Montmorency Falls

This is a continuation of my Quebec City post from a couple days ago.  I realized when I was about 3/4 done writing that post that I forgot to mention something else that we did, and at that point, I was kind of too lazy to go back and edit.  Gotta keep it interesting around here.

Like I said, in Quebec City, the attractions did not take as long as anticipated, so we were trying to find some other things to do.  Zac read in the guidebook I bought about a waterfall near the city that seemed like it could be really cool to see, Montmorency Falls.  Originally, we thought it was 30 miles outside the city, so we assumed it would be really picturesque and nature-y, so we planned on going out there to have a picnic, hike around and see the falls.

In reality, the waterfall was about a 5 minute drive from the city, and it was actually very very crowded and touristy.  It was a HUGE waterfall – about twice as high as Niagara Falls – and there is a Montmorency Manor right by it, which was a really fancy lunch restaurant.  Also, it was kind of in the middle of a suburb, so it wasn’t very nature-y, and my hiking outfit seemed kind of ridiculous once we got there as seeing the waterfall could not have entailed LESS of a workout if I was looking at a picture of it on the internet.  PS yes, I had a “hiking outfit.”  This is how you know I’m not a real hiker, although I actually do enjoy it.

We parked up at the top of the falls and walked over to the bridge that spans the top of the falls.

You can’t really tell how tall the waterfall is from any of my pictures.

Through the trees

The outfit.

After seeing the waterfall, which, as I’ve been saying about a lot of things in Quebec City, didn’t take nearly as long as anticipated, we decided it would be a good time to replenish our diminished supply of groceries…stupid raccoons.  We found a grocery store in the area and stocked up so we could have some breakfasts, lunches and snacks not in restaurants.

Later that night, we ate a delicious dinner at a restaurant called Le 48 in the Lower Town region.  I took this picture of my fish and chips, which was really good!

Fish & Chips

Obviously, as we all know, this is not a food blog.  The main reason I’m posting this picture is because it reminded me that I wanted to talk about another Quebecoise “delicacy.”  A lot of the restaurants we passed in Quebec did not serve real Canadian food.  They mostly all had Italian, Irish Pub type stuff, pizza, sandwiches, etc.  The one Canadian food we noticed everywhere was this dish called Poutine.

You guys, we all know that America gets a lot of crap for being fat and loving nasty fried food.  Well, I think it’s time we turn our attention to the Canadians in this respect because they truly eat this dish that is SO gross.  It is french fries smothered in gravy and topped with CHEESE CURDS!!!!  And sometimes, if they’re getting fancy, they put other toppings on too, like bacon.  Can we just discuss how terrible that sounds?  I wanted SO badly to order it, and say that I experienced a bit of the local cuisine, but I could not bring myself to do it.  No part of me didn’t want to gag whenever I actually thought about eating a bite of that.  It was kind of disappointing because, as our tour guide at the Citadel said, there was only one restaurant in all of Quebec City that actually served authentic Canadian food, so it was kind of disappointing not to be able to really get into the culture in that respect.

I feel like these past two posts make it sound like I’m trashing Canada, which I am not.  I had a really good time there, and literally everyone we met was so friendly and welcoming.  I just notice the things that I think are funny/weird and like to make light of them.  But truly, Quebec City was a great place, so I’m sorry if these posts make it seem like I didn’t have a good time there.  It was really fun, and Zac and I are already talking about going back to Montreal sometime.  So keep reading, Montreal is coming up next, and there may be a little guest post from my travel partner :)

OH and the answer to my “name that tune” from my last post was Jay-Z.  And my theory of hip hop will just have to be disclosed at a later date.  But once I do disclose it, you will all think I’m brilliant.

 

Excuse my French, but I’m in French-Canada *

*Name that tune!  (Hint: in one lyric of this song, my theory about hip hop is partially confirmed.  Yes, I have a theory about hip hop.  Because I’m hardcore.)

Let’s get down to business.  After camping, Zac and I drove up to visit our neighbor to the north, Canada!  Originally, when we planned this trip, we were going to go straight from Maine to Montreal and spend a fair amount of time there and then Toronto; however, several people told us that we should actually be going to Quebec City and that it was a lot more interesting than Montreal.  So, we drove from Maine to Quebec City and spent a couple of days there.  

