Cirque du Soleil in Quebec City!

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Because Tim slept so much yesterday he struggled to sleep last night, so I was up early, plus I was excited about today.

I had breakfast and got talking to the lady at the table next to me who was also alone. She had been to Quebec City yesterday and said it was a wonderful city with lots of history; I’m even more excited now!

I get back to the room and Tim is still asleep so I potter about and try to be quiet, easier said than done in a hotel room!

When Tim wakes up he says that he’s not keen on looking around Quebec City before the show, so we will leave mid-afternoon to get there in time for the show.

Even though he is not keen, Tim agrees to come ice skating with me. It’s just a short walk up the road to Atrium le 1000, which is a shopping/business centre with a huge glass roof over the rink.

ICE SKATING

It’s not too cold in there but we change into jeans anyway. We have time to kill because just as we get there it is time for them to clean the ice up a bit.

We get our skates and Tim manages the walk up the stairs to the rink with falling over, so far so good! I’ve done it a bit and am okay, certainly not as good as Heather or my brother David, but can still hold my own even though I’m a little rusty.

Poor Tim though…

He neither ice skates, roller skates or roller blades so he is definitely out of his comfort zone! He pretty well holds onto the edge or me, but he still manages to get around, at least he gave it a go, and he even managed to let go and fly solo occasionally, good on him!

The little kiddies are able to use a little ice skating zimmer frame and Tim says where are the frames for the grown ups!

But it was lots of fun and I had a great time. We had really nice Chinese for lunch, complete with fortune cookies. Mine says ‘You find beauty in ordinary things. Do not lose this ability.’ I think that sums me up pretty well, I always try to find the up side to things.

Tim was pretty happy when it was time to leave, he was pretty well over it, either because he couldn’t do it or he was just bored. Maybe it was just Montreal…

Mid afternoon we started the 3 hour drive to Quebec City. Once we were out of the city and onto the country roads, driving became a whole lot more enjoyable. The countryside is nice and there are a lot of farms and small little farm houses scattered along. It looks like somewhere that would be so nice and tranquil to live. Tim missed most of it as it was nap time, perhaps my driving is as calming as a lullaby???? Haha

There seems to be a lot of road works throughout the whole of Canada, and Quebec is no different. But even with all the works going on, it is still easy to drive and no big hold ups.

We were warned that Quebec City would be a lot harder to drive in and that English is very rarely spoken, so it was with trepidation that we arrived.

We (or I) was pleasantly surprised! The directions from Carmen were nice and easy, especially with Tim helping. All the signs directing us to Cirque du Soleil were in French, but most were pretty common sense and we got there with no trouble at all. Because we had front door parking included in our ticket it made it even more simple. Everybody that we spoke to, spoke English so that was great!

We had Tapas Rouge tickets that gave us entry to the tent before the show and at intermission with free food, drinks, program, photo and parking. The tent was almost empty and it turns out that over here they have an extra tier in the ticket pricing that we don’t get at home, so you can sit in the same seats but don’t have access to the tent (although at home the tent has a really exciting atmosphere that it didn’t have here - so I guess Tim can say ‘I told you so’ because he didn’t want to get them). It was all finger food and all of the non meat ones I quite liked but Tim didn’t like anything so bought a packet of Doritos before we went in.

At intermission we came back to the tent for dessert and coffee/tea. They had bite size cheesecakes and chocolates which were yummmmmy, for me anyways, Tim wasn’t keen and threw his out after the first bite. They also had whatever type of coffee you wanted but I found (my new addiction) Peppermint tea so was more than happy with that.

The show was fantastic. It followed man’s evolution and his fascination with flight. It had a lot of Indian themed music, dancing and drumming. The talent was amazing, it never ceases to amaze me how they come up with all these amazing stunts and how incredibly talented all the stars of the show are. I will definitely be seeing this show again when it finally comes to Perth!

Leaving the show to head home was a little more challenging. They had a lot a road closures and police were redirecting traffic so that not everybody went the same route out. Good idea in theory and especially when you live locally, but for us it was made a little tricky. The police only redirected traffic off the main road, nobody directed you from there. Eventually we made it back to the highway and arrived back in Montreal at 2am.

It was a long night but a good night.

 

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