I guess I like to ramble a lot on a video camera when I’m traveling. I have to tweak the autofocus on this new camera. Perhaps the camera was interpreting how hazy my brain was feeling.
[MEDIA=17]Flair For Language.
So tonight I am in the gorgeous city of Québec, Québec. I haven’t been here since 1983, when I was here with my high school French class. It’s as beautiful as I remember it, with a unique blend of old and new. I love the province of Québec because it has it’s own culture and you definitely feel like you’re not in the States when you’re here.
One of the reasons I chose to come through Québec on the way home, which by the way added over three hours to my trip, is because I’m always looking to break out of my shell a little bit and by spending the night in a city that doesn’t have English as it’s predominant language I figured that I would be forced to be a little more outgoing.
I’ve startled a few people with my attempts at speaking French.
First of all, I don’t know why the New York State Education Department insists on teaching it’s students France French. Half the northern border of the Empire State is with a French speaking province, you’d think they’d teach us functional Québecois instead of France French. From what I understand (and I know Thom in Va. can chime in on this), the folks here speak a more proper dialect of French than the French do. It’s as different as American English versus British English and then some. No offense to Mlle. Hallinan (my high school French teacher), but the maitre’d does not care that Je m’appelle Jean-Patrick nor do they care that “Michel! Anne! Vouz-travaillez? Non, je regarde la télevision, pourquoi?” (We had to recite that last bit from our french book on enough occasions that it has stuck in my head to this day.)
I believe that when you’re visiting a foreign country, you should at least attempt to speak the native language before asking/demanding/jumping into your own tongue. I will make every possible attempt to get through a conversation completely in French, but I’ve been a little wary since that time I told the woman in Montréal that I was in heat (I meant to say it was hot). Now, when greeted with a cordial “Bonjour” at an establishment, I return the same and then try to muddle my way through some French before saying, “Je regrette, parlez-vous anglais?” There’s usually a sigh of relief when I get to this point. Said sigh is usually preceded by startled looks.
The “parlez-vous anglais?” bit worked perfectly at the front desk of the hotel, where the very attractive desk attendant went from perfect French to perfect English without so much as a bat of an eye. I think she was relieved that I wasn’t going to give her the “Michel! Anne!” speech nor was I going to quote Lady Marmalade.
Feeling quite cocky, I got myself gussied up and drove into Québec without a map or GPS at my side. I ended up in the gayborhood! Whoo hoo! I walked around a bit, hoping to find some little place that I could get une table pour un (cringing yet Thom?) and enjoy a little dinner. Unfortunately, that neighborhood seemed to be all about the sushi and/or Vietnamese food. As good as I was feeling avec mon francais, I wasn’t about to dive into some oriental version of the language nor was I going to try to bark out a number off a menu. So I did some more walking and enjoyed the crisp air before deciding I head back to the hotel.
Calorie starved and a little dizzy when all was said and done, I found a 24h McDonalds and decided to give it a shot. I walked up to the counter and did the Bonjour! response and my “Parlez-vous anglais?” to the young lady when she responded “Eh?” I asked if she spoke English again, this time a little slower when she responded with a meek “Non.”
Ugh.
So much for my cockiness. Time to muddle through another order and hope I don’t end up with McYak or something.
“Numero Huit.” I blame Earl for the Spanish I threw into the mix because I had just cleared my voicemail of him babbling in Spanish in response to my French message.
“Huit!” she said.
“Grande”, I asked, hoping to god that’s how I got to supersize.
She looked at me blankly, so I tried again. “Grande?” “Large?” “Super-Sized?” “Mondo Mondo?”
She made “large” motions with her hand and said “Trio”.
“Trio.” Who the hell cares if I was about to get three meals. (I’m thinking that the super sized meals here are called “Triples”, hence the “Trio”.)
When all was said and done I got what I intended and ended the transaction with a sweet merci beaucoup exchange between us. I like to think that the cashier and I had a moment.
Keeping Up With The Locals.
There are many things I enjoy about Canada. I must say that yhere are many, many things I love about our neighbors to the north. Everywhere I turn in Charlottetown there’s a young little bearded hotty worthy of many woof points. The folks of this fine province are very friendly. There are smiles on the faces of the fine Canadian people. It’s nice to be away from the depression that has seemingly tackled the Americans. The Canadians also make great beer.
