FROST.BOB II

Skate rental guy: So, you enjoyed ze skating?
Waider: Oui, lotsa fun.
Guy: And your lady is still skating?
Waider: my, uh, lady? (struggling to keep a straight face) Er, yeah. She's much better at it.

the graceful and the graceless, photographed by the non-participating

We phoned Kate from the corner of St. Jean and d'Auteuil (thanks, Kate!) and mewed helplessly into the phone. "Kate! What do we do? where do we go? who are we?" Kate ascertained where we were, then told us she'd come down and meet us once she'd rounded up the rest of the lost sheep. So we stood on the corner and waited; d. and Brian had a look in a shop on the corner selling medaeival stuff, and Yong-Mi checked out the Bonhomme outlet in front of us. Eventually Kate turned up and gave us complex directions to the chosen restaurant - "Cross the road! Right, in here!" - leading us to a sort of "anything you want, on a pizza" place. d. and I decided we were going to get Strombolis, except that the waiter refused to serve us from the children's menu so we ordered Barbequed Chicken pizza instead. Gradually, the rest of the gang arrived and we eventually took up four tables in the restaurant, much to the apparent consternation of the waiting staff.

food! food!

The food was good; the onion soup looked like more onion than soup, but was apparently quite satisfactory, and the barbeque pizza turned out to be a pretty good bet. I dunno if anyone had any of the more interesting items like Alligator or Ostrich - on pizza, of course - but when we left, we were well fed and in the mood for more wandering. Outside the restaurant, Kate (mew! mew!) organized us into groups to go to the Montmorency Falls; the groups were approximately the folk in Ben's van, the folk in Jacob's van, and the folk taking the navette. Being in the latter party, I followed Kate up toward the departure point, wondering how I'd ended up with the plastic horn which I tooted occasionally.

Much tooting and walking later, we discovered -- AIE! -- that the Navette was, in fact, booked out for the day. The ever-resourceful Kate led us to the bus stop instead (actually, I think it was an excuse to take us down the intensely steep and slippy hill again, for laughs) where we stood around and waited for a bus. Seeing none, Kate accosted a suitably authorative-looking source and found that we had to go further down the street and around the corner. Eventually, the right bus showed up and we piled on board with much fumbling of change and waving of paper pieces and so forth. I somehow managed to retain the ticket which I was supposed to surrender; apparently we managed to confuse the driver. Whee!

As we bussed through the town, ljd took out his GPS toy and told us we were just passing the second "E" in "Québec". I looked out the window, but there was nothing to mark this fact. I'd at least expected a giant letter floating in the sky. As we moved to the outskirts of the city, the bus got more and more empty, and after a false alarm (Kate: "I think this is our stop... oh, no. The driver says it isn't. You can all sit down again.") we all wound up sitting just behind the driver's partition. Which is why Kate wouldn't let me wake up Søren with the horn when he fell asleep, I guess.

sleeping beauty

Eventually we got to the end-of-line point for the bus, where we all bailed out and stood around in the cold waiting for the connecting bus to take us to the Falls. Yong-Mi tried out some of Ben's suggested hand-warming techniques, such as "windmilling your arms" and "smiting people with a plastic horn", although I don't recall Ben's email mentioning the latter. We contrived a photo for Søren titled "Crouching Yong-Mi, Hitting Waider" although given my height advantage, I was doing more of the crouching. After a few "Is that our bus? Aw, no.", our bus arrived, and whisked us off to the Falls.

Well, actually, it whisked us off to a bus stop beside a fence, which we had to climb over to get to the path. I'm sure there was an easier way, but heck, we are IMPETUOUS and RECKLESS and HEADLESS CHICKENS, so if the first person was climbing a fence, damned if we weren't ALL gonna do it. Much fumbling in snow followed, since noone tried to do the smart thing and roll across the snowdrifts, instead choosing to plunge feet into them in an attempt to skip across the top. Hahah. You'd have a better chance of skipping across a lake, on top of which if you did so, people would worship you for a few thousand years.

