holding on to my chair until the floor stops rolling...
Sailing into Québec harbour somewhat after midnight on Friday morning was quite beautiful, with the lights on the Château and on boats at the port. LR and I stayed up to watch this by hanging out with crew in the mess quite late, after the lovely feast (complete with linens on the table, and sailors in dress uniform, which is always startling after weeks of coveralls). The crew sang a bunch of French Canadian folk songs and attempted to teach us to play the spoons and the appropriate footwork to accompany the music (which I found I actually recalled learning in elementary school). They were quite surprised I knew some of the music.
CS' wife showed up in Québec and they now are taking a little vacation.
LR, RM and I planned our revenge for weeks of Canadiens-themed pranks from the 1st mate. I managed to convince several people to go out for a beer on Saturday night which helped ensure they had a later start on Saturday morning. The tide in Québec is insane. Recall that the Bay of Fundy has the largest tide in the world. So, the gangway needs to be moved regularly from deck to deck as the vessel moves up and down by metres. However the we had to tie up to starboard, rather than port, for this particular berth, thus the gangway was near vertical on the aft deck, rather than merely steep to a deck two storeys higher. We got a pep talk on how it was okay to go down backward like a ladder (to re-board the vessel after going to the pub), but I walked straight down, as did RM, only to realize that LR is seriously afraid of heights (which explains why she did not join our mountain climbing trip in BC). The 1st mate eventually was able to coax her down. In the morning, I went to breakfast to make sure the 1st mate was there, while LR stole the pirate flag from his door and wrote a ransom note to let him know that he would see his flag again only after publicly declaring his love of the Toronto Maple Leafs by noon. I had kindly saved LR from suspicion by pointing out that it was not "leaves" but "Leafs". At this point, I wisely went for a walk with our project manager to ostensibly to help him find a gift for his daughter, but also to make myself scarce.
Meanwhile, the 1st mate decided RM was a likely suspect and awoke him with a glass of water poured on his head. The genuine surprise of RM, who hadn't realized that LR and I had carried out our plan convinced him that I (being the only native Torontonian) was the next most likely suspect. In my absence, he locked LR and RM out of their cabins. When I returned returned, he had just allowed them back into their cabins. He proceeded to try (unsuccessfully) to turn the fire hose on me- I escaped to the mess, where I figured the motherly cook would protect me. He managed to find out that I had entrusted my luggage to RM so he stole and hid it. He tried to convince me he had used a small winch to lower my luggage into the harbour. I merely moved the cable and ascertained that it moved too easily to hold my heavy luggage - I would not buy his argument that this indicated that my luggage had sunk. He had stashed it in one of the storage lockers. He was eventually convinced that LR was the one who had hidden the flag, so he returned our luggage and helped us to the taxi.
RM and I changed had our flights and returned to Toronto on Saturday... after some minor adventures we managed to get home. Bloody AC started to board the plane to Montreal and then stopped and announced there was a problem and that our luggage had been removed from the plane. So we had to go get out luggage, call AC, plead with someone at the counter, but eventually they put a larger plane on a later flight to accommodate the irate passengers. After a seriously irritating second pass through security (where both I and my luggage was searched a little too thoroughly) I said to RM that at least he could know he hadn't been targeted the first time through security (due to his Iranian heritage). But he said that maybe I was treated that way because I was traveling with him. We sat near our gate eating chocolate and watching The Count of Monte Cristo on his laptop, so that wasn't so bad... then we smuggled a small bottle of wine onto our flight, which made it pass faster, as it, of course, was delayed. We had to run through the airport in Montreal, but we made it. His girlfriend picked us up at Pearson and drove us home.
Yesterday I made it to my Dad's birthday party. My step-mother was greatly amused to see me holding onto the furniture, since my inner-ears are still telling me that the ground is moving. She said that she traveled a lot by boat in her youth and never recalled being landsick. I pointed out that one travels from England to Singapore in a MUCH LARGER vessel than the small boat I had been aboard.
