Day 5 Oh Canada!

Today we started with cleaning up the AirBnB and packing up the rented mini van to drive five hours north to Quebec City. I was a bit surprised to find that we were not on an interstate but were on highways for most of the drive. We stopped in a tiny town, smaller than Murphys if you’ve ever been there, and got some fresh made pizza from what amounted to a simple mini mart. We were pleasantly surprised by the tastiness of this gas station pizza. It was no premade kinda stuff. We are talking a full fledged kitchen with multiple cooks. 

There really was nothing out on the road. It was a beautiful drive with lots of trees, lakes, and ponds (ponds which were actually very large lakes from our perspective). This stop along the way was only about 15 minutes from the Canadian border so it gave us a chance to stretch our legs and grab some Cokes for the road. 

We passed through the border with our passports and despite me not seeing a stop sign and coming up on the drive through border a little heavy on the gas, we made it in with all of our snacks and even a bottle of wine!

Two more hours past the border and we made it to Quebec City. We have an AirBnB again because when you have six people it just makes sense to have a kitchen and more space to lounge and hang out when you aren’t sight seeing. We are in the Notre Dame de Anges area which is cute and close to the old town area, but the steep stairs to our AirBnB were not expected and were not appreciated 😬 

We ventured out for dinner and explored some of the area. We found some awesome history and cute old buildings. There is a cool old wall that we discovered (thanks to Google Maps) was the Ramparts of Quebec City and they are the only remaining fortified city walls in North America north of Mexico. The British began refortifying the existing walls, after they took Quebec City from the French in the Battle of the Plains of Abraham in 1759. 

So the French influence is still strong. Everyone here speaks French and all of the menus are in French. Thankfully we are in a touristy area so we should be fine. We found a place for dinner after looking around and checking Yelp. We settled on a place that looked busy and had salads. You’ve wanted a salad on vacation right? Gotta get some veggies in between all of those calorie laden meals! 

We loved everything and we were smart to share because we didn’t have leftovers. Leftovers while traveling can be hard if you are moving a lot. We plan to move every two nights for the rest of our trip. 

Something we learned tonight was that the drinking age in Canada is 19 and in Quebec City it’s actually 18. Emily ordered a sangria with dinner and Todd got a Moscow mule while Joyce had a margarita. 

Papa tasted Joyce’s drink and immediately said “that’s good!”  Speaking of Moscow, can you believe we drove through that city today? And Athens. Oh and Frankfort! Seriously, these were all cities in upper Maine on our long drive up here. There really is nothing new under the sun!

We enjoyed stuffing ourselves and a little tourist shopping before heading to the grocery store to grab some morning necessities. We are now enjoying wine, the couch, a little swamp cooler AC, and a Netflix show called Get Organized. Others are reading books, some are blogging, and one might be working on her computer. A vacation that suits everyone’s needs!