Tonight I joined Jennifer and David, and Dave’s mom Janet, for their annual trek to a dinner theatre show in Charlottetown to celebrate Jennifer’s birthday. Tonight’s performance was called “The Big Fat Island Wedding Crashers”.
The production was delightful. Full of familiar rock and pop tunes from the 80s and 90s, this group of performers were quite impressive in that they all took turns playing various instruments and singing various parts. I had a wonderful time. They were funny and extremely talented.
As I mentioned before, our fine neighbors to the north make great beer. Tonight’s brew of choice was Labatts Blue. Now Dave, my almost brother-in-law and all around great yet exceedingly mischievious guy, is a beer drinker. Here in P.E.I. you don’t order beer by the bottle, fuck no, you order beer by the god damn bucket. That’s right, the perky waiter or waitress brings you buckets full of bottles of beer. The folks at the other end of our table, who were a very charming couple from le Province du Québec, settled for red wine with their meals. Jennifer and Janet had white wine.
Dave and I downed THREE buckets of beer. Perhaps four. I lost count. I have mentioned an uncountable number of times that I am a two beer queer. Give me two beers and I’m either easy or asleep, hopefully one before the other.
Tonight I had SEVEN. That would be seven beers. SEVEN. That means if I were to count the number of beers by way of the Pointer Sisters Sesame Street song, I would be more than halfway through the track before having to stop.
The two beer queer did it thrice plus one. Roll the “r” in “thrice” when you read that sentence. It makes it sound exotic. To celebrate, I called my mother and left her a slurred voicemail that will undoubtedly haunt me someday and then I called Earl to make sure he was still in the states while I was in Canada. It was hard to tell because the room started spinning. I think I was getting time zones confused. Oh, oh oh – I’m in a different time zone right now! Who knew? There’s another time zone on the North American continent to the east of the Eastern time zone! I guess I never realized that! It’s the Atlantic Time Zone. If I were to go to Newfoundland (which I probably won’t), there’s even another time zone that only counts as half. So if it’s 11:00 here it’s 11:30 there but it’s 10:00 home. Now that’s making my head spin. What’s odd is that I feel as comfortable in the Atlantic Time Zone as I do in the Central Time Zone or when the Eastern Time Zone is not in that fucking daylight saving time.
Tomorrow morning I leave the island and head for Québec. This is such a lovely adventure. It’s buckets of fun.
I’m going to bed.
Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island.
After a good night’s sleep I was up relatively early and headed into Charlottetown, which I believe is the only city on Prince Edward Island. After a brief stop at one of the local markets, Sobey’s, for some breakfast fruit, I did some touring of the downtown area and the harbor.
Here’s the obligatory self shot.
I found the downtown area to be quite nice. It reminds me a bit of Portland, Maine and Burlington, Vermont to some to some extent. Everyone seems quite friendly and the sidewalks were busy. There’s all sorts of shops and businesses. There’s a pedestrian mall area with a large selection of restaurants and bars. There was even a brass quintet performing, as they give a free recital twice a day during the week.
Being an island and all, PEI has a lot of marinas.
After touring around a bit, I decided to relax in some air conditioning a little bit, so I went to the local mall which is anchored by a Zellers. Reminicent of K-mart back in the good old days, I was delighted to see that Zellers still has a “K-mart Cafeteria” / Woolworth’s “Harvest House” type restaurant, but I skipped that culinary delight since I was meeting up with my sister Jennifer and her boyfriend David to do some sightseeing this afternoon.
Once I met up with them, our first stop was in Cavendish, home of Anne of Green Gables. Jennifer insisted I try on Anne’s hat and pigtails, so here’s a photo of the event. It’s a little blurry but there’s no spirit lost.
I also snapped this picture of Jennifer and David as we were getting ready to move on to our next adventure.
We then went onto the beach (there’s a lot of water around here!) where the ocean is clocking in at 17-degrees celsius, which is a chilly 62.6 degrees fahrenheit. We stuck our toes in and found it to be cold. I could swim in it after my body numbed up, I suppose. We opted to walk along the water instead.