Along the path, we found the Ice Hotel, an idea the Québecois stole from the Scandinavians, or vice versa. It's an actual hotel, made of over 5,000 blocks of snow and ice, and, well, costing some bucks to even go in and look at. We wandered around outside, asking each other pertinent questions about bedding materials, toilets, and blowtorches. The guys at the gate told us we could buy visitor tickets further down the path if we wanted. I'm not sure that anyone did, to be honest. We had to go further down the path anyway, because that led us to the restaurant where we were to meet the rest of the gang. Emerging from the somewhat shielded-by-trees path, we arrived at a wooden deck attached to the front of a hotel with some magnificent panoramic views of the landscape below. Breathtaking doesn't even begin to cover it, and that's not because of the chilled air!

part of the incredible view

We went into the hotel/restaurant (the Manoir Montmorency) and found the early arrivals boozing it up in the residents' bar. None were inclined to join us on a trip up to the Falls, possibly because some had already bt,dt, so we left to see the Falls for ourselves. Vampyr told me I should make use of the horn to summon Vikings, which I agreed was a good plan, and off we went. A path led from the front of the Manoir to the Falls, with several vantage points along the way from which tourist types could take pictures. As we walked along the path, noting and translating the warning signs ("Everything falling, including you"), we saw some active types wandering along some sort of snow trail on the slope below the path. Loons, eschewing a perfectly good path in favour of a rope-and-snowpick route. Caw! Squawk!

on the way to the falls

The bridge over the Falls was pretty neat, and I picked a spot as close to the centre as I could determine in order to attempt the Viking summoning. I blew heartily on the horn, eliciting a long, clear note (plus a few moose-molesting noises), but alas, no Vikings. Perhaps they've arrived since and are wondering who summoned them.

noodling around the bridge at the falls

By the time we got back to the Manoir, everyone else had assembled themselves, and someone had found an advert in a local paper for a Chippendales-style male stripper night. The advert featured four guys with Bonhomme heads holding pictures over their groins of Clinton, Bush, Chretien and Bouchard. Bizarre. We had a few drinks, and then were led to the restaurant for the meal. Deciphering the menu was a lot of fun, but eventually I scarfed an English menu from someone and ordered from that instead. The meal was quite enjoyable, and I rolled out of the dining room feeling pleasantly stuffed.

Someone took a notion at this point that we should go across to the other side of the falls. It was dark, getting colder, and snowing, so obviously this was an immensely good idea! We trundled back down the path to the bridge over the falls, and stopped on the bridge for a while to mill around and make copious jokes and drink shots of ljd's hungarian firewater from his hipflask. Then we went down the path on the other side, Dawn stopping along the way to make a snow angel which Dave promptly leapt into, face down, before realising that this causes the sort of numbness that cyclists complain about. Whoops. Further along the path, Dave and I went chasing through deep snowbanks while the rest of the gang trudged along the path. Eventually, we reached a vantage point from which a staircase descended to the area at the base of the falls, but the staircase was covered in snow and blocked off, so we stood at the top and took photographs. On the way back, I went frolicking in the snow again (d.: "Say, Waider, COLD ENOUGH FOR YA?") at which point Ben tried to drag me around by the ankles so that my parka'd fill with snow. Fortunately, I was sharp enough to grab the bottom of my parka and lift it out of the snow; then Dave came along, not realising Ben's intentions, and raised me off the ground by my arms. Whee!

the falls by night

On the way back to the Manoir, we went by the Ice Hotel again. Apparently it was full for the night. More loons. We congregated at the Manoir and decided how we were going to get back to the hotels; Kate, supreme organiser, sorted out taxis for the stragglers while Ben and Jacob took the bulk of us back in their vans. Back in the hotel, we collected in one of the rooms with many drinks, some of which were non-alcoholic but should have been, some of which were all too alcoholic and near undrinkable for it. After a while, people started drifting away to bed, although there was apparently a further party in Meredith's room that I missed out on. PS THIS IS NOT A EUPHEMISM. And thus endeth Saturday.

