Quebec (and Toronto)

Hired a car and drove up a snowy Massachussetts, New Hampshire and Vermont to Quebec.

Long Vermont roads.

 

Despite all pre-existing knowledge and evidence I was still very surprised that suddenly everything was in French. I know, duh. But it really is a Francophone community up here. We almost never heard English spoken on the street in Montreal.

Vieux Montreal with the new town in the background.

Arrived after the “Polar Vortex” disaster so the streets were still a wee snowy/icy (actually arrived after the thaw and freezing rain that followed the cold snap, perfect conditions to turn everything into an ice-rink).

 

Walked/slid very cautiously down slidey footpaths (Montreal has some hills, just to make Winter interesting) fully laden with backpacks. This was the beginning of our practice with the “Quebec Shuffle” which we gradually came to grips with....an upright gait, short steps, looking two foot ahead. Missed most of Montreal's architectural highlights but have a very firm grasp of its footpaths.

Montreal is nice, some good food (poutine: chips, covered in gravy, sprinkled with cheese. Add extras as wished....onions, mushrooms, steak, lobster, whatever...), microbrewed beer, old town architecture, Leonard Cohen, students.......but rush hour in the Metro contains the largest amount of miserable-looking people I've ever seen in my life. Maybe it's a big city thing, I seem to remember Sydneysiders looking a little sad wrapped in their fashionable winter coats in the morning commute.

 

Interestingly. The first geodesic dome was built here for the 1967 Expo. It's extremely cool. Big. Impressive.

 

 

A cityfox we met crossing a bridge.

Mont Tremblant

You're in Canada, it's Winter, it's cold (there's a “Polar Vortex!!!”)....what to do?.......go skiing!!!!

Went up to Mont Tremblant, lovely little ski resort/village for a few days. Bloody freeeeeeezing. The village was fine(ish) but the top of the mountain was cold and the windchill on the way down...ouch. Couldn't work out whether to ski faster to get down more quickly or more slowly to reduce windchill. Got just a touch of frostnip on my nose.

 

Gorgeous skiing though, long runs through pine forest. Once, all alone on a portion of a run, saw a fox peek out from the trees with a grey, furry lunch in his mouth. He looked at me, paused, decided he could make it and then ran across the trail in front of me. Also, decent bar at the bottom of the gondola. Also didn't die of hypotheria when we accidently (Karl in charge of route) had to take a chairlift.

Karl (trust me, it's him) at the top of the "Soleil Express" chairlift.

Warmed up in the evening in the outdoor jacuzzi. Steamy hot water in the middle of the snow....heaven.

Turns out an outdoor fire can't, in fact, heat up a whole village. Nice idea though.

Karl was so cold he shrunk. Or shrank. Shrunk.

Quebec City

Ventured further into Francophone Quebec....the beautiful old city of Quebec. Really, really beautiful.

Gorgeous old town and also a couple of great newer areas of town with lot of small cosy bar/restaurants. And despite warnings of cranky locals who refused to speak English they turned out to be friendly and welcoming and (dare I say it) nicer than the Montrealaise. Continued the Snow and Beer Tour by sliding between bars.

The famous Quebecois smoked meat sandwich.

 

They don't seem to be fond of clearing their footpaths of snow here but at least they supply handrails for the steeper stretches of path.

Karl drags his sorry ass up a hill.

The Quebecois have a lovely version of an after work Happy Hour – the “Cinq a Sept”. And it lasts two hours! Every evening. I'm thinking about introducing it in Brisbane when we get back....though sometimes the cocktail names are a little inappropriate.

Karl always seems to find armaments.

Joggers. Don't ever complain aboot the Winter cold in Brisbane again.

The marina. Even the boats have fled to land.

 

Competitors train for the ice canoe race. Don't ever complain aboot the Winter cold in Brisbane again.

 

Guards at the Governor General's residence at the military base.

As things hadn't been quite cold enough for us over the past few months we decided to spend a night at the Ice Hotel.

 

A giant igloo. It was exceptionally cool (in all ways). Fabulous sculpture everywhere. We got the (no joke and pure coincidence) Yeti room with a Tibet theme, complete with ice-gompa, ice-stupa, ice-prayer flags, ice-gong and ice-Everest. The base of our ice-bed glowed and leaving my water bottle briefly on my ice-bedsidelocker left a lovely indentation.

Snuggled in my sleeping bag.

 

We drank cocktails from ice-glasses sitting on ice-seats by ice-tables in the ice-bar.

 

Karl wished he had the presence of mind to get married in the ice-chapel.

 

Had a go at ice sculpture – lots of fun and great for releasing aggression in a controlled manner (or disaster results).

I tried art.

Karl sculpted a glass and filled it with beer.

 

And what do you do before bed in an ice-hotel? Outdoor jacuzzi!!!

Toronto

Now, lets be honest, here's a place I had no desire to visit. But could only get flights to Cuba from Toronto and so here we were. And you know....not so bad.

 

Nice old part of the city still around, fantastic market (St Lawrence Markets), big downtown and the CN Tower. Tallest freestanding structure in the world from the early seventies to 2010. I did my best “stare at the wall not the glass floor or window” on the way up the lift but actually it wasn't as bad as the Auckland tower. Karl got a little bit chicken at the glass floor a hundred and something storeys up (I have seldom gotten such pleasure from watching another living creature suffer) and had to edge his way gently out onto it. He declined to join in the fun others were having jumping heavily onto the glass or lying face-down on it.

Chicken Karl.

Took in an ice-hockey game: Toronto Maple Leafs vs someone else. It's actually a pretty good game: much less fighting, much more impressive demonstrations of skill and interesting tactical subleties than the highlights on TV would suggest. And the biggest plastic glass/bucket of beer of my life. Game went to extra time and then a penalty shoot out (a draw is not an option, even in a league game) which is apparently very unusual and made for an exciting finish for those of us with only a loose grasp of the rules.

Located a final and really excellent microbrewery (Mill Street Brewery. A stout, a vanilla porter and a coffee porter were the first to greet me from the fridge as I sat down) on our last night in an old, renovated distillery. A fitting end to the snow and beer tour of northeastern america. Next stop: Cuba!