Day 46 - New Brunswick to PEI 262km

We had a relaxing morning. We all had a swim in Grand Lake and had a chance to reflect the last few days. Looking back at Saturday, the day we left Trois Rivieres, the crepes, the water park and then Cirque de Soleil, I think we overdid it a bit. 

Today was a new day. We left the campsite at 1:30pm and headed into Moncton, primarily for me to get a haircut. I was getting a little woolly and frankly, shampoo is expensive and not to be wasted on my ever greying mop. 


We stocked up on essentials and headed for Confederation Bridge (the longest bridge in the world?) and Prince Edward Island. By 5:00pm we were cruising across the never-ending bridge to the realization that we have almost, not technically, reached the Atlantic! I guess the ‘official’ arrival will be at Halifax in Nova Scotia but really, when you think about it, Kits Beach in Vancouver wasn’t ‘exactly’ the Pacific. 

Victoria, PEI - The Atlantic! - kind of..

We celebrated our achievement with our first lobster dinner in Victoria (ironic) on the south coast of PEI. This place is gorgeous! The sand and dirt is bright red. 

Our first lobster feed in PEI

Yummy!

Hmm. Does he like it or not?

No comment.

The landscape comprises gently rolling hills and lovely little villages with cute houses and churches. 
We have checked into our campsite just a few kilometers from Green Gables and have booked the next three nights. We will definitely take some time exploring PEI, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick over the next 10-14 days.

Day 45 - The Maritimes. New Brunswick

PART THREE

All I can say is the roads are better in the Maritimes. Now, does anyone know a good marriage counselor in the area? Let’s just say it was a loooong drive from Valcartier to our final destination just East of Frederickton. It was hot, I was hungry, we got lost more than once and we very nearly ran out of gas. My stress meter was up at 15 and it only goes to 10. We were on the road a total 11 hours.

Part of the problem was the address for the campground that we were trying to find. The address is not very specific and google did their best to drop a pin in the approximate location. It all makes good sense in the cold light of day but when the fuel light has been blinking and pinging at you for the past 20mins it was hard to see the humour through the red fog. The good news is we got gas, I ate (always a good move) and we found the campsite in the end. It is located on the shore of Grand Lake (I guess the name ‘Great Lake’) has been a little over used and the Mohawk Campsite was awesome!

The kids took a dip in the lake and well, we are all ok now.

I forgot to mention the highlight of our day. We went to the french fry capital of the world. A potato museum, located next to the McCain Technology centre, claimed to have the best french fries. I was hungry and can always eat french fries so we went in and I said ‘Let’s assume that I never come back here again what french fries ‘must’ I eat?’ There were many choices - hot, super hot, poutine, with cheese and bacon, chocolate sauce, with cinnamon and sugar. What? These fries must be fabulous! We’ll take the cheese and bacon fries.

Let’s just say that the McCain connection should have tipped me off. What came out from the kitchen were basically your out of a plastic bag McCain frozen french fries with some cheese and bacon bits on top. Nothing gourmet, nothing even special. Maybe something you would throw together at 11:00pm when you have the munchies and the pizza place is closed. I have a good guess as to how the chocolate sauce and cinnamon fries would have turned out.

French Fry Capital of The World!

Grand Lake, New Brunswick

Day 44 - Valcartier Village Vacancies

Today we spent the entire day at the waterpark. We did every single ride and are all a bit burnt. Tomorrow will be a long drive day as we leave Quebec’s pot-holed and ridiculously signed roads and head to New Brunswick. Hey, I’m not a complainer (normally) but I think we will have to go find another garage (and a dentist) that can look at our suspension. We went over a pothole yesterday that I thought we were not going to get out of. I think I cracked three teeth too! 

You’ve got to be kidding me! Could the City not drop a few hundred pounds of bitumen in some of these holes? They can pay Cirque de Soleil $34M for the free show. Why not spend a couple hundred bucks on the roads? While you are at it, the equal opportunities program on the road planning department hasn’t really worked out. Maybe the dyslexic ADD employees could get a job in road maintenance (the road signs are so random).
What’s with the signs? They make no sense! I would love to hear from a local. Are the road signs as confusing for you? You take highway 40 North and then the lanes split off immediately into two and then into two again. All you can say is ‘what just happened?’ “Where are we going now?” Tom Tom isn’t even talking to us. He’s just given up. 

Valcartier Village Vacances

More ice cream?

Tomorrow we head to New Brunswick. We will start early and see how far we can get. We want to try for PEI by Tuesday. I’m looking forward to some fish and chips and maybe some lobster!. Yum, Yum! 

END OF PART TWO

Day 43 - Quebec City/ Valcartier Village Vacancies (The Waterpark)

Au revoir Trois Riviéres!