Before I talk about Quebec City, I just want to say a few words about the drive because it was beautiful.  Maine is a really beautiful place, and also MOOSE TERRITORY!!!  You know how there are always deer crossing signs everywhere?  Well in Maine, they have Moose Crossing signs.  I was really hoping to see a moose, even though I realized how unlikely that would be.  I mean, of all the times you have ever seen a deer crossing sign, how many times do you actually see a deer nearby?  But, I was looking intently at the sides of the roads for a moose, and I lucked out!!!  I started screaming, probably almost causing Zac to drive into oncoming traffic, but eventually we got turned around and I took a picture of this beautiful scene:

Moosey!!! (I scared him away by screaming this at him as I was trying to take this picture…oops hope he wasn’t too thirsty.)

Maine

Once we got to Quebec, I quickly saw that Quebec City is a really interesting place.  Actually, the whole province of Quebec is pretty interesting.  It’s a French-speaking part of Canada, which is honestly just WEIRD.  This area hasn’t been a French colony since the eighteenth century, and the people who live there are just stubbornly clinging on to their French-speaking history despite the fact that they were a British colony for about 4 times as long as they were ever associated with France.  I actually thought it was fun to be around French again, so I’m not really complaining, but if you think about it from a historical perspective, it is so strange that they speak French anywhere in Canada.  

I thought that Quebec City was very cool, but I will say that I think it was a bit oversold to me.  It is one of the oldest cities in North America, and it is a walled city, so a lot of the old town is within the walls.

What would this blog be without a dorky picture of me? (Stay tuned because there will be more in this post!) These are the aforementioned walls of the city.

Zac and I spent a lot of time walking around within the walls, but were kind of disappointed with how touristy it is.  It doesn’t really feel like there’s much that’s authentic there, but there are some neat shops and restaurants to see. 

Alley

Vieux-Quebec

While we were walking around the Old Port, we stumbled upon a museum of the Quebecoise Navy.  Since we were meandering and not really sure where to head next, we just went in to see what it was like.  This was the first time I realized how intensely proud of their history the Canadians are, and especially of their military history.  I don’t know if I have any military buffs in my readership (no way.) but this may surprise them, as Canada has like…zero independent military history.  Remember that Canada wasn’t even its own country until 1867, and since that time, it has fought ZERO wars where it wasn’t a “teammate” of another country.  Also, Quebec is not a province that borders any ocean.  So the Quebecois Navy defends a river.  Granted, it’s a large river, but a river nonetheless.

As promised.

This theme was reiterated later on the trip when Zac and I took a tour of the Citadel of Quebec.  It’s actually one of the more interesting attractions in Quebec, and walking through the old town didn’t take up quite as much time as we expected it to, so we thought, ‘why not?’  Quebec has a really cool Citadel, which is associated with the fortifications of the city.  The tour guide was going on and on about how efficient and awesome the structure was when someone in our tour group asked, “Has the fortification ever been attacked?” and she was forced to admit that it had not.  But yeah, so all of this is to say that Quebec has a very strong sense of pride in their military, which is really cool, but it is also kind of strange.  One funny/goofy thing of interest is that their military “mascot” is a BILLY GOAT.  Apparently, this goat was given to them by the Queen of England (maybe she was mad about their declaring independence and this was her passive-aggressive gesture?) Regardless, the Canadians apparently see no humor in the fact that this is the image of their military that they are actively promoting:

Did you guys think I was joking about there being a lot of dorky pictures in this post?  Wait, it’s about to get better.

I couldn’t convince Zac to do this with me, so I was forced to play both parts on my own…

I did, however, get Zac to pose in this picture with me, which is an incredible view of the city from the fortifications (disregard my outfit, it’s from earlier in the day when we attempted to go hiking, which will be detailed in a later post…):

So that’s part one of my post about Quebec City.  I don’t mean to be disrespectful to Canada or their military, but it is very, very apparent how much pride they have in this institution, which I think is interesting and noteworthy.  And I do think a billy goat is not that intimidating of a mascot for a military to have.  I think you can agree?  Anyway, I’ll be back to finish talking about the Q.C. later, when I’ll reveal the answer to my “name that tune” and “theory of hip hop” referenced above.  I think I should go into T.V. writing with these cliffhangers, huh?

