Bluebird's Nest

Continental breakfast. Not too shabby. Then we went back to the room and started to clean up stuff and organize for the next leg of our trip.

I think I could have organized all day long but it was better that I just got out of the room otherwise I would have gone crazy.

The weather was crap. Ok, it could have been worse but it was foggy and rainy. Need I say more?

And there was 6 of us so we all couldn’t fit in the Sube so I needed to taxi a few people downtown and then go back to the hotel and grab the rest of the people. But first we needed to return the tent.

We stopped in at Canadian Tire to try to get our money back. They wouldn’t do it. They wouldn’t even exchange it but they said we could call a 1-800 number. So I did while I was there. The woman on the other end of the phone said that she had never experienced any issues with the tent that we had. Well we have (finger snap) so don’t tell me your tent isn’t inferior. She said that they have NEVER given money back for a warranty item. It’s replace or instore credit only. So we buckled at the instore credit and handed the phone to the Canadian Tire woman. BUT, Canadian Tire doesn’t give instore credit so they had to give us our money back! Shabam baby!! Take that! And now our extra night in a hotel is paid for.

By the time we got downtown, my hubby and aunt (who were taxied first) said that they had seen everything and they were ready to get dry and fed.

We parked the car and set off on Water St. There were a lot of neat little boutiques along Water St. but what I really wanted to see what the colourful houses.

We stopped in at a neat little bar for lunch. Great food. I think it might have been the best poutine I’ve had yet. After lunch, we kept on Water St. and took some photos and then walked back along another road that runs parallel to Water St. I asked a woman for directions to The Rooms and so my mom and the hubby took off uphill to it, while my aunt and the tweenager and I walked back to the car.

I picked up a Canuck’s hockey jersey while we were walking back. Kind of an odd thing to buy in Newfoundland but what the hell.

We headed to The Rooms. It was pretty cool there. Some nice artwork and a museum. I was a little disenchanted with the museum but the Inuit display was very interesting.

Then I did the taxi thing again and back and forth with every one we got back to the room and did MORE packing. Then off to dinner at the hotel again. Thanks for dinner mom!

Early to bed tonight so that we can start fresh tomorrow for our voyage over seas.

EXPENSES:

Sleeping: free since we brought back the tent.
Wee babe disposition: Really good.
Weather: 17.
Stress level: Climbing as the packing is looming. I would say about a 6.

We woke up after a lameo night with the wee babe. She nursed and nursed. I’m not sure if it was her teeth or she was too cold, or if it was because we were camping… but lame night for her means lame night for me.

Had breakfast and took off for Avonlea. We didn’t make it to the end of the book but we read enough of it to get the gist of it (Except for the hubby, he didn’t really care). It’s a little, quaint made up town with all the history of Lucy Maude Montgomery. It was pretty interesting. There was some singing in a barn and a little play out in the garden.

The tweenager and the hubby got dressed into some period clothing, checked out some shops. It was hugely over priced for what it was worth.

After that, we went for lunch to Sam’s. Sooo yummy. We had mussels, chowder and some more poutine (and you thought I was done with eating that J). It was delicious.

We then set off for the beach to check out the sandcastles.

The drive weaving through the hills and pastures of potatoes, rolls of hay and green, green, green everywhere. So beautiful. So PEI.

We stopped in at the beach to rest and recover from the day… it was the afternoon and the heat and humidity was getting to me a little. Everyone except for me went for a dip in the Atlantic. Wonderful sand beaches. It was serene but the clouds were rolling in. Dark, looming clouds.

So we headed back to the camp to get a shower and get changed for dinner. Tonight we would feast!

Some locals told us we should head to Fisherman’s wharf in North Rustico for lobster and a HUGE buffet. They weren’t wrong. We gorged on food. I felt a little sickly by all the food we put back but it wasn’t cheap so we thought we better get our money’s worth.

Man-o-man was a tired after all that food and wouldn’t you know it, a storm had started. I couldn’t believe it. Imagine what it feels like when you’re driving back to your TENT in the pouring rain and it’s blowing like a tornado. Yah, it wasn’t a nice feeling. We actually drove to the bathroom to save the drenching until later on in the night when we needed to hit the bathroom again. Too much pop and water at the feast.

We retired to bed and listened to the wind roar and the rain to pound. It was scary. I wasn’t sure we were going to make it through the night all dry. But we did. The tent faired well but it got a tear in it.

EXPENSES:

Sleeping: Camping in Cavendish $45.
Wee babe disposition: Seemed like she was teething today. A lot of spurts of crying.
Lost: Almost lost the shampoo,conditioner, soap, etc… but the tweenager saw it out of the corner of her eye.
Weather: Sunny and about 31. The turned nasty
Stress level: groovy.

We left the AIRBNB this morning and I was a little sad. It was such a nice all to our selves place. But the stairs were pretty scary.

It only took us about 2 and a half hours to get to Quebec City. And it was hot again. Sorry Victoria but the weather here on other side of Canada is dreamy to uncomfortably hot. It’s the type of weather where you NEED a shower at the end of every day.

Anyway, Quebec City is very European in its look and feel. The architecture is old. Like way older than Victoria. I think I would have been a little more wowed by it if I hadn’t been to Europe and Switzerland so many times. (I’m not bragging, just telling it like it is. After all, I’m married to a Swiss man remember?) It was still very impressive and definitely felt like a different country altogether. Everyone was speaking French.

My first impressions of Quebec City weren’t really amazing unfortunately. There was the sweet smell of piss where we had lunch on the lawn. The wild aroma of weed on and the drunk/druggy half awake/asleep on the side of the road in the main tourist spot. Thank god the architecture was amazing or I would have regretted stopping.

