Quebec City is 401. That is old. We went there last week to learn about it and it’s people and hopefully ourselves in the meantime. The trip was a success.

We left on Sunday. On the way there we stopped by this ice fishing village on the St. Lawrence River or some river around there (forget lakeside, that shit is lakeON!, I know). It was quite the Canadian experience. I now feel fully one with my country. We bought some tire (maple syrup on a stick) and a bag of fish and were out of there. Many a photo were taken. Other than showing up to the church/home for a week, that pretty much wrapped up Sunday.

Monday we hung out with a friend of Pierre’s named Gille. He told us about his life and being Quebecois and what that all meant. He was a cool dude. Talked a lot like Pierre, very abstract and theological; just the way I like it. You could tell why the two of them got along so well. It was a pretty great cafe we sat in, too. I’ve got some pictures, I’ll show you some time.

There were many visits to history museums. I’d say the first one, with it’s exhibit bringing you from French colonization of Quebec to the Quiet Revolution, was the best. It also had an exhibit on global urbanization and it’s consequences on the earth called “Urbanopolos.” They showed some great ideas that are in the making to make urbanization a little less painful to our planet. One called “New Denmark,” or something like that, was especially interesting. It’s a set of condo buildings designed to create community and be completely run on solar energy. Looked pretty snazzy.

We also visited a soup kitchen called Cafe Rencontre. Cool place. We got to help clean stuff off and talk to people. It’s amazing how many people there were bilingual, even in Quebec City. I liked getting in there and doing something, even if it was just cleaning tables most of the time. We didn’t get to do any of that in Toronto, and I noticed. I know it doesn’t really help out all that much, for just one day. But hands-on education can’t be replaced by anything. It’s the best.

Friday was my favorite day of the whole trip. It began by visiting the Museum des Beaux Arts. Awesome. My new favorite artist is Riopelle. If you can find a photo of it, go look for his painting “Espagne” or “Spain.” There was a lot of other good art in there, too, but I especially liked his stuff.

Afterward, we moved on to La Chute de Montmorency, a frozen waterfall. A pretty spectacular scene. Bado and I ended up running through a field of untouched snow. There were a few times where we were up to our crotches in it. Many photos were taken.

When we got back, Julia and I went out through the city to witness the beginning of “Carnival.” From a block away, we could feel the bass of the dance party in our chests. It looked like fun, but we didn’t want to miss anything else, so we moved on. Up the hill near the parliament buildings, we found the ice castle we had seen earlier in the week, as well as the snow sculptures they had made near there. It seemed like more of a family entertainment area, plus you had to pay to get in to the castle, so we headed back to the party. It’s difficult to have a lot of fun in that kind of setting if you only know one other person in the crowd and the rest of them speak a different language. Julia and I tried to get into it, but it just wasn’t flying. We did have a special moment with an extremely drunk Quebecois yelling at us, but other than that, we got bored pretty quick. It was worth it though, seeing a whole city celebrating like that.

On Saturday, everyone left early except for me, Julia and Thomas. Julia and I talked Thomas into driving through the city one more time before heading back to Montreal. I wanted to buy a couple post cards as souvenirs, and we knew there was Carnival festivities going on, and we still hadn’t seen Bonhomme. The policeman let us sneak through the barricade and we found a souvenir shop pretty quick. Just outside though, was a dog race, and guess who was there? That’s right, the living red hatted snowman himself. Thomas took a couple pictures and we were off.

The next day was pretty great. We all went cross country skiing out in the bush some where. I got used to it about half way through the day, after falling down a few hills. But on our last trail, I ran out of energy half way through. My body just said no. Every hill we found threw my face to the snow. I was ready to go home by the end. A good day nevertheless. Ended well with some ichat with Darrell and Adrienne.

You guys and Sophia Coppola made yesterday great. I watched “Lost in Translation,” one of my favorites. Got to talk to Mom, Dad and Nick on the phone. The headphones came in the mail from Jon finally, thanks buddy. Much appreciated. I’m using them right now to listen to “Red Eyed and Blue.” A good song.

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