Sebago Lake State Park

Sorry to keep you guys waiting in suspense to hear all about the rest of the trip!  After my last post, the hotels we stayed at only allowed us to connect so many devices to the internet, and I kept having to choose to connect my phone so I could keep up to date with work e-mails.  Being an adult sucks sometimes (all of the time).  However now that I am back, I plan on just continuing to blog regularly to finish out the posts I had planned to write, so just pretend you don’t know that I’m not currently on vacation and check back for the next week or so for more updates!

Alright, so I last left off saying that I had a surprisingly good time camping.  Does this surprise anyone more than it surprised me?  It worked out really well that we planned on not staying the night in Portland because even though it was really fun and super cute, I think we had kind of exhausted the Portland-esque activities that we wanted to do in one afternoon, and were happy to move on.  We wanted to camp somewhere a bit north of Portland to get a head start on the drive to Quebec City, and it ended up working out perfectly.  Zac asked around a bit in Portland and was told that Sebago Lake State Park was a great place to camp and it was about 30 miles north of Portland, so it was perfect!

We got there around 4:30 or 5, and were assigned our campsite.  While Zac set up our camping gear (I say “our” because I am now the proud owner of my own sleeping bag!), and got everything ready at the site, I ran out to a nearby grocery store to get some things to cook out and snack on during the night.

The sleeping bag I wanted to buy…

Side note, I stopped at Wal-Mart when I stayed over in Erie, PA to get a sleeping bag for this portion of the trip, and I was VERY tempted to buy this Disney Princesses one, but I had a vivid image of me in a tent, soaking wet and freezing cold in my dumb cloth sleeping bag, and it was enough to deter me.  The “real” sleeping bags ranged in temperature from 10-30 and 30-50 degrees.  I got the higher one even though those temperatures seem very low to be sleeping in a tent…hopefully I’ll never really need to test out its true capabilities.  So yeah, that’s the story of my sleeping bag.  How glad are you guys that you know that?

Alright, so when I got back to the campsite with the groceries, Zac had everything set up and ready to go!  After cooking out some hot dogs and having a nice little campfire dinner, Zac and I ventured down to the lake to hang out.  The lake had a little beach area, and we just sat on a log, listened to music and chatted for a while.

So that was camping, and it was really really fun!  The bad part came later when I forgot about all the food I bought and left it sitting out on the picnic table when I went to bed.  The raccoons definitely came out to snatch it around at 2:30 a.m., which woke me up.  Once I was awake, I became very paranoid about the noises I could hear – at first I thought it was a psycho murderer, then I got a bit more realistic and thought it may be a bear, and was equally scared.  Obviously I was way too scared to get out and check since I didn’t want to alert the bear and/or murderer to my presence, so I just laid awake in terror for a while.

Once the noises stopped and I was trying to go back to sleep, it struck me just how uncomfortable I was…this is the major downside of camping.  Sleeping on the ground with no pillow = major back and hip pain.  Yes, I sound like an 80-year-old, but I was in pain all over.  Eventually I tossed and turned around enough to get comfortable enough to fall back asleep, but all in all I think I was laying awake on the ground for about an hour and a half :(

In the morning when I woke up again, I realized that the raccoons had made off with the muffins I bought for breakfast.  Jerks!  However, the good news about this was that it was the perfect excuse to swing by McDonald’s and pick up breakfast, and I am pretty much always looking for an excuse to go to McDonald’s breakfast.  (I’m not kidding, in case that wasn’t obvious – I LOVE fast food, but try not to eat it that often…don’t judge.)

After that, we were off to Quebec Cityl!  I will write about it soon…again, pretend you don’t know that I’m really back in Ohio :)

I’m not drunk!

Whoa, when I just re-read my last post, I realized it sounds like I was really drunk when I wrote that!  I blame Zac.  He was talking to me while I wrote it and I couldn’t keep up my train of thought.  Anyway, that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it…

Anyway, I promise I’ll be back soon to talk about camping, etc.  We are now in CANADA, the ancestral homeland of this little gigantic cutie:

So I’ll be back with updates a bit later :)

Maine

When Zac and I originally planned this trip, one of the parts I was the most excited about was going to Maine.  For some reason I just thought it would be really cool, relaxing and pretty.  I kind of thought that I was over-hyping it in my mind and that I would be disappointed when I got there based solely on some image I had created in my head that wasn’t actually based on anything.  LUCKILY, I was not disappointed at all, but it was actually pretty different than what I had pictured. 

