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Published: March 26th 2008
Night Skyline
Quebec City, Quebec, Canada If Underwear Were Food, Then Long Underwear Would Be Manna From Heaven
Yep, there’s something to be said for a catchy title. Seems that the catchy titles are the ones that get people reading, and frankly, that’s why I write these blogs - so that you will read. So read on world, read on!!
Restlessness had finally set in. It was only a matter of time before Kel could no longer handle the day to day grind. I sat back watching the travel itch grow in her knowing that, at some point, she would either plan a trip for us (she’s the travel agent in the family) or she would explode. Hoping on the former, I was relieved when she called me with destination ideas for a quick trip.
She never gives just one idea, ideas always come in at least threes. This doesn’t really work for my personality. I’m a single-idea-and-run-with-it sort of guy so multiple options only cause my eyes to bug out and panting to begin as I become short of breath. Needless to say, she wasn’t pleased with my reaction to her ideas. As I was freaking out over the multiple-choice question
she had laid in front of me, she was expecting near holy rejoicing from my end of the phone.
After I settled down and we talked it out for a few minutes we both felt better and decided that winter was the way to go. I had learned to ski when we were in Austria and Switzerland and Kel and I both were itching to ski again. Since we had received less than a quarter of an inch of snow all winter in Virginia, it would be nice to head somewhere that actually had snow.
Thus, after twenty minutes of talking and a couple of hours of research for Kel, we had a trip to Quebec City planned. Oh, by the way, we’ve become last minute travelers. The whole reason that we chose to travel in mid-March was that Kel had accepted a new job (the first permanent job either of has accepted since our world tour - cheers to a regular paycheck!) and only had a week prior to starting the job. So, we planned the trip less than two weeks before leaving. I guess that would freak some people out but it just seems par for
Le Chateau Frontenac
Quebec City, Quebec, Canada the course after a year long extravaganza of travel.
Sure It’s Gonna Be Cold…Really Cold I grew up and was raised south of the Mason-Dixon line and chose to stay in the Southern US for all of my schooling and later the first six years out of college (University for you non-Americans). Why, you ask? Simple, I’ve never been good with the cold. Some would say that I was a wimp. Strike that, everyone I know would say that I was a wimp! But, the big learning is that you can handle almost any level of reasonable cold if you have the proper clothing. Sure, I’ve never dealt with 40 degrees (F) below zero but I can now handle everything that hovers near zero as long as I bring the right gear.
While in QC we dealt with some lows in the single digits but for the most part our weather was awesome. We had sunny days, a bit of snow (14 inches/30-35 cm total) but overall great weather for a place that could be bitterly cold and miserably wet. Walking around at night was a little brisk but we managed because of one of
An Old Town Church
Quebec City, Quebec, Canada my favorite inventions of all time…long underwear. I know it’s crazy to be in love with something as simple as long underwear but, prior to 2007, I never owned a pair. Needless to say, long underwear is my new best cold-weather friend.
Long live long underwear!! Enough Babble, What’s There To Do In QC? QC is known to be a quaint medieval town complete with walled fortification, giant castle (Le Chateau Frontenac) and small twisty streets. During the summer I bet that QC is packed with tourists due to its appeal, cuteness and beautiful vistas. During the winter though, QC is much less crowded. The main pull to the area is winter sports (By the way, there is a huge winter festival here every year which is supposed to be amazing and VERY crowded). People come from all over the world to ski, dog sled, snow mobile and ice skate. We ran into people from South America, the US and of course Canada - all there to enjoy the winter before it disappeared.
We of course spent a full day exploring the ups and downs of the old town itself. It rivals many cities that we’ve
Chilly Hallways
Quebec City, Quebec, Canada been to which are much older and much, much further away but be warned, it seems that everything in QC is uphill (in the snow, hee hee). Since QC was built on cliffs overlooking the St. Lawrence River, it sometimes feels like you are always walking up.
The streets of the town are filled with cafes, tchotchke shops and art galleries. If you like poking your head in random shops, then this is the place for you. We managed to kill almost four hours doing just that and managed to make it out of town with only one new pair of earrings. Outside of our hotel was a public skating rink and we spent some hours there too - watching the skaters twirl, swirl and crash: into each other, the ice and the handrail. While neither of us claims ice skating greatness, it’s still fun to watch people circle around and especially the fearless little kids on their skates - nothing scares them, not even the 14th time they’ve fallen and hit the ice. Truly inspirational.
