rennes

We had a fun time in Montreal. The weather was perfect. Our favorite part was renting bixi bikes around town and riding throughout different parts of the city. My legs were so stiff after all the hills, I think we went for miles! But it felt really good. The B & B we stayed at had the cutest little back porch area. I wish I had bought some of the hanging flowers that seem to be everywhere in the markets, but knew that customs might not be happy with me bringing back five or six huge hanging plants, so I thought I'd just wait until we got back. I did however bring back some cheese, jam, and mustard, so I'm quite happy. I hope you had a nice holiday weekend too!

We saw so much in the city itself it's hard to cover it all! The night we arrived we walked around everywhere and ended up down by the water a few times only to find the only way back up to the top of the city was to climb up a huge set of stairs - Jesse counted and it was a total of eighteen flights - suffice it to say my legs were very sore the next day. I've never been to a city with so many hills - except perhaps San Francisco. Luckily all the walking was quite handy in burning off all the pastry calories.

Some high lights were : Seeing the Ballet Russes exhibit at Fine Art museum, the Rome exhibit at the Museum of Civilization, The Ursuline Convent Museum, riding the Funicular, walking around the city walls and the Plains of Abramham, the architecture, cobble stone streets, Palliard (a pastry shop, not pictured), and the Dufferin Terrace. We also had a few good macaroons along the way.

I mentioned this yesterday, but outside of Québec City is an island right off the coast in the river, the Île d'Orléans. The island is made up of about five towns that are very tiny and consist mainly of different farms and what we heard referred to as "agro-tourism." It's such a short drive that we went twice - the first time we went around the whole island, the second time we hit up our favorite stops again. In one of the towns, St. Laurent, there was a cute breakfast place with an amazing view - the first time we went there was no one else there and we had the whole place to ourselves - it was probably my favorite part of the whole trip.

One other things we saw there (not pictured) was one of many Econo-museums that exist throughout Québec - the one on the island was a forge. Their purpose is to help preserve trade crafts - essentially one craftsman or a small guild will set up a shop where they can practice and make a living, and also have a portion of it that is a museum explaining their trade open to the public. I really liked this idea because it's hard to find places that teach "trade" crafts as a opposed to "fine" art/crafts.

A few months ago I was talking to cobbler here in Boston about where he learned his trade, and where he thought one could go to learn about shoe making (I've looked for classes before in the general New England area and there is next to nothing) so I thought he might have some ideas. His response was interesting and along the lines of "you young people these days, you are lucky to be able to just pick something up as a hobby because you are interested in it - but me, I've been working at this my whole life and have never made any money. I was taught by my family, and so on and so forth..."

I had never been to Québec City before, and we had a really great time! Spent yesterday and this morning sorting through all the pictures we took - there are so many to go through but I thought I'd start by sharing one of my favorite parts of the city: the market. Every morning fresh produce is brought in from the Île d'Orléans, a small island nestled right in the St. Lawrence river about a fifteen minute drive from the city. I was surprised to see how affordable all the berries and vegetables are - I'm sure many of them are in season now, but it couldn't help make me wish that there was something more like this in Boston. I've definitely come away from the trip with a desire to eat better and cook more.

I think one of the tricky things about working from home is that it's hard to give yourself a break and let go - for instance, lunch for me usually consists of standing while making a PB&J sandwich for two minutes and going back to work - but after the trip I'm promising myself this is going to change - at least a fifteen minute lunch break where I actually sit down!