We drove up to Portland on Monday morning, and arrived by 11:45-ish.  Since we didn’t spend the night in Portland (we camped about 30 miles north of there…my first time camping!), we drove into the downtown/port area that we wanted to see and just parked the car.  We just kind of walked around the port area, which was sooo cute!  There are tons of cute shops and restaurants.

Obviously a lot of the restaurants are based around seafood, specifically lobster.  I have never really had lobster before except for one bite I tried once when I was about 12 years old.  Back then, I thought it was gross, and to be honest, I am still a bit shaky when it comes to seafood.  I like most fish, but shellfish and shrimp, etc. kind of intimidate/disgust me.  So as we walked around, I was kind of trying to psych myself up to get lobster for lunch wherever we stopped.  I was about 50/50 about whether I would actually do it, but I was REALLY trying to talk myself into it because Maine is probably the best place to try lobster for the first time since it’s (a) relatively extremely cheap and (b) extremely, extremely fresh.  

After doing a bit of research online, Zac determined that one of the best places to get lobster and seafood in Portland was a place called Three Sons.  Once we found it, I was immediately skeptical.  It is actually a wholesale seafood retailer, and they only sell food to eat there as kind of side business.  This means that they don’t have a lot of options on the menu – it’s basically lobster, crab, mussels, clams and corn on the cob.  So, it was decided for me – I would be eating lobster in Maine, and without the delicious side-dish buffer I was kind of hoping for.  

 …this was the entrance of the restaurant…

 The bring the lobster in from the ocean – JUST to the left of Zac, so I’d say it’s about as fresh as it gets…there is literally ocean water on the floor of this “restaurant.”

Well, I have to admit, that despite my original skepticism about the restaurant, I thought it was AWESOME!!!  At first when they brought the food to our table, I literally shrieked when Zac pulled the lobster out of the paper bag it came in and put it in front of me, but I sucked it up, and cracked open the claw, and made sure to dip the meat in PLENTY of butter, and it turns out, that it was great!  

 Zac suggested I put the empty claw on my thumb for a “thumbs up” picture, but I wasn’t quite ready for that…

After this, we ended up riding our bikes down to South Portland to see some lighthouses.  It was interesting because South Portland was much less touristy – it was pretty residential, so it was cool to see the “real” Portland in that respect.  Sadly, though, it ended up being kind of a bust.  The lighthouses down there weren’t really that close to each other, so we could only see one (this was mainly because of me, as I was pretty much dying to stop biking around by that point).  Actually, Zac and I both said we were kind of disappointed with the lighthouse.  It was really short and overall not as cool as I thought it would be, but it was at least pretty good exercise getting out there!  

 Soo that was Portland!  I think we saw what we wanted to – at least I did!  After our lighthouse misadventure, we left Portland and headed up north to camp for the night at Sebago Lake State Park.  Those of you who know me (which hopefully is all of you…) may be surprised by this, but it was really fun!  I will write about it in a separate post because this is getting pretty long.  I just don’t want to leave out any details.  So come back soon for my camping adventures! 

Beantown!

Hello from Boston!  (Actually I’m not in Boston anymore, but I was when I typed this post.  Thanks to a terrible internet connection, I wasn’t able to upload it, so enjoy – a few days belatedly).

View from Charlestown (aka “The Town”)

Luckily the rest of the road trip was pretty uneventful (bikes remained on the car the whole time) and I made pretty good time.  Northern New York is really pretty; however, I was getting pretty bored of it by the time I got here.

Boston has been great so far!  I managed to Priceline Negotiate my way to an AWESOME hotel, The Intercontinental, and even though we haven’t spent that much time here, it has been really fun. (Sidenote: Priceline Negotiator is awesome).  The location of the hotel is awesome – right on the Boston Harbor.

The one downside is that, as in most fancy hotels, you have to PAY for internet.  No offense to you guys, but I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t have to try to finish up some stuff for work.  I mean, can we just comment on what a scam that is?  I should have just gone to the local McDonald’s and used their free internet, but let’s be honest…that’s kind of weird.  (UPDATE – this is the terrible internet connection I was telling you about. $15 down the drain!!)