It was a sad, drawn-out goodbye at Trois Riviéres. Many of our friends had buses and planes booked on Friday afternoon. The ink had barely dried on our precious graduation certificates and people were loading suitcases onto buses and flying out of TR as if they had stolen something.

We were bombarded with left over food and drink from peoples apartments as they knew that we were continuing on our journey. By 6:00pm all you could hear were the crickets.

We slowly packed up our own little apartment and loaded up the trailer once more.

The next morning we had our apartment inspected at 7:45am and then we hit the open road with Maddy along for the ride. Maddy was a fellow student (A group) and was also going to Quebec City and we had a spare seat. We decided to drop her off at her hostel in Centre Ville (downtown) Quebec City. I think this gave us good karma as we found a parking spot for ‘the rig’ right outside the hostel. The hostel happened to be located about 5 mins from the Casse Crêpe-Breton on Rue St Jean. We wanted to go there two weeks ago when we were on our tour with the class but the line up was too long and we didn’t have time. Not this time, we had the best coffee I’ve had in a long time. The kids had strawberry crêpes and Jen and I had the savory ham, egg and mushroom crêpes. Yummy!

The Hostel, Quebec City

Bowl of Hot Chocolate

Cup of Hot Chocolate

The crêperie chef

The best seat in the house!

We then drove 30mins north to Valcartier Village Vacancies, the largest water park in Canada! We splashed and played till 3:00pm when our ‘square of dirt’ was ready for us. This place is massive! 600 camp spots - I can see how. Let’s cram them together as close as we can? It’s not that bad. The spots are close, and this place was full on Saturday night and we did seem to have the loudest little kids ever created screaming and balling just 10 feet from us! It was fine. It was strange being back in the trailer again. No time to ponder, at 8:00pm we headed back into Quebec City to see Cirque du Soleil’s ‘Chemin Invisible’ the free shoe. It didn’t start till 9:30 but because it’s free we wanted to get there early. Lucky we did, it was packed. There were thousands of people.

The show was spectacular even though we had to stand for an hour waiting to get in and then stand throughout the show for another hour. Ryan petered out about 15mins before the end and by the time we finished clapping both kids were asleep on the floor on the gravel. It had been a long day.

Day 42 - Trois Riviéres - Day 19 - GRADUATION DAY!

The last day of institutional food and our bonne apartément. I just put the accent in there at random. It is tres important to put accents in. Forward, back, it doesn’t really matter as long as you chuck some on - like sprinkling salt on your fries. 

I think its part of maintaining French independence. No matter how much we learn they will always be able to spot the pesky anglais by our inability to grasp the whole accent thing. Some letters even have hats on them ‘ê’ like so. I even saw an o with two dots once ö. And check this one out ‘œ’. This one must have driven the early typewriter manufacturers dotty.

Anyway, I’m sure you are dying to hear how grad went... Well we had a little grad party last night. We played spoons and animal snap - trës drõle. This morning, with everyone leaving we are getting everyone’s left over food. It will keep us going for ages.

This morning I had a bit of a shock! Mdme Paradis has given us marks. WOT? I would have made more of an effort the past two days. I was blatantly copying Jenny’s homework. Still, not that much different to my college days back at Pad U (Paddington Technical College, London) And YES, Paddington is a real place! Not just a place cooked up by Michael Bond in a kids story book. 

I have no idea what my mark is but it had me wondering if I was going to graduate? We all met up in the special lunch room at 11:30. We still had to buy our lunch with our little rations slips and we sat and ate while waiting patiently for the festivities to begin. I figured out early on that Emilie was calling names out in alphabetical order which sucks when your name is Waterman. I almost had a fit when Jackie WONG was called out before me. What! I’m not graduating? Will I be passed over just like yesterday when Mark was handing out blue cards?

Blue cards are given to people who openly speak French. The idea is that surrounding businesses, seeing that a student is wearing a blue wristband, are recognized for speaking in French. They are the exact opposite to a Carte Rouge which you DO NOT want to get. I would probably be up to 150 by now if they were applicable to me.

Anyhoo, Mark, our host on all of the filed trips, was handing out Carte Blus yesterday and he looked at me and then said ‘Non’ and carried on handling them out to everyone else. Jenny thought it was very funny. It’s fine with me. I get it. My french is not that great. A true Quebecois would, after about ten minutes, detect that my accent isn’t quite from this region.

With all this going through my mind, Jackie goes and get’s her certificate. There is one left! Were there any other Ws in our class? I didn’t have to wait long. Emily called my name and she even had a robe and hat for me to wear. How did she know my innermost thoughts? Is EVERYONE reading this pesky blog? I thought it was a private, online journal? 

Our last lesson outside in the sun. No, Alan is not asleep.

I understand the cheering but the laughing?... 