Now I’m resting up a bit before meeting with Dave and Jennifer and their friends for a dinner theatre tonight. We might have a few drinks afterward. I don’t think we’ll be out exceedingly late though, since Jennifer is catching a plane home tomorrow morning around 6:30. It’s funny to think that she’ll be home way before I will.
Drive. Determination.
Last night I mentioned that I was going to take a long road trip this week. With Earl’s best wishes and encouragement, I hit the road this morning looking forward to exploring parts of the world I’ve never been before. I knew where I was going along, as did Earl, but nosy people read my blog and I wanted to surprise a few folks. So here I am, sitting in an Econo Lodge. I snapped a picture before I reached my intended destination.
My sister spends a lot of time on Prince Edward Island, as her boyfriend and his family lives here. Tomorrow is her birthday and I thought I’d surprise her and take her out to lunch.
So I’m in Charlottetown, PEI.
She’s in Halifax, Nova Scotia, getting away for a few days.
Oops.
I’ve talked to her and she’s planning on being back on “the island” tomorrow, so this spontaneous plan will work out.
In talking with various family members trying to coax information out of them without giving my intentions away, I’m discovering that some find it odd that Earl and I are not together on this trip. I’ve always said that few “get” us and this is one of the aspects of our relationship that I’m referring to. Earl knows how much I love roadtripping and since our vacation schedules aren’t meshing this time around I embarked on this little adventure alone but with his blessing. It’s probably a good thing he’s not along, as I drove about 950 miles today.
A few quick observations and then I’ll call this is a wrap:
1. Maine becomes very, very, very rural north of Bangor along Interstate 95. It also becomes wildly beautiful and I loved driving along this portion of the roadway.
2. I’ve never been to New Brunswick or Prince Edward Island before as my Canadian experience has been limited to Ontario and Québec. I must say that like Maine, N.B. and PEI both have a rural beauty that is quite rare in our part of the USA. From the little I’ve seen, I absolutely adore it up here. And where else could I get a McLobster Sandwich?
3. I might have to hit Nova Scotia on the way home, just to add another province to the roster.
Where In The World Is J.P.?
So we were on our way to Hillside Campgrounds this past Friday when Earl said to me, “Since it looks like you’re going to be working in a week or so, why don’t you take a couple of days next week and go for a little road trip?”
Holy crap.
He knows that I’ve been wanting to take a trip in the Acura and just explore some area of the country that I’ve never been before. I have to admit the thought is quite tempting, though I am a little sad that he can’t join me for the fun. When I mentioned this to him, he reminded me that I would probably drive 15 to 20 hours in one shot and he wouldn’t enjoy that long of a ride.
So I’m leaving tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. I’m just going to drive. I’ll post late tomorrow night and then we’ll both know where I ended up for the night.
Decisions.
So last week I mentioned that “when it rains, it pours” when it comes to opportunities. I would have never thought that I would be so popular that more than one company would want me to work for them, but today I was presented with a decision. One was to return to the telephone company where I used to work and the other was with another company that I can’t really talk about because it’s a top secret project.
I went with the ringy-dingy route. And what’s most important is that my gut says it’s the right choice.
By working for the telephone company I don’t need to compromise my school schedule (they are very accomodating) and I’ll be working on projects that I’m very familiar with, so I am really jazzed about the opportunity. The other job opportunity was something that I used to do but haven’t done in a long while. The opportunity was quite enticing, but I felt it would have detracted from my educational efforts, and come hell or high water, getting my Civil Engineering degree is something that I am going to accomplish. I screwed up college once, I’m not going to screw it up again.
So come Monday I’m back to work for a while. And I couldn’t be happier.
Relaxed.
Sometimes you just can’t put an experience into words. Sometimes you can’t describe the warm feelings, good thoughts and relaxed state of zen one achieves when they follow their bliss.
It was a good weekend.
Follow Your Bliss.
Earl and I are situated at camp for the weekend. The awning is up. The picnic table is positioned. The camper is stable. There were no cross words. It just comes together. He’s a good man. I love him.
I let Earl run the new camera for the first time today, and the resulting picture is above. As I begin the next year of my life (can I admit to myself that I’ve started my 40th year as of today, as I turn 39 at 7:30 p.m. this evening?) I’ve adopted a theme as inspired by a great B-52’s song.
Follow Your Bliss.
