Joel and I woke up this morning in Quebec! We made it to the French speaking province! And today we are heading to Quebec City, a very small, but quaint, French dominantly speaking city. Luckily we had found a couch surfer to stay which at least for the first night and possibly for more (spoiler: he let us stay two nights!) So we headed towards another shower (so soon after the last one!) and another city!
Before we went into Quebec proper we headed to Wendake which has a recreation of a Huron Village. This area of Quebec is still where a large population of Huron people live today. They were moved several times during the wars between the French and British which left this particular Indigenous group devastated Between the wars, the Iroquois, and disease, many Hurons where wiped out. But we headed to a place where we could learn about their culture.
We entered the park, for lack of a better word, and were informed that unfortunately all their tours were in French, but we were more than welcome to walk around and explore ourselves with a free guidebook in English. We took this option! It was a really cool recreation of a village, including a long-house, a shaman house, canoes, and areas for smoking fish. There were also displays about the hunting and fishing that the Huron did as well as the current economic and social status of the peoples. There were also some displays from other Canadian groups such as the Inukshuk and a tipi. Neither of which were originally used by the Huron, but cool nonetheless.
We also spent time looking at the way the Huron used to heard deer into a small enclosure where the hunters would be waiting. Interestingly enough the Plains people of what is now Alberta did that same thing with the Buffalo. Interesting how there are some very similar aspects between the two groups even with the little interaction that they had.
After the village we headed into Quebec proper to look at a chocolate museum We spent some time looking around this small one room museum and learning all about the production of chocolate. We then explored a little, but not too much because we were doing that tomorrow! We headed back to the car only to find that we had a parking ticket!!! Unfortunately we had parked right in front of a fire hydrant. Which was not clearly marked and had no sign in front of it saying no parking in this area. But apparently here it is simply common knowledge and you need to look around for them. So we headed to the police station to pay off our 46 dollar ticket ..Oh well, it was bound to happen at least once on this trip! And hopefully it will be the only one!
After the police station we headed to Subway for dinner, where I ordered in French, all those years of class are finally paying off! I can order Subway :) But it was pretty cool to walk around all day and be able to communicate with people in French. I missed a couple things, but all-in-all I knew what was going on!
We then headed to meet our couch surfer for the night. He was very welcoming and friendly and made us some tea and taught Joel and re-taught me to play Cribbage. A really fun game I learned at camp one summer. He then invited us to come along bowling with his friends. We gladly agreed and headed to the bowling lane.
After three hours of bowling and drinks, a really fun combination in some peoples case, we headed back home. We had made plans with one of our surfers friends to meet up for poutine tomorrow. I can't wait! It is one of the things I am most excited for in Quebec! And we made more new friends, never anything wrong with that! We also stayed up past midnight, for the first time in forever! Practically party animals again! Tomorrow is poutine, new friends, and old Quebec, I can't wait!
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