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.
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