February 4

Another reasonable start - I seemed to have no difficulty waking spontaneously around 8-9am - and down for more delicious breakfast. Someone (Dawn? Kludge?) made a long and protracted pronouncement that the crossaints were not, in fact, "cwoissong"; rather, they were "croizants" (i.e. they were a bit substandard and didn't deserve to be recognized as French, but instead as a poor American imitation). This was protracted to the point where the "joke" was DEAD DEAD DEAD. Gah. It had been decided the night before that we would go out tobogganing on the slides in front of the Chateau Frontenac. In fact, I got the impression that if Yong-Mi didn't get to the toboggans, there would be an international incident of some sort. So we bounced down the park in front of the hotel and made our way out to the toboggan slopes.

The deal with the toboggans was that you paid $15 for an up-to-four-persons toboggan; you then dragged a toboggan up a steep slope (see photos!) and piled into it at the top, where they released three toboggans at a time. When on board, the speed effect wasn't particularly noticeable, but watching toboggans go by while climbing gave me the impression that they were moving pretty fast. The whole setup would, again, have been a nightmare of litigation in the US - no protective gear, and a two-footish wide toboggan in a two-foot six-inch wide chute. Yong-Mi, d. and I piled into one toboggan and rocketed down the slope, and that was in the slow lane. For subsequent rides we were in the centre lane, supposedly the fastest, and we went like greased lightning. Dawn, Kludge, Matt and Jacob were on the other toboggan and we managed to get in a couple of races with them, which WE WON. HAHAH. LOSERS!! THPHPHPHPHTT! Ahem.

big, bad, dangerous FUN

Having pretty much exhausted both ourselves and our hour-duration tickets, we congregated at the bottom of the toboggan run and met up with a few of the others. d. and I had maple syrup on a stick, whereby they pour some maple syrup into snow, you wait for it to go tacky, then you roll a lollipop stick around in it. I insisted that d. make mine, under protest, which is why I ended up with "maple syrup in a plastic cup, dripping from a stick, and in your glove". Leaving the toboggans behind us, we looked down on the lower town from the railings and then proceeded there via funicular. We didn't stay long in lower town; despite quaint narrow streets, etc. there wasn't much there that interested us, so we headed back towards the funicular in short order.

funciular view/lower town signage

At the funicular station, I lead a mad charge towards the alternative method of returning to the upper town, being the steps. At the top of the steps we found a steep street, on which there was a head shop. As we paused in front of it to admire the merchandise, a random passerby accosted us and told us, in French, that there would be canoe racing at the waterfront later on. I assured her that we knew all about it, and she continued on, apparently having fulfilled her tourism duties. We, on the other hand, still had plenty to do; most immediately we had to get to the top of the hill, find the chinese buffet, and EAT. We climbed the rest of the hill, found a convenient doorway into the Chateau, and met up with Kate. Kate led us to the buffeterie, or whatever the heck you'd call it, talked to the maître'd, and then led us all to our table. The chinese buffet turned out to be a buffet with some conceiveably chinese food in it; I can't say I've ever considered boiled minature potatoes to be chinese fare, for example. And apparently General Tso's Chicken belonged to someone else, not General Tso. Still, it was all good, and the vegetable terrine (I think) in the format of an Irish tricolour made me giggle. At some point during the post-meal conversation, the whole business of owning cats came up. It was generally agreed that losing the use of one's opposable thumbs would result in instant and fatal cat attack, and taunting your cats with your thumbs was a bad thing.

the "chinese" buffet

After our feeding frenzy, Ben led a bunch of us off on a trip around the riverside town walls, from which there was yet another fabulous view, this time of the river covered in ice with the occasional ferryboat traversing it. The boats were all emblazoned with the Bonhomme image at the top of the page, which was rather unnerving. Actually, said Bonhomme images were everywhere. Søren took a bunch of photos of people looking around nervously while Bonhomme looked over their shoulders.

boats on the river

At the end of the wall walk, we came over a snowy slope to discover we were at the back end of the Plains. We trudged down the slope and leapt out of the way of passing snowmobiles - which Kate tells me were either vintage models, or copies of vintage models invented by Armand Bombardier - and then we climbed the opposing slope where we saw people zooming down yet another slope in inflatable liferafts. Alas, there was a huge queue at the bottom of the hill, and we were in no mood for queuing. We stumbled down the slope, had a quick restroom stop, and I instructed Kate to take us to beer, as I'd had enough of being a tourist. Surprisingly, everyone agreed. Hah. Seems like I'm not the only pushover. I would've happily trudged around for another hour, at least. Kate duly lead us through town via a caribou stand; caribou is this hot alcoholic tack they serve you during Carnaval to keep you warm, or drunk, or both.