Day 41 - Trois Riviéres - Day 18

Jenny has been ‘threatening’ to do ‘ a day in the life at Trois Riviéres’ but its hard for her to get the computer when I have it all the time. Here's my dry attempt.

06:15 - Dad gets up and does his homework (true for the first week)

07:00 - Jen stirs

07:20 - Jemma’s alarm starts going off for about 20 mins.

08:00 - Breakfast and ablutions (Ryan gets up somewhere imbetween Jemma and breakfast)

08:15 - mad rush out the door so as not to be late for class. Not very successfully I might add. 

08:30 - 11:30 Barry and Jenny - Grammar Lesson

11:30 - 13:30 Lunch in the cafeteria, sports and nap time for Dad.

13:30 - 15:30 Conversation with Patrick (Mon, Wed, Fri). Every other day we had a tour  somewhere.

16:30 - Pick up the kids, go home and make dinner.

Repeat daily

Casey and Elizabeth having a blast in the cafeteria.

I'm not sure where this is...Is it the library?

The view from the Cafeteria

A guide for what you can buy with the daily food rations.

I have to comment at this point that, despite the simpletons guide to what can be purchased with a food ticket we always had a completely different result when we went to the cashier. That is to say, even if you had the same meal every day there would always be a different result. Usually costing from 6c to $6 more EVERY DAY!

Some cashiers were better than others. I never went with the regular meal and never understood what the cashier was telling me. I would just dole out extra food coupons or cash as required. Jenny, on the other hand, would be asking ‘combien?’ and running back and forth exchanging items of fruit and jello until the exact amount was reached. It was like ‘The Price Is Right’ every lunch time! Too much hassle for me! I had usually finished my lunch by the time she sat down.

The caferia

The main entrance

The main entrance - from outside

I'm not sure what this building is either. People used to come and go with towels??

Did I mention how awesome the concert was? The A group performed about a dozen songs. It was very entertaining. Here are a couple of short snippets.

Day 40 - Trois Riviéres - Day 17

It’s official, kind of, I have checked out of my class. I still attend but in body only. Seriously, I am on my third day of barely understanding anything and Mdme is just getting warmed up. She doesn’t seem to be aware that I am winding down! 

I can’t even tell you what we did today. Here’s a couple of video segments... you decide!

The teacher trying to teach...

'Mature' students...

I have to go in the next couple of days if I am to graduate. It may seem petty to you but I have never had a graduation ceremony! For my last day of high school in England (grade 10) the tradition was to tear the shirt off your body. I have photos and Mick, if you are reading this, please verify. 

I did 5 years at technical college and I think we got our certificates in the mail. I’m sure there was a celebration drink at the pub but I couldn’t tell you exactly what night that was since almost every week was a fairly substantial night at the pub. I do remember one night catching the train home and waking up 2hrs later in Bedford (about 50 miles past my stop). I got on the train going back the other way and woke up another 2hrs later back in London! That was not the end of the night but I digress.

I’m sure it will be a fairly small ceremony. I don’t think there will be gowns or anything. We will see.

Tonight we went to the cabane á sucre. This is the place where maple syrup is harvested and boiled down to make the concentrated syrup that we put on our pancakes.

Our meal consisted of pea soup, tortierre (meat pie), quiche, pork rinds, beans, followed by pancakes and maple syrup. The kids had a jug of maple syrup at their table (about 3 liters) and it was almost all gone at the end of the night!

There was music and dancing and to end the evening, some maple syrup poured out on  shaved ice and wrapped onto a stick. Yummy. 

Our table at Chez Dany's

Typical Quebecois meal

Day 39 - Trois Riviéres - Day 16

Today was the big day of the presentations. I think we enjoyed them more than we expected. Instead of 5mins each being agonizing we were so interested in the topics chosen that some people kept talking for 15-20 mins. 

Jenny and Melissa even had some video footage... (click on the links below)

Jenny's first slide

My first slide

Here is the run down of the presos;

• André Mathieu  "le petit mozart canadien" by Cassey
• Maurice Richard "the Rocket" by Barry
• Yvanne Cournoyer  "the road runner" - a Montreal Canadiennes 1960‘s NHL Player by Nee (Lee)
• Henri Bourassa - Political Figure by Elizabet
• André-Philippe Gagnon "l'homme de  deux milles voixs (the man with the six thousand voices) by Melissa
• Le Cirque du Soleil "Guy Laliberté by Jenny
• John Molson  "un vrai entrepreneur du Québec" by Alan
• Alexandre Despatie "le plongeur quebeçois" by Helene
• Dominic Demers - childrens author en franca is by Laura

I have to admit some people were better prepared than others. I have found the miracle of Google translate. I typed in my english preso and cut and pasted my french preso. Then I just had to try and deliver it as smoothy as possible. Not bad, a bit rushed... no questions.

