Volume 6: Pete in Canada Part 5. Beaver Las Canada. 1 Continent, 2 Blokes, Infinite Weird Sh*t
Day 9 – Quebec City
Today we were greeted with another hot day, after a less than pleasant sleep. During the night Corporal Loud Snorer wasn’t following orders from his commanding officer, Captain Snooze, and spent much of the night snoring at decibel levels just lower than that of an engine starting up on a 747. To cap it off, he woke up a few times in the night only to clear his throat at a similar level of volume. Real pleasant to listen to.
Today we both agreed to go see la citadelle, a great investment of 12 years of labour as the fort was never used due to the Americans deciding to never invade again (no doubt after not being able to find evidence of Weapons of mass destruction). The Citadelle still serves as base for the Canadian Royal 22s, or as the locals who can’t speak proper French call them “The Van Doos”. Inside the Citadelle we visited a museum that paid to tribute to a goat given to the regiment by Queen Victoria in 1844 with which they could “do with what they please”. Given that all men that lived in the Citadelle were bachelors I’m tipping that was one sore goat. Inside the Citadelle is a floral arrangement of Quebec’s official slogan “Je me souviens”, which translates into “I remember”. What they remember most likely is not a French victory in a battle, as even though the fort is in a French speaking province the actual fort was completed by the British.
After visiting the fort we headed down to the Old Port area and chilled with some beers listening to some granny bang out songs from her karaoke machine. She did requests, so all you had to do was find a song you liked in her song book, give her the number, and away she went. Thankfully, Brad didn’t ask her to sing “Down Under” as I’m sure she wouldn’t have had it in her book which could have seen Brad’s frustration boiling over into the ugly scene of a 28 year old male grabbing a 60 something grandmother by the scruff of the next shouting profanity at her. My only request to her would’ve have been for her to unplug her microphone, but she seemed to be having fun so I let her go. We also past the time watching a number of punters sitting at particular table that would periodically have water dumped on it from a pipe or something above it. While the correct thing to do would have been to warn each new person that sat there they would probably get wet, but the more amusing thing to do was to not tell them, so that is what we did.
Late in the afternoon we headed back to the hostel to tidy ourselves up for dinner and a night on the town. When we got back to our room there were two English blokes having a lovers tiff with one complaining that the other one “Moan, moan, moan, all day. All you do is complain…”. As I left the room I couldn’t help but think how unusual for an Englishmen to whinge about something.
We had dinner on the hill that night in a beer garden, where we were served by a hot French chick who had learned all her English while living in Australia for a year. She was quite excited to talk to us, which was only bettered by our excitement of talking to a hot French chick. I spent the night trying to order my food in French and at the conclusion of the meal asking for the bill in French. While our waiter would have been more than happy to speak English, the fact that my use of French was really cutting Brad up left me with no choice but to continue to the butcher the language. After asking for the bill, Brad feeling I was going to have an unfair advantage with the ladies, then requested a chance to study my French phrase book. Satisfied with my efforts of the last 2 nights of seeing Brad cut up rough I gave him the phrase book so that he could feel that we were playing on a level playing field. After dinner we headed into what I suppose you would call New Quebec City and Grande Allée as the person at the tourist info centre had circled that on our map as a place with a lot of bars. It was a fairly lively young area, and better yet we found a bar that served $9 jugs of beer. Nothing overly exciting happened that night as I think we were still tired from the night before. The only real highlight came when we asked a couple of chicks for directions and when Brad told them we were Australian one of them almost had an orgasmic experience as she let out a “Oh, Australie”. Unfortunately, that was as close as I got to seeing her “Ooh face”.
Somewhat tired and deflated, we headed back to the hostel I’m assuming some time after midnight.
Day 10 – Quebec City
My overwhelming thought for the morning was thinking about how ideal our hostel location was; provided you liked being woken by a bus every 15 minutes, enjoy hot nights, and recreating a concrete version of the Kokoda trail by walking up a massive hill in searing heat. The damn buses ran right past our hostel finishing at about 1am, before restarting at 6am giving you a solid 5 hours to attempt to sleep in a sauna full of a chorus of snorers. Ideal.