We headed up the funicular first so we could get a good view of the city. Stopped for lunch by Chateau de Frontinac where we ate our pre-made sandwiches. Then just walked around the city. If you can believe it, the other totally random thing was that a Metallica concert was playing that night so there were people drinking in the streets and lots of rockers wearing heavy metal t-shirts. Kinda strange.

That was about it for Quebec City. We were there for only a couple of hours but we felt like it was enough. It’s a beautiful city. Very charming.

The heat was really beating us down (33 degrees) and with all the people we made a bee line outta there and headed to Riviere de Loup.

I think the lack of sleep from the last two nights (the bed was tooo hard), coupled with the heat and the walking, oh and lets not forget the living out of a car for the last two and a half weeks, made me really sleepy for the drive, and I was driving. My hubby and I played 20 questions (I sucked but it helped to keep me focused). When we were getting closer we typed in accommodation and a Beluga Hotel came up. Since we sang a few rounds of it today we thought maybe it was a sign.

So we took the side road to Riviere de Loup and man-o-man am I ever glad we did. I think this is our first taste of east coast living. Beautiful little sea side/St. Laurent cottages built on quaintly tree lined roads. Picture perfect. My hubby was going crazy. He even got the notion in his head that we might be able to do a BnB if we found something perfect. And did we ever.

Two bedrooms with a welcome drink, a night cap liqueur, a gourmet breakfast (I’ll let you know how it is tomorrow) seemed to be worth the $115 we paid. The only catch is that the tweenager is in her own bedroom in the basement sharing the space with another family. She was ok with it though.

According to our budget, that’s it for hotel/bnb/AIRBNB type dwellings for us. We’ve got to camp and or find some friends to crash at. Thankfully we have 2 more nights at friends of the family in Fredricton and then we’ll be camping the rest. Oh we have a night crossing on the Ferry to Newfoundland and already paid for our last night in St. John’s at a motel.

We headed off into town to get some grub. Since this will be the last meal I take in Quebec, it had to be a serving of poutine. And again, it was not any better than something I would eat in Victoria. But I understand that I totally missed out when I was in Montreal as evidentally, there is a place that serves 50 different types of poutine! Doh!! I’m so pissed I missed that!!! I guess there will have to be a next time.

We came back to the BnB, watched the sunset over the St. Lawrence, all had showers and then relaxed in the living room reading Anne of Green Gables. We’re desperately trying to get through it before we get to PEI in around 3-4 days.

Sleeping: BnB: $115
Items lost: I lost my favourite flip flop while we hiked/walked up Mont Royal. I have since bought a new pair of Crocks but it’s not the same
Wee babe disposition: Hot in the Ergo but other than than, stellar.
Weather: 32 degrees. Smokin’ hot.
Stress level: Tired.

We had a pretty good sleep last night. My back was killing me from the walk up the mountain and the bed was too hard so I woke up fairly stiff hoping that it wouldn’t hinder my trip around Montreal today by foot.

We woke up kinda late: 8:30am and got a start on coffee and a big breakfast (eggs, toast, hashbrowns). We took advantage of the kitchen that’s for sure.

We got ready to go and headed out. the tweenager had done some research last night and figured out some options for us to visit in Montreal. We started with some shopping on St. Catherine’s street. Even though we needed to haul the stuff around everywhere, we wanted to do it before we were too tired and hot to try on clothes. I found one of the wedding dresses I’m going to wear.

We walked over to Old Montreal which took about a half hour. Old Montreal is quaint and the buildings are very similar to streets in Europe. It really feels like you are in a different country than Canada. Everything from the building structures to hearing French spoken all around. I’m almost suprised that they don’t have their own currency.

I was destined to find more poutine today for lunch (wanted to try as much poutine as possible since we’re in Quebec) and I wasn’t dissapointed. We were just going to eat poutine but we stopped in at 3 Brasseurs for some wonderful beer, a goat cheese chicken burger and yummy poutine. I didn’t want to share even one bite.

After lunch, we did a taste testing of some cider and maple syrup. We bought both.

We headed over to the metro which seemed to be the coolest thing so far for the tweenager. I’m really suprised by the lack of stroller/wheelchair accessibleness in the city. We couldn’t find an elevator anywhere in the metro so we had to hoof the stroller up and down the stairs. Ugh… Also, a lot of the doors in the city weigh about 50 pounds to open with barely any wheelchair buttons. Now that I drive a stroller everywhere, I like my wheelchair buttons and elevators.

We got to the Olympic Stadium where the summer Olympics were held in 1976. We headed over to the Biodome where there were a lot of different animals and 4 different climates. It was pretty interesting. We had had plans to visit the Botanical Gardens as well but it was already 5pm and I understand that it would have taken another 2 hours. So we kyboshed that.

After that we had snacks outside on the grass in the shade and regrouped for the trip back to the apartment. Back into the metro, back home.

We had decided to have breakfast for dinner tonight (pancake mix that we had brought from home) but unfortunately, the mix was old and bad now. So we abandoned that idea. So we had left over pasta from last night and cracked open some Mac n Cheese from our reserves. We had a tiny bit of salad left over from last night and we had bought fruit to have a fruit salad so it all worked out ok in the end.

I’m about to have a shower and wash away the day. My feet are sore and suprisingly my back isn’t doing too badly.

Tomorrow we’re off to Quebec City where we’re not really going to spend much time there. We not even going to sleep there tomorrow night. Maybe it’s a mistake but I really want to get to Fredricton to see my parent’s friend and he’s tempted me with a lobster dinner….!

EXPENSES:

Sleeping: AIRBNB: $110
Items lost: Left at Allison’s: white knife and strawberry jam.
Wee babe disposition: Quiet and happy in the stroller. loud when we got home.
Weather: A little too hot. 28 degree.
Stress level: Fab.