Then there were others who had obviously written their own preso (in French) had practiced it and delivered it with the occasional reference to notes.

Finally there were the professionals who used thier slides simply as cues to talk about the subject. OK, there are some ringers in our class!!!

Overall the subjects were fascinating and all of us agreed, after the initial hand wringing and hair pulling out that it was a great exercise.

Also, I think we got off a little light compared to the A group who are preparing a little concert for us on Thursday. They will be performing a handful of classic french songs for us. And I thought our exercise was outside my comfort zone...!

We are now seriously considering our next two weeks. We are booked into a campground on Saturday and Sunday night at the Valcartier water park (sshh the kids have no idea). It's only the biggest water park in Canada that just opened this year!
We will leave here at 8:00ish Saturday morning, drive the 2hrs to Quebec City and then up to Valcartier Park another 20mins away. We will park the van and trailer and spend the day at the water park. 
When our camp site is available at 3:00pm (check out is at 11:00am - what can take so long? It’s a square of dirt! No vacuuming, laundry, cleaning of washrooms...) no I’m not bitter...Where was I? Oh, yes when we can check in to our square of dirt at 3:00pm we will have a rest before heading into Quebec City on Saturday night for some crêpes and a free Cirque du Soleil show. 
Before you go on about us being cheap, have you any idea how much the shows cost? The nose bleeds are $45 per person. A decent seat is about $60-90 EACH! We are on a budget people! Do I sound stressed?

Maybe because after completing our FANTASTIC presentations Mdme Paradis gave us about 2hrs of homework! The homework is on ‘imparfait’, whatever that is. The only parfait I’m interested in is the ice-cream kind.

If you had seen Jenny’s preso today you would know that this Cirque du Soleil has been paid for by the City of Quebec at a whopping $35M for a five year contract! And we get to see it for free!! So it’s under an overpass. Try saying that in French!

So that will be awesome. We will spend Sunday at the waterpark too and then Monday we hit the road. We will put in a long day and try for New Brunswick. We plan to spend a week in the Maritimes before pointing the van West again and starting our trek back.

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We have a fund day tomorrow. We are going to the Cabana Sucre (the sugar hut) where maple syrup is harvested from the maple trees. Apparently it’s a blast. I will take lots of photos. 

Day 36/37 Trois Riviéres - Île Saint-Quentin

Île Saint-Quentin

We decided not to go on the bus trip to Montreal on Saturday and not to go on the trip to Shawinigan on Sunday. 

Instead, we had a quiet weekend with no real plans. We did a little bit of shopping and then went over to a little island that splits the St Maurice River at Trois Riviéres (this is where three rivers gets it’s name). The island has a wonderful beach and swimming pool.

Swimming in the St Maurice River (The St Lawrence River is behind turquoise)

La plage (the beach)

Ships on the St Lawrence 

Is Ryan getting bigger? He looks so tall in this photo.

The ice cream parlour very close to the university

Yum! 

Yum!

We are now in our final week. I am a bit stressed because we have this mammoth assignment to have ready for Tuesday morning. We have to choose a Quebecois historical figure and prepare a 5 min (YES I SAID FIVE MINUTES!) speech on that person WITHOUT notes! Forgetaboutit. If I had to do this in English I would be a bit stressed but to do this in French when I can barely say ‘how much is the banana?’. 
This has pushed me to my safe place called - the island of apathy. Apathy is the place where stress cannot exist.

I have chosen for my historical figure - Maurice Richard. 

Maurice Richard 'The Rocket"

If you have not seen the movie about his life I would thoroughly recommend it. He was a legend in hockey in the 1940s and 1950s. He (and all french Canadians) was badly discriminated against because he was french. He broke all the records of the day, helped get the Montreal Canadiennes (Habs) five consecutive Stanley cup wins and won a total of 11.
He spoke out against the blatant discrimination and almost gave up playing hockey as a result. If only I could say all this ‘en francais’!

Day 35 - Trois Riviéres - Day 12

Today was the day of our party / pot luck. We had originally intended it to be a progressive dinner. Given that we are the only ones that drove to Trois Riviéres with a trailer and have pots, pans, cups etc it gave us a bit of an unfair advantage. We decided to have a picnic instead, catered by Sandy, Diana and me. 

It is incredible what Sandy was able to create from a few bags of groceries and $6 per person. Garlic shrimp, bocconcini and tomato salad, mini quiches, roasted chickens, tortellini salad and hot tortellini with alfredo sauce. I could go on, but needless to say it was a feast and we still have about a third left in our fridge! 

Passé composé I think my head will explode!

Our teacher, Stephanie

Steve, Helena and Alan

Regine and the feast

Regine, Terri-Anne and Ashley