2 days, 200km, less than $200, 3 hot chocolates.

There are two Allo-Stop stops in RdL. One is at the McDonald's I can see on the other side of the centre commercial on my way to school and is maybe 20 minutes walk from the house, if that. The other is at St Hubert (fast chicken but classier than KFC or Maccy D's. Just about.) which is at least a 50 minute walk away. Unfortunately it was the latter I was headed for on Friday.

It was a chilly walk so I got myself a petrol station hot chocolate to keep warm while I waited for the man. It worked but it wasn't the best way to introduce myself to Canadian hot chocolate. I was to find out they do it pretty well here.

My driver was Jean-Michel. He wore a bandana on his head like a pirate and had small shifty eyes but was neither a pirate or shifty and we had a good chat so I practiced my French. He'd not been to England but knows some of Europe as he has a Swedish girlfriend. We talked about the environment and public transport and travel and drinking cultures. The two hour journey passed quickly enough and it was wonderful to see forests all different autumn colours.

I caught the bus into town from Ste-Foy (a suburb of Quebec City that is about 7 minutes drive from the towncentre in a car, several hours' walk or half an hour by bus. I don't understand it either) picked up a box o'beer and headed to Andy's place. Or should I say André's as Andy was in Germany and my host was André. And a very good host he was too.

We were just discussing what would happen if magicians worked for armies when Stephanie and Salima turned up and we went flyering for an Palestinian hiphop group. I say "flyering" there was a little bit of sticking paper to old posters with sellotape, quite a lot of holding the end of the tape so the roll unwound and rolled off, a bit of making André wear the ruined tape but mostly it was wandering about and looking in shops. We even went to a lovely chocolaterie called Erico for hot chocolate. Much better than the first one I had! Not as thick as the French ones that are pretty much just melted chocolate but not that sweet and so SO good. I was also shown a very sweet épicerie which has all sorts of fancy and expensive and interesting wares dedans.

We then went to get ingredients for dinner, at which point André realised that cuillère à thé de canelle doesn't mean "a spoon of cinnamon tea" (because why would you put cinnamon tea in apple crumble?) but rather "a teaspoon of cinnamon". This story was to be recounted at every possible opportunity.

Dinner was quiche, presided over by Salima and pudding was apple crumble, presided over byAndré for his very first solo baking experience. It was yummy and there was plenty of random yet entertaining conversation with people I'd only met that afternoon.

Saturday I met Laura and Nick in Second Cup for a hot chocolate with whipped cream and chocolate curls. We spent most of the rest of the day in Simons and a couple of other shops out in Ste-Foy but it was my formal introduction to Simons and couldn't been rushed. I bought furry white earmuffs that I'm certain are not vegetarian and a fluffy white beret.

Laura and Nick also found themselves some chic attire.

Hat and earmuffs from Simons Scarf and cardigan from Simons

After the most enjoyable trip to the pretty clothes and accessories we went back to Nick's for tea (Eary Grey) and biscuits. When I saw André later that evening he couldn't get over how British we were being with our tea and biscuits. Fiona always says there is no one more patriotic than an ex-pat and I know I drink a lot more tea here (as I did in France) than I do in England.

Anyway, that evening I took the bus out quite a long way to find the Port-o Swing studio and my whole reason for the weekend in Quebec. You guessed it: Swing dance. It was weird going on my own but I made good dancers dance with me and then other good dancers asked me to dance including ...the Canadian balboa champion (well, the bloke anyway).

Sadly I only got about three hours of dancing in before I had to catch the last bus back (that or a two hour walk after midnight, no thank you). But then I went to Salima's birthday house party where there were cupcakes and dancing and a very old drunk couple who smoked a lot and petticoats and a Newfie (someone from Newfoundland) and discussions over who of the Canadians was the most English.

On Sunday I met Nick and Laura and we (mostly me) cooked brunch for André to say thank you for letting me stay and then I had to run off and get my Allo-Stop so left my fellow Brits to do the washing up. Fortunately I had fed them well and we're all still friends.

The bright lights (shows) of the big city

First time to Quebec City and how do we get there? Lison just happens to be driving and and gives us a lift. I swear we get more than our money's worth for our rent. Brilliant, non-exploitative brilliance.

Just before leaving Dad said "hope you find a good Winter coat" I said, "I'm not going 200km to go shopping. I'm going for a party!" (the response was "Even better!"). So yes, we headed South to celebrate Nick's birthday. Eibhlin and I arrived at the hostel and immediately bumped into two other assistants, then on our quest to find the Allo-Stop office walked past Andy's housemate and his brother. First time to a strange city and three familiar faces in less than 40 minutes. Madness.

It was beautiful sunshine so

we spent most of Saturday-day wandering about looking at buildings and water which suited me very well. Saw a one-man-band playing old favourites such as California Dreamin'. Stopped off for an expensive beer, tried to nick some crisps (nearly said "chips" - stupid Americanisms) from the people next to us, succeeded and were very disappointed. Ick.

Aaaanyhoo, after a rather nice dinner of fish and chips with an over-attentive waiter, at least until we wanted the bill, we headed back to the hostel to get ready to meet the others and bumped into the St-Georges Crew. We weren't allowed to drink in the rooms but we befriended a French girl in our dorm and started the party.

She came with us to see the Moulin d'images which was an amazing light show out by the port. When I say "light show" it was more like a huge cinema experience on the side of several industrial buildings with pyrotechnics and booming sound effects. I was massively impressed and didn't even mind that it turned cold about 9:30.

On the way back to Andy's (to get the party started) we invaded his l

ocal depanneur. The girl on the till looked very surprised about how many people were shuffling in, picking up copious quantities of booze and blocking the doorway. Mind you, with sales like that she looked pretty happy.

Andy's place is pretty impressive. There's three of them in a pretty central house that's spacious and fairly minimalist - perfect for house parties. Space and not much to break. We were only going there for one drink and impressively Andy managed to mobilise the troops and get us on to a bar before heading for Bistro to get our groove on, throw some shapes etc.

We invaded the place and made the dancefloor our own. A few locals tried to join the group just to have a dance but they couldn't keep up with our awesome moves. I use "awesome" in the loosest possible sense. We were definitely going for maximum flailing, minimum cool.

At one point Emma coerced a breakdancer into throwing down, mostly by going into the middle and doing some sort of chicken-esque move and daring him to do better. He didn't seem very keen to show off but we made him anyway!

2:40am and time to head to Chez Ashton for a poutine fix. My first time in Quebec and it was everything I'd heard it to be. Yum.

I got up early the next morning to watch the Grand Prix. Totally worth it. Lewis crashed on the final lap and gifted Kimi third place. I was grinning all day.

I and a couple of the St-Georges lot met Laura M in Second Cup to sample their indulgent hot chocolate before meeting everyone else and heading to Cosmos for brunch. And my, what a brunch it was. Yum yum yum.

After that Eibhlin and I called into the Allo-Stop office to book a lift home and then everyone piled onto Andy's bed to watch

silly YouTube videos.

We got to the meeting place for the Allo-Stop (this is a brilliant car-pooling service that is cheap, convenient and a chance to practice some French) and shortly after our lift arrived and we had a really nice journey chatting about Quebec, England and Ireland and the people that live there. If only we didn't have to walk 50 minutes after being dropped off to get back to the house it would've been the perfect end to a fabulous weekend. 200km isn't far for a party.