It's my poutine and i'll fry if I want 2

Going to a French immersion school growing up, Quebec has always been in my peripherals. It was always talked about like the holy Mecca. I remember the first time I got a taste of real culture coming out of Quebec, all the French schools in Saskatoon got to go to a francophone festival. There was a group of rappers who were spitting French fire with cool music, I think that was the moment it dawned on me that French could be... cool? Little did I know that was just the tip of the iceberg. Quebec is like this cool secret club that you can only be apart of if you know the secret not so secret language. Such a variety being produced; movies, music, theater, television shows, brands. The list goes on and on. We spent only a few days checking out both major cities. In Montreal, we walked around... well most of the city, checking out all the diverse bustling neighbourhoods, looking at all the unique houses that most had a steep or spiral staircase up to the second level. We ate tacos at midnight and walked through downtown which led us to loud music. Turns out we found our taste of Aboriginal culture were we least expected it! The First Peoples Festival was on and we got swept up into the crowd, at first all you could see was a circle in the crowd, in the center some traditional dancers moving to a DJ’s playlist of a mix of the traditional drum circle with funky beats. They moved towards the stage where a real drum circle took over and the stage filled with dancers. There seemed to be a theme, the mix of contemporary with traditional. The show stoppers really held that true, two Inuit throat singers from Nunavut who mix a long passed down art form with a drum pad. They were amazing, a lot of people in the crowd let the music flow over them and wiggled their booties. If you are a curious about what I’m talking about here’s a few links I found on YouTube: Yoshi didn’t get to see Montreal at all, he spent the day getting tattooed by an artist he’s been following for awhile, time to fill arm number two with art. We were dealt an unlucky hand the next few days with pouring rain, once we got soaked to the bone setting up our tent at a National park in between the two cities. The second time was when we decided to bite the bullet and walk to Old Quebec. We got some amazing smoked meat bagels, and headed over. Cue more torrential downpours, soaking us yet again to the bone. We still have a garbage bag full of soaked clothes and shoes to deal with from those days. After many continues days of city living we were more than ready to flee to the countryside. I do have to say Yoshi and I were considering moving to Montreal this year, but didn’t want to commit to somewhere we’d never gotten the feel for. As we drove into the city center, swearing because we kept driving circles and half aware of anything as I was on the phone. I knew I would love to live there. The more days we spent in Quebec, the quicker my French came back to me, imagine what a year would do. I plan to spend this year practicing the language and diving into the underground French world.

 Old Montreal

Notre-Dame Basilica. It was insane, the organ player was playing all sorts of tunes, from Dracula to singing in the rain.

I didn’t really know what to expect from the rest of Quebec, although my heart was quickly taken. Colourful sea side houses, a giant church in every little town, windy roads with the waves crashing onto them. After driving through so many farmlands, the jagged rocks and dense forested mountains really ignited the fire of desire. Mixed with the delight of finally, finally, finally, making it to the ocean. It was nice to feel the excitement of the trip resurface, and we all went for a group first swim in the sea after a beautiful hike in Forillion National Park. We spent the last few days just stopping along the drive in all sorts of little areas, the English was less spoken and I have a few stories of how my French was put the ultimate test. I felt better when Yoshi asked a boy in Canadian Tire where the window whipers were found and he literally started running in the opposite direction anxiously half yelling in French “No no no I don’t speak English, find somebody else.” Like at least I didn’t run in the opposite direction... Like most provinces, Quebec seems to be the type of place that you could spent years exploring all its nooks and crannies. It was raw, and different then its side sisters (Ontario, and New Brunswick.) Today, we crossed the bridge that marks the border from Quebec to New Brunswick. We spent the morning mapping out the rest of our trip through the much-anticipated Maritimes over some doughnuts and coffee. I know I will be back soon to explore much more of this majestic frenchy french province. And I wont forget my lactose tablets, those poutines got me good. (Sorry, TMI)

One of our many spots was at a famous flower garden. There seemed to be some sort of festival and tickets were more than we were willing to spend on seeing some petunias. The little free garden area was so nice, from kale to lavender. The highlight- the sheep. First of all they were all just hanging out in the shade, and then two bikers came into sight. One of the sheep let out a big bleat and then all of them started yelling and chasing them around the field, it was so funny. Then yoshi showed us his true colours, he is secretly a Shepard and can heard sheep through a fence. 

 The amount of churches reminded me of the amount of temples in south east asia.. after awhile its sort of like, another one?