Having felt that we’d seen all that Old Quebec City could offer us, we headed back to the tourist info shop. When we’d first arrived a few days earlier we’d enquired about the public bus system taking us out of town to visit a large park. The tourist info bloke that day (most likely in his first hour on the job) was adamant none of any of the local buses took you anywhere. We’d name a location, no bus would go there. Finding it hard to believe that a local transit system took the locals nowhere (just picturing one bus stop in the entire city in which the buses travelled around the block before arriving back at the same bus stop) we headed back to the tourist info shop to hopefully receive the regulation contradictory advice. As sure as a French loss in a battle, that contradictory advice came. As we were keen to check out the Montmorency falls we’d seen on the cruise, we ran the question of buses and them travelling outside of anywhere past the new tourist info person serving us. As quick as a goat being chased in 1844 by a pants less Van Doo solider she pulled out a bus guide and told us we could catch the 800, then the 50. Once on the bus, I thought it would be handy to let the bus driver know it would be awfully nice if he could tell us when we needed to get off the 800 to catch the 50. I tried doing the right thing by dropping a bit of “Parla vous Anglais?” in a goodwill gesture to show I was making an effort to speak French. He processed that question in his head for a couple of seconds, before deciding “no” he didn’t speak English (fair enough, sometimes I forget that I can speak English) and then pointing to an elderly gentleman sitting on the bus who did. The elderly gentleman was more than happy to help, and I found even more respect for him when he successfully charmed some young lass who sat next to him with the skill that only comes from spending a lifetime of practising it. As it turns out the 800 bus actually becomes the 50 bus to confuse things even more, meaning you only need to catch one bus.
Finally at Montmorency Falls, Brad took a dip in the water with some French bogans before we crossed a small suspension bridge which runs across the falls. After taking some photos, we walked through the local park where we read of Wolfe versus Montcalm, and not surprisingly learning of yet another French defeat in a battle. We then made the long hike down the stairs to the bottom of Falls. From the bottom of falls you get to appreciate the fact they are 1 and half times taller than Niagara Falls, yet half as impressive. Thankfully, the water generates a bit of backwash giving us a small reprieve from the heat.
As it was stupidly hot, it was decided it would be equally stupid to walk up the 93 metres of stairs and back to the bus stop to catch the mythical 2 in 1 bus, so we caught a taxi back into town. The taxi driver was an interesting fellow, who spoke more English than most taxi drivers in Australia, and gave Brad a high five as he exited the taxi (one way to complete a cash transaction, much friendlier than handing a receipt).
Back in town, we headed to L’Inox to sample sum of the beers they brew onsite. Over the beers it gave me plenty of time to think. Thinking of how it was beginning to piss me off that everywhere I’d been in my short time in Canada there were bilingual French/English signs and announcements for the benefit of French speaking Quebec, only for rude pricks like the bus driver to “forget” how to speak English and essentially snub the rest of the country. Thinking of how Quebec City, just like Montreal, had an unusual obsession with naming a great deal of its’ streets after Saints. I counted no fewer than 19 streets in Quebec that included the word Saint.
After doing some quality assurance testing at L’Inox we headed back to the hostel and decided we should go back to Montreal a day early, having seen enough of Quebec City, which did not have a Peels Pub. So with the thought of returning back to Peels pub consuming the logical thought of confirming whether we could get accommodation in Montreal, we promptly cancelled our last night in Quebec City. It was only when Brad called the HI hostel and Lipotak and they said they were full that the thought of confirming room availability in Montreal finally found voice after being drowned out by the sounds of “Return to Peels, Return to Peels”. As the only English the person knew on the phone at Lipotak was most likely “Have you got some buds I can smoke?” Brad wasn’t overly convinced that Lipotak was convinced they were fully booked, so he called them back and somehow we were now booked in for 2 nights at the Hippy refuge that was Lipotak. Brad also tried to call Melissa to let her know we’d be back in town, but soon discovered she’d given him the wrong number. Thankfully he’s old mate Peter Hart had managed to get Manon’s number so he called that one instead, returning to me with a grin from ear to ear explaining the ladies were very excited that we were going to be back in town. The only natural meeting place to meet them again was; Peels Pub.
After dinner we headed back to Chez son Pere hoping to relive some of the magic of a few nights ago. Unfortunately, it was a small quiet crowd that night. Fortunately, they sold $5 long necks of Molson Export (a beer I’ve never seen in the US or Australia or any other country so I’m not quite sure where it’s being exported to). Brad couldn’t find the passion to continue his job as a missionary for Men At Work to spread the good word of “Down Under” so we called it an early night.
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