So, we're in Quebec for the day, heading down to Quebec City. We know nothing, really, about Quebec, and we don't speak French, at all. This could be fun...
So far in Quebec we'd been in the country side, but as we progressed south we were entering their version of civilization. Here we began to encounter some interesting brands, our favorites being "Couche-Tard" (can someone please translate this??) and PFK :).
Further down the road we stopped for lunch, at a McDonald's. Our thoughts were - 'at least we know what's on the menu'. I attempted to order the Bacon and Cheese Angus combo, which went fairly well, while Lindy went the order-by-number route, 'Great Succes!' /Borat. Unfortunately, a wrench was thrown into my plan when we sat down at the table and I found my burger was incorrectly made as the mushroom Angus variant, and I hate mushrooms.... So I made the long walk back to the counter to attempt to get a replacement burger, how, I wasn't sure. My transaction with the manager went something like this:
Manager - something in French
Me (pointing at burger with bun removed) - "No" "ummm" "Bacon?"
Manager - something in French
Me (pointing at the correct picture on the menu) - "Bacon, si vous plait"
Manager - something in French
Me (looking more confused than ever) - "Bacon?!?!"
Manager - says something in French and takes my burger, comes back with correct one
Me - "Gracias, I mean, Merci!"
With some food in our stomach's we headed off, but couldn't help but notice there might be more of a downtown than what we had thought. Sure enough, we were on the outskirts of St. Paul (I think) and there was a really quaint downtown area, so we took advantage of the break in the rain (did I mention it had been raining all day thus far?) and walked around town for a bit.
A while later we reached the edge of Quebec City. Lindy had the bright idea to flip on the radio as we hit the interstate to see what French radio was like. We were shocked when the station it landed on was playing "Numa Numa" and we busted out laughing, so we proceeded to blast Numa all the way through Quebec City on the highway heading towards our supposed campground for the night, a KOA! (technical note - KOA's are not always our chosen method to camp, but based on past experiences being near cities, we figured it was a safe bet). We checked in, located our site, and weighed our options for getting into the city for the evening. We found out that dogs were not permitted on the shuttle buses, so we opted to drive in and look for street parking.
Being dumb Americans, we cruised right into the fortified city of Quebec and were greeted with streets barely big enough for a Fiat, much less our (small by our standards) Tacoma. The French stared in disbelief as we struggled to navigate the maze of tiny one-way streets to get back outside the walled part of the city, where there was ample street parking.
After JD expressed his feelings by urinating on the welcome sign, we spent the next couple hours wandering and sight seeing, even getting to walk around on top of the fortifications, so I'll just wrap this post up with an assortment of photos.
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