We did ski one day we were there. One day of skiing for novices like us is about all we have in
The Moon Over Frontenac
Quebec City, Quebec, Canada us before we are completely exhausted. We drove up to Mt. Saint Anne, rented skis, and ripped up the beginner trails. By ripped up I mean, we skied very slowly and methodically but we loved every slow minute. We were impressed by the ski talent that Quebecois/Canadian folks have - we saw kids that were barely in Kindergarten careening down the mountain all the way to a gentleman who wasn’t a day under 75 hitting the slopes. Once again, inspirational! After a run or two down the mountain in the falling snow we spent the rest of our day reading and enjoying the fire-place in our Courtyard Marriott lobby. I’d highly recommend the hotel - great staff and pretty cheap rooms with king sized beds!
Our second day in town turned out to be a perfect day for a quick trip out into the country to check out the local Hotel de Glace. We’ve all seen Ice Hotels on the Travel Channel and have wondered who actually stays there. Well, Kel and I decided to check the place out and were impressed by its beauty…but not impressed enough to spend a night there freezing our rear ends off. The
idea of sleeping fully clothed under a fur blanket surrounded by nothing but ice and snow doesn’t sound like a good time to me. But, as a place to visit, the Ice Hotel was actually pretty cool (pun intended).
With a nice sized bar, an ice slide, and more than 30 individual rooms (many of them themed) it’s a great place to visit and take pictures. I especially enjoyed the individual rooms which are really works of art with dragons, boats, people and horses carved directly into the ice walls. It’s a unique destination and well worth the small fee to get in and poke around.
Food, Glorious Food Those of you who are regular readers of the Team Turner Experience will know without us telling you that food is a major reason we love to travel. We love eating and fight the battle of the bulge constantly because of our addiction. Traveling the word allows us to try many foods we’d never get to eat at home and over the last 18 months, our travels have taught us more about food than we learned in the previous 29 years of our lives.
One
Lost...I Think Not
Quebec City, Quebec, Canada big learning: we love French food. The French really do know how to eat and thankfully the French Canadians have kept up the French tradition. QC is full of wonderful restaurants that specialize in French variants of local game and, most importantly, utilize a lot of Quebec’s (or at least my) favorite export, Maple Syrup. We were lucky enough to eat in some of QC’s finest restaurants over our few days in town and sampled many incredible foods and many variations of the maple syrup theme. Crepes with syrup, omelets with syrup, deserts with syrup, salmon with syrup…the list goes on and on and everything was tasty. (Yes, smoked salmon with syrup was a great combo. Who knew?)
Of course, no matter where you travel there are always going to be things that challenge your taste buds. The interesting thing is that they often happen at times when you least expect it. Our final activity for the week was a trip to a Cabane a Sucre ( Sugar Shack). These huts (really more tourist attractions) exist throughout syrup land and are often recreations of old trapper houses where maple syrup was first tapped fresh from the tree. Our visit
was supposed to include a fabulous lunch of traditional fare and we were really excited about a maple syrup culinary treat as we drove through the driving snow out into the local wilderness. While Kel had researched the cabane a sucre concept, we let the concierge at the hotel choose which one to visit and blindly trusted his judgment. Yes, kids, there’s a lesson in this one!
Along with my love of food, I’m also a food snob. Kel will tell you that I’ve always had a deep-seated hatred of what I refer to as cafeteria food. I define cafeteria food as anything that was created in mass quantities with low-grade ingredients. Our lunch was definitely cafeteria food as we were served with over one hundred of our closest French Canadian tourists who were highly excited about what they were being served. The fried gray meat & fat pie, boiled potatoes and sweet eggs were not really what we were excited about consuming that afternoon. They also featured what seemed to be pork rinds . . but with thick, fried fatback. Ecch. We ate it, but we didn’t enjoy it and thanked our lucky stars that we hadn’t paid
much for the meal. Sure I’ve eaten freshly slaughtered camel in Morocco and all sorts of scary stuff around the world that I’ve loved, but Canadian traditional fare was not to my liking.
Buckling Down To Work Kel and I are now back from our last big trip of the season and get to buckle down for the next few months. We are adjusting to being normal people again who don’t gallivant freely. As I said before, Kel is gainfully employed and I’m working on following in her footsteps. But, keep tuned in to the blog, there are more adventures in our future. The present plan is a trip back to Africa later this year. YAY!
Also, check out our new photography website which we are using to sell some of our travel photography, www.TeamTurnerPhotography.com. More pictures are being added by the day. Contact us if you are interested in buying anything. Thanks for reading!
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Leanne
non-member comment
Love your blogs
Love reading your blogs, they always makes me think about my travel experiences. Keep up the good work =)