July 30 - NYC to Montréal

Alright, so it's not August but it's close. Off to Montréal!! Made it to Port Authority Bus Terminal with plenty of time to spare. Whilst waiting in line to board the bus, I chatted with this lovely lady named Angie who became my bus-travel partner.

Though the bus left 30 mins later than scheduled, we made good time to the border. We got our passports checked rather quickly too. I was thinking all was well and good and then we stopped and was stuck for an hour waiting. We had to offload everything from the bus, go through another "immigration" point and load up the bus again before we were on our way. All in all, it took us 8.5 hours from PABT to Montréal bus terminal. Not too bad I suppose. Definitely shorter than taking the Amtrak.

André came to pick me up and off we went to Drummondville to stay over at André's friends, Sylvie et Stephan, place. We did have to stop at Mc's for me to grab some food. What is "Quarter Pounder" en français? Quart de livre. Quarter of book? Quoi?

July 31 - Parc Omega

Got up later than desired *yawn* and had André chasing me to be quick or he's going to leave me behind. Finally got into the car and went to Metro (grocery store) to grab our picnic lunch and realised I forgot my poncho. The weather in Québec is supposed to be somewhat crappy all week. So we had to go back and grab my poncho, sandals and change of clothes should we get drenched then off we go to Parc Omega! Oddly, we drove into Ontario before coming back to Québec. Road trip music was wide-ranging.
A few months' old orphaned pig. Look at the stripes.
Believe this is a lynx
Wolf. Yo! Hablas espaniol? Non?
Bear on a platform. Oi! Hablas espaniol?
Family of black bears
André eating a carrot meant for the animals there
Thanks eh!
Hola! Hablas espaniol? Non hablas espaniol?
We kept calling it a pig but it's really a boar. The baby version of which you saw earlier
Elks along the drive waiting for people to feed them
More elks
Elk up close and personal
Duckies! Hablas espaniol?
Arctic foxes. They look like they are smiling. Hablas espaniol?
Bison suntanning. Oi! Hablas espaniol? Non?
Stopped at one of the 3 walking places. Saw some deer roaming around. Como estas? Non hablas espaniol?
André feeding bambi's cousin.
Took a hay wagon ride to the petting "farm". Baa baa white sheep?
Kitties napping
Billy goat gruff? Hablas espaniol?
André feeding one of the goats
The white bird has a rather fancy tail. Hablas espaniol?
Some hairy cow. Hasblas espaniol? From that look, I guess that's a no
Andre with billy goats
Horses or donkeys? Don-kay!! Hablas espaniol?
Whatcha lookin' at?
Bi-racial pig?
Bunny in a hole!
Another bunny in a hole! Hablas espaniol?
Me feeding some billy goats. Don't miss the head butt!
Onwards through the rest of the park in our own vehicle. But before you go into the next section, it appears we need to pay some "toll".
Say cheese! Hablas espaniol?
"Non hablas espaniol dude"
Arctic wolves
Hablas espaniol, ibex? Non hablas espaniol?
Me feeding the animals from my side of the jeep
Coyotes
Black bears suntanning?
Proof that I was at Parc Omega
*grunt* mooovvee over!
After driving about 3 hrs back to Drummondville, hung out with Sylvie and Stephan (and their tiny, tiny yorkshire terrier named Enzo) chatting over wine and chips & salsa. Before hitting the sack, we spent some time in the hot tub to relax - ahhhhhhh!

Aug 1 - Montréal

Waffles! Fraises! Bacon!! Heaven ... But wait ... we're having lunch in an hour? O.o Went to watch a soccer game - Olympique Lyonnais vs Paris St Germain.
This is taken during the second half. Score is 2-0 if you can't see the scoreboard
Got barbequed nicely and off we to head to Québec City. So far we've been lucky with the weather but we definitely encountered the bad weather on the road back to Québec City.
Dark clouds are looming...
And then we got double rainbow!!!

Aug 2 - lazy day

Day to sleep in! YES!!! Got some groceries, stayed home, played Cribbage, watched movies - just CHILL!

Aug 3 - Rainy day

Weather forecast says it would rain today. Hmm ... guess we're watching Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation today. But first, let's go roam a mall.

Didn't rain at all today. Je suis pissed!

