Note: This is the blog for Thursday, July 28.
Woke up after our last night’s sleep in our wonderful room overlooking Parliament Hill and set off to find a beaver tail. A beaver tail is a fried dough pastry kneaded out to the rough shape of a beaver tail. There are tons of toppings, but the traditional is sugar and cinnamon. I was really looking forward to trying one out and, having read that the only place to get one in the summer was at BeaverTails in Byward Market (the same place President Obama got his on his visit to Ottawa), we set out on the short walk from the hotel on our quest. Sadly, however, the store was closed, so we ended up at Tim Hortons again…
BeaverTails in Ottawa's Bywater Market
Returned to the room and checked out. Drove past Parliament Hill and said goodbye to Ottawa, a town that I had really grown to like. Hopped onto 417 through the rolling farmland of eastern Ontario. Saw a sign for “Greyhawk golf course” — that combined with one we saw on Tuesday for “Rivendell golf course” makes Ontario either the coolest or the nerdiest place on the planet.
Eastern Ontario farmland
Crossed into Quebec where the route changed from 417 to 40. One thing was immediately apparent — all the bilingual signs were gone, replaced with all French. I have a very rudimentary working of French from lots of classes two decades ago and a study abroad in Lausanne, Switzerland as a high school junior so we weren’t totally messed up. However, the change was startling. I had assumed that since Canada is a bilingual country that all provinces would show both languages on their signage as in Ontario — turns out that is not the case. I wonder if British Columbia and points far removed from Quebec do English-only on their road signs.
There were other changes as well. The route graphics for 40 more closely resembled U.S. interstate signage with a red band on top and a blue area beneath with the route numbers in white displayed in the blue. They also added a fleur-de-lis to the bottom.
Route 40 symbol, similar to U.S. Interstate symbol
Not only that, though, but their “watch out for deer” sign was noticeably more… happy… compared to the Ontario equivalent.
Happy deer. So very happy! Let me prance into your car!
There were also several places that warned of moose but, as is always the case with moose, despite my best efforts we saw none. The moose is a lie!
Yeah, right. Whatever.
Drove past Montreal but just the suburbs was “fun” enough. We stopped at a travel plaza with an Esso station and a Rotisserie Benny, which we popped into to get our grub on. We felt like strangers in a strange land but thankfully (as we had read) many Quebeckers can speak English quite well (much better than I speak French). They even added a $0.00 item to our bill — “Parle Anglais” so when they called our number it was “three-hundred-eighty-nine” and not “trois-cent-quatre-vign-neuf.” I was able to understand many of the announcements, and read some of the menu, but I was just so rusty… Addison and I had a bacon cheeseburger and fries (which tasted remarkably like Char-Grill, not a bad thing) while Michelle had a club sandwich and Genetta a open face chicken sandwich — which they covered in peas. They sure do seem to love peas at that restaurant.
The stretch between Montreal and Quebec City was quite desolate (though it did afford some beautiful views of the Saint Lawrence river and the bluffs beyond) other than Trois Rivieres. There were a number of Quebeckers, however, that went way, way, way faster than the speed limit and liked to weave in and out and tailgate. I’m not sure what is up with that. Happily, though, we later saw two of the very cars that were doing that pulled and (presumably) ticketed later on down the road. Yay!
Driving through Quebec City (I’ll just call the city Quebec from here on out) was a little hairy — narrow lanes, not the best markings, and lots of one-way road fun. I was able to navigate us to just past the hotel, however, and Michelle executed a perfect U-turn to get us into the hotel parking lot where the car will remain until Sunday morning’s trip to New Hampshire.
We’re staying at the Hotel Manoir Victoria. It’s a nice hotel, with very nice staff, and a much bigger room than we expected. It is also centrally located in the old town, which is a huge plus. The kids are easily amused watching some of their shows in French and laughing at the overdub — shows like Zack and Cody as well as the Simpsons.
We set out for dinner and stepped immediately into a crowded street with tons of appealing restaurants and shops all about. Interesting shops, at that! There were at least three that would be at home at a Renaissance Faire — selling dragon statuettes, fairy pictures, and weapons.
We walked a bit past the old walls (oh, Quebec is the only walled city in Canada or the United States) then turned around and ate Chinese at Chez Soi La Chine, a decent enough Chinese eatery. I had sliced chicken in curry sauce, Genetta her sliced chicken with bean sprouts, Michelle sweet and sour pork, and Addison chicken wings. The curry wasn’t as good as Orient Garden but was decent — not very spicy and a bit salty. It was a treat having bilingual fortunes in our cookies and they also served some shortbread-like cookies. In all not a bad meal, even if it felt a bit incomplete without an accompanying sweet tea.
Walked through the streets another hour just listening to music (especially some bagpipers — wonderful), watching performers (a gentleman on a unicycle juggling fire), and getting the lay of the land. The city is so beautiful. Though hilly, the hills provided stunning vantage points across the city and the valley and to the rather large mountains to the north miles and miles away. I really regret not having my camera during this walk, so many things I’d have loved to show in this blog!
Eventually stopped at a patisserie and Genetta and I had pastry twists with chocolate in them (the croissant version is called a chocaltine apparently) and Addison had a cinnamon bun. Very tasty. Headed back to the hotel to plan tomorrow, write the blog, and crash.
Route for July 28, 2011