Alright enough of that.  Like I said, the hotel is in a great location – kind of in between a lot of cool stuff.  We started out yesterday with a trip to Harvard.  I’m not really sure why, but I kind of wanted to see it.  It was different than I pictured it.  Obviously it’s very old, but I kind of had an image in my head of it being very pristine old red brick.  It was a bit more…dingy than I imagined it.  It was really pretty, I just think it’s so funny how since it didn’t line up with the completely unfounded image I had of it, I was kind of disappointed.  Also, there were a TON of tourists there, so it didn’t really have the quiet, serious college campus-y feel that I expected.  We did see the law school, though, and although it’s very pretty, I’m still not upset I didn’t go there.  

Law School

Me at Harvard.  Looking Cool.

On our way to Harvard, we noticed an area right by our hotel that seemed really cool, so we thought we would head back that way and ride our bikes around to see as much as possible, given the short amount of time we were in Boston.

We rode to the “Little Italy” of Boston, and stumbled upon a crazy street festival, St. Joseph’s Feast.  It was really cool.  There were a ton of people milling around, eating street food, playing carnival games, etc.  At the end there was a miniature parade where the police band played, as well as a couple other small marching bands.  I don’t really know what the main tradition was, but they had a statue (presumably of St. Joseph) and people were pinning money to it in such a way that it formed like a “cape” around the statue.  Then at the end, they walked the statue down the street in the parade.  It was fun to watch even though I didn’t really understand what was going on.

We ended up eating lunch in a little Italian restaurant on the same street.  I read that all the spots around there were pretty good, so we just randomly picked a spot.  It was alright, but in the future, I may be a bit more choose-y because I don’t think it was as good as some of the other places around.

In the afternoon, we basically just rode our bikes around to a bunch of different neighborhoods.  We saw Charlestown, which is the area that the movie “The Town” is based on.  I was kind of scared to head that way since the movie makes it look pretty rough.  However, in reality, it’s a SUPER nice area.  I think there are parts of it that are a bit dodgier, but from what I could see, it was nice.  I would want to live there.  Unfortunately, if I lived in Boston, there is no way I could afford to live there.  This was one very noticeable drawback to life in Boston.  The cost of living seems like it would just be through the roof.  Although I thought Boston was really cool, and it impressed me more than I expected it to, I am still grateful to live in a city where things are more reasonably priced.  I hate sounding like such a weirdo, but I mean, I saw a sign for monthly parking for $350!!  I pay $140, and I think that’s a lot!

Anyway, I digress.  Charlestown.  Also in Charlestown, there are a lot of interesting historical sites.  We rode past the USS Constitution (“Old Iron Sides”), which was a famous naval ship from the Revolution.  Interesting fact, it’s the oldest naval commissioned ship still afloat.

Old Ironsides…and the boat, too (AHAHAHAHAHAHA I know you guys are here for the jokes)

For dinner, we didn’t really know where to start, but luckily Zac’s friends used to live in Boston and were able to provide some suggestions.  We had ridden our bikes through an area called Back Bay earlier in the day, and it was really, really nice and quaint.  There were a ton of cute shops and restaurants, so I was excited when Zac’s friends suggested a restaurant in that area.  We ended up eating at a restaurant called Sonsie’s, which was delicious!  It’s a cafe style restaurant, and we got a seat right by the window, so we could people watch while we ate.

 

 

 

 Picture above: Back Bay (so cute!) Picture Below: Sonsie’s.

Then, that night, we did THE WORLD’s most random thing.  We went to an Our Lady Peace concert.  Yes, in 2012.  For those of you who don’t know, Our Lady Peace is kind of an intense, hardcore rock band that was formed in the early 90’s.  So by now, they are pretty old.  It was actually really fun, and the concert was in the Boston University area, so it was cool to see another part of town, and do something different.  However, it’s always kind of awkward to watch aging grunge-rock bands.  Like, FYI, lead singer, screaming into a megaphone into a microphone is a little less edgy when you’re WEARING A BLAZER…

Soo okay, that’s a hurried Boston post.  So far, we’ve done a ton of cool things on this trip, so I can’t wait come be back and tell you guys about it all.  All my posts won’t be as long and rambling as this one…hopefully.