Setting up in the port of Quebec, we were distracted by the hot air balloon festival and the guy with the parachute and um... jet-pack (?) by which he could control his movement.
Most of the time, the weather was lovely, if cold.
The trees were pretty. Though it felt like autumn was being fast-forwarded into winter.
Percé is quite lovely.
CS' wife showed up in Québec and they now are taking a little vacation.
LR, RM and I planned our revenge for weeks of Canadiens-themed pranks from the 1st mate. I managed to convince several people to go out for a beer on Saturday night which helped ensure they had a later start on Saturday morning. The tide in Québec is insane. Recall that the Bay of Fundy has the largest tide in the world. So, the gangway needs to be moved regularly from deck to deck as the vessel moves up and down by metres. However the we had to tie up to starboard, rather than port, for this particular berth, thus the gangway was near vertical on the aft deck, rather than merely steep to a deck two storeys higher. We got a pep talk on how it was okay to go down backward like a ladder (to re-board the vessel after going to the pub), but I walked straight down, as did RM, only to realize that LR is seriously afraid of heights (which explains why she did not join our mountain climbing trip in BC). The 1st mate eventually was able to coax her down. In the morning, I went to breakfast to make sure the 1st mate was there, while LR stole the pirate flag from his door and wrote a ransom note to let him know that he would see his flag again only after publicly declaring his love of the Toronto Maple Leafs by noon. I had kindly saved LR from suspicion by pointing out that it was not "leaves" but "Leafs". At this point, I wisely went for a walk with our project manager to ostensibly to help him find a gift for his daughter, but also to make myself scarce.
Meanwhile, the 1st mate decided RM was a likely suspect and awoke him with a glass of water poured on his head. The genuine surprise of RM, who hadn't realized that LR and I had carried out our plan convinced him that I (being the only native Torontonian) was the next most likely suspect. In my absence, he locked LR and RM out of their cabins. When I returned returned, he had just allowed them back into their cabins. He proceeded to try (unsuccessfully) to turn the fire hose on me- I escaped to the mess, where I figured the motherly cook would protect me. He managed to find out that I had entrusted my luggage to RM so he stole and hid it. He tried to convince me he had used a small winch to lower my luggage into the harbour. I merely moved the cable and ascertained that it moved too easily to hold my heavy luggage - I would not buy his argument that this indicated that my luggage had sunk. He had stashed it in one of the storage lockers. He was eventually convinced that LR was the one who had hidden the flag, so he returned our luggage and helped us to the taxi.
RM and I changed had our flights and returned to Toronto on Saturday... after some minor adventures we managed to get home. Bloody AC started to board the plane to Montreal and then stopped and announced there was a problem and that our luggage had been removed from the plane. So we had to go get out luggage, call AC, plead with someone at the counter, but eventually they put a larger plane on a later flight to accommodate the irate passengers. After a seriously irritating second pass through security (where both I and my luggage was searched a little too thoroughly) I said to RM that at least he could know he hadn't been targeted the first time through security (due to his Iranian heritage). But he said that maybe I was treated that way because I was traveling with him. We sat near our gate eating chocolate and watching The Count of Monte Cristo on his laptop, so that wasn't so bad... then we smuggled a small bottle of wine onto our flight, which made it pass faster, as it, of course, was delayed. We had to run through the airport in Montreal, but we made it. His girlfriend picked us up at Pearson and drove us home.
Yesterday I made it to my Dad's birthday party. My step-mother was greatly amused to see me holding onto the furniture, since my inner-ears are still telling me that the ground is moving. She said that she traveled a lot by boat in her youth and never recalled being landsick. I pointed out that one travels from England to Singapore in a MUCH LARGER vessel than the small boat I had been aboard.
Setting up in the port of Quebec, we were distracted by the hot air balloon festival and the guy with the parachute and um... jet-pack (?) by which he could control his movement.
Most of the time, the weather was lovely, if cold.
The trees were pretty. Though it felt like autumn was being fast-forwarded into winter.
Percé is quite lovely.