Aug 4 - Île d'Orléans and la chute Montmorency

Went to Île d'Orléans which supposedly has its own microclimate. There are many farms on the island growing leeks, blueberries and strawberries as a few examples. We headed first to a cabane à sucre (sugar shack) for lunch. All you can eat from the menu. Food was awesome. They served us some Canadian pea soup, fried pork rind (YUM!), homemade tomato sauce (which to me is really salsa), meat pie, maple syrup ham and for dessert crepe-pancakes with of course, more maple syrup.
Canadian pea soup and pork rinds. Pork rinds were crunchy and yummy
Afterwards, we headed to the shop and we got maple syrup taffee which is really heated maple syrup poured onto a bed of ice to "harden" then after 30s you take a stick (in this case we had tongue depressors) to "twirl" up the pliable maple syrup and yummm!!
Super yummy!
Drove around the island with the top down a little. Stopped to get up this tower to get a more birds eye view of Québec. We tried to take a selfie with the ski slopes in the background but kept failing. There was this lady who was very humoured by our attempts and told us so when we asked her to help us take a picture instead.
Can you see the ski slopes in the background?
Stopped to get some local strawberries then off we go to La Chute Montmorency. Climbed up the stairs instead of taking the gondola. Not too bad, only 483 steps (looked online after). Crossed the bridge over the falls. André only cursed and said "I hate you" to me every 10s. :p
Me near the visitor centre with the falls in the background
Montmorency falls. The rate of water flow is about 35,000 gal/s
Taken from the bridge at the top. You can see Île d'Orléans in the back
André and I made it to the top!!! Us at the bridge
Where's André?
Can you see me? We took this on the way down. Again, I only heard cursing and "I hate you"s from André every 15s. Longer intervals now that we're going downhill

Aug 5 - Fireworks cruise

Fondue for lunch! Played a new game called Fluxx.
We had shrimp, deer meat, bison meat and pork. Oh, we also had homemade dinner rolls.
Drove to Lévis for ice cream and damn it's good especially for softserve ice cream.
So yummy! I look like an addict maybe because I was high from all the sugar?
Got back to Québec City, strolled around Petit Chamberlain then boarded the boat for our cruise to watch the fireworks. Weather forecast is crappy weather until 7pm but it did clear up and we saw an awesome fireworks show from a great vantage point. For safety reasons, no boats can be within 400m from the barge where the fireworks were being fired from
André and I with our rain gear on before the rain stopped. Our selfie attempts got us grinning like idiots :p
View of la chute Montmorency from the boat
View of the bridge to Île d'Orléans
Lévis on the left, Québec City on the right
View of Old Québec
We were standing at the bow of the boat
Light 'em up!

Aug 6 - Whale watching cruise

Drove to Baie Sainte Catharine to get on a zodiac to go see some whales. And boy did we see some albeit at a distance which is okay. Rather not intrude into the animals' natural habitat too much. But before we got there, we stopped at St-Fidèle fromagerie at La Malbaie and got some squish-squish cheese (fresh cheddar cheese curds) that Québecois use in their poutine!

The whale-watching-cruise-people made us dress like we're in the middle of winter. And since we were at the tail end of the queue, I didn't get clothing in my size everything was too long and too big. Oh well! There are pictures of me in the outfit but they were taken with the disposable camera.

We caught sight of some Belugas from far. Saw what I thought I heard the guide say are Minsk whales rather close then off we went to try to catch a glimpse of the Humpback whales. Apparently, 2 of them are back with 1 of them returning only 2 days ago. Woot! With Humpback whales, all we'll see are the tails as they dive and that's sooo cool! The ones we were looking at were diving for about 12 mins each time. Apparently, the day before one of them was diving for 20 mins to a depth of 150 m to feed.

Another thing about the whale watching is that there is no way to track them (no sonar, etc) so the only way to find them is to use our eyes to spot them. Then when one boat catches sight of it, they will notify all the other boats and it's like a race to that location to catch a glimpse of the whales.

The region we were at is Brackish waters where the salt water and freshwater meets with the freshwater "on top" of the salt water (sort of like in a diagonal). Fish would swim to this "wall" and get "trapped" by the fresh water. Whales know this so they come here to feed.

Waaiitt for it...
Watch for the tail
Fjord of Saguenay
Was told this waterfall is called Caribou's piss. Because of the color?
André and I at Charlevoix where there's a casino. Second time coming here. First was with the QC Analytics team at Taleo

Aug 7 - Recovery day

Drove back to Québec City and just chilled at home.
Basilica of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré. On the way back, we stopped to check out this cathedral which is on the tourist to-do list

Aug 8 - Vieux Québec

Went to vieux Québec for the day. Les fête de la Nouvelle-France is going on so went to check it out. People wearing "old france" clothing were here and there performing (e.g., singing, re-enacting scenes). Walked around and remembered some of the places I've been before. Ahh ... memories of my time at Taleo.
Got some sushi for dinner and then gelato! Had 4 flavours - Strawberry sorbet made with strawberries from Île d'Orléans (as local as you can get!), Pistachio, Dark Chocolate with hazelnut and Maple Syrup. Like they say, when in Rome...
Up at the stairs from near the Frontenac to the plains d'Abraham.
Art installation at vieux québec

Aug 9 - Québec City

Had lunch at St. Hubert which I don't think I've ever been to but André keeps insisting that I have. Do I have a senior moment?
Tried to drive the jeep (manual transmission) in the parking lot. Glad to know I can still somewhat drive a manual car though to be honest, the road was pretty damn flat which helped.