, and we did use it.  I feel more alive than ever now!

Castle goals achieved, we headed down all the crazy stairs to the lower city (btw we ARE aware of the funicular and Clare has now mental-GPSed it into her head so we can find it from the bottom when we return).  The lower city is beautiful, cobble stone roads, old stone buildings all close together, once again reminding Clare of the Europe she has yet to take me to.  While the buildings are old-worldly quaint, the majority of what we saw in them was not.  There were some boutiques and cafes etc that fit, but so many of them were full of your standard cheap tourist gadgets, gizmos and sweaters.  Of course, today they were making a killing on rain ponchos and umbrellas.  

This is where we ran into our only language struggle of the day, that didn’t end up being about language at all.  Clare’s raincoat just wasn’t doing its job, and she’d seen a rain poncho she liked (better quality than the clear plastic-bag versions most were selling).  It was blue with a big fleur-de-lis on it and we saw one on display, outside one of these tourist shops.  Inside we couldn’t find it, so Robin pulled off her best French and asked.  The cashier smiled and handed her a package that definitely matched.  We paid and left, only to discover it was a large Quebec province flag.  Robin felt bad that she’d messed up her French and went back in.  The cashier spoke barely any English and kept insisting that the package was right.  Finally Robin pulled out the flag and the woman’s eyes went huge and she laughed.  She then looked everywhere for the poncho but couldn’t find one to sell us.  As we walked away (with the flag - story collecting here!) I couldn’t help but wonder just how many flags she had sold to desperately wet tourists today.

We continued to wander around these little shops until we were too wet and cold to want to go on.  Well that and many stores were closing.  We called it a day, dropped very wet everything into the trunk (not me, I wasn’t wet, although Clare was so maybe she should have been dropped in the trunk).  Still, no one was complaining, just very eager to get back to Beaupre and get dry.

I was about to end there, but the power just went out, and that’s just way more of a cliffhanger to leave you with.  How long will it be out?  What will my humans do without it?  Clearly it’s not affecting them at all right now as Clare’s using her phone to hotspot me enough Internet to finish this, but phone and iPad batteries only last so long…

Whatever!