Waider: What's in this?
Caribou girl: 4 kinds of alcohol.
Waider: Woohoo!

fun and games in the Irish pub

Come time to settle the bill, I was amazed to see that none turned up in front of me. Not wanting to be a cheapskate, I waited around while people were standing up to leave to see if my bill would turn up, but no, no bill. I giggled merrily to Kate on the way out about this. Subsequently, I learned that one of the others had decided to pay my bill for me, so THANK YOU. You know who you are, and I'm glad I'm not a cheapskate. I strolled out of the pub with Kate on one arm, Andrea on the other, and Yong-Mi somewhere in the vicinity, proclaiming my immense studliness to anyone who'd listen. We proceeded to Andrea's hotel, where we sat around and chatted. Ben joined us later on, and eventually Yong-Mi and I bailed out to let people sleep and also to go back to our own rooms. Back at the Bellevue, we discovered another party in progress, which apparently prior to our arrival had featured such wondrous physical feets, er, feats as interlocked toes (Meredith), leg behind head (Dawn) and tongues rotated longitudinally sideways (Søren and Matt); also, the liquor from the previous night was still doing the rounds. For the record, Rebel Yell describes the effects of drinking too much of the stuff, by my reckoning, and Eiswine is TOO DAMNED SWEET. As before, people eventually drifted away to their own rooms.

February 5

Woke early again, and met Kludge in the breakfast area. Turns out half the party had bailed out already! When Matt arrived downstairs, we settled up our bill with the hotel, and then Matt, d. and I decided to go for a wander around town. I'd planned on meeting Kate to make sure she got the remains of the poitin, but when I phoned her I got voicemail, so I shrugged and wandered out with the guys. We did a small circuituous route, passing by the Créperie ("Oh no! Crépes" -- Søren) and finding a coffee shop for ourselves in the Chateau. I phoned Kate again to discover she had already left with the van crew as Ben had to get the van back to the rental place in Montreal. Bah! I mosied back up the hill to the hotel where I reencountered Kludge, and we hung around to see if anyone else'd turn up before I had to get a taxi to the airport. d. and Matt arrived back, and then Vampyr and K. turned up as well, which was good, as I'd planned on heading to the airport with the latter. Kludge presented me with a bottle of Jinro to take home, and Vampyr got the front desk to call a taxi for us. Hello taxi, bye bye FROST.BOB II.

left: NASA; right: one of their rockets

At the airport, Vampyr and K. went straight to their desk while I queued behind a short but slow-moving bunch of what I'm guessing were schoolkids going on a holiday somewhere. I muttered to Vampyr and K about my I94 visa waiver form and my customs form; Vampyr pointed out that it probably takes more time to read the I94 than it does to complete Irish citizenship papers - something he's recently done. Then upstairs to the departure area ("Hey! We can't get to the duty free until they start calling the flight!") where a couple of guys seemed to be making a movie. Vampyr and K. were paged for their flight and I sat reading Dubliners, pausing bemusedly to chat with Kludge and d. who'd appeared out of nowhere to catch an earlier flight because Boston, their connection point, was in danger of being shut down (they ended up spending 28 hours there. Ouch.). Eventually, my own flight was paged, and then there was a very confusing boarding call which I eventually translated as "come forward to board only if you've got a connecting flight to catch". Oh dear. Boarding was about a half-hour late, followed by a further half-hour delay before takeoff, followed by a half-hour circling Newark airport before they'd let us land. Bye bye Québec!

Québec airport

Newark was all clogged up, so I spent more time waiting there, finally getting out just over two hours after the appointed time. As we approached Dublin on Tuesday morning, the pilot came on the intercom to describe the Dublin weather as "not too bad". Hurrah, home again.

You can see all the pictures from this page with captions over in the party pix section.