Montreal

Short trip to Montreal last Saturday. It was a nice visit but began to rain in the afternoon (again). Montreal has a big-city attitude. Nice, but Quebec City is still my favorite.

Encore le festival et la vieille ville

Class continues to be very demanding and the weather alternates between beautiful and rainy/chilly but we still manage to go downtown for the festival concerts and dinner. I've been to a handful of concerts, having fun exploring different music genres. I have to say that everyone I have heard here has been very good and I would go to see again, ex. Derek Trucks band, Zachary Richard, Francis Cabrel, Kila, Manu Chao, Gogol Bordello, Jean-Paul DesLauriers and Dawn Tyler Watson, Hammerfall, (missed Los Lobos and Nickelback because I didn't want to stand in the rain). This is what I have heard and learned:

Contemporary Quebecois=Cajun + Techno

Celtic Fusion=Irish + Reggae

Native American (Inuit?)=Eskimo + Country

Gypsy-Punk=Hard Rock + Polka

Derek Trucks=one of top 3 blues guitarists ever

Plan to go to Montreal tomorrow, so I'll have more pics by Monday! A tantôt! Research reports will get done eventually....

Views of Quebec City from the Observatory

Yesterday we went to the Côte de Beaupré and the Île d'Orléans. Côte de Beaupré is just east of Quebec City and the Île d'Orléans is an island near the south bank of the St. Lawrency river. Both areas are rural and really beautiful--New Englandish. We stopped at the St. Anne de Beaupré Basilica, which I had seen once or twice before. Walking around outside the church, I noticed a path going up the hill, or the cape really that runs along the river. On the path were life-size bronze statues of the Stations of the Cross, which started at the bottom and went uphill. Very cool.

Then we went to the island and had lunch at an Auberge with a great view. Good meal too. Pumpkin soup!

Our last stop were the Chutes de Montmorency, or Montmorency falls. I had also been there before, but again, it all looks different without 10 feet of snow!

le festival

There are soundstages set all over downtown Quebec City for their annual Festival d'été, see artists at http://www.infofestival.com/ . It lasts for 10 days and there some surprisingly impressive bands on the list. Yesterday was opening day and we all were looking forward to buying our 'macaron,' which is what they call the pin you buy for $30 giving you access to all concerts--not a bad deal at all.

After class yesterday a bus was waiting for us to bring us to la vieille ville for a visit at the Musée de la civilisation which was very impressive. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside, but there were several really good exhibitions. My favorites were the history of Québécois cinema--extremely high tech expo, another that showed the research that went into the Tintin books, "Le temple du soleil" and "Les 7 boules de Cristal"--great art.

After the museum, we skipped out on the bus to bring us back to campus and stayed in the old city for dinner on the Boulevard du Petit Champlain, and the festival. Everyone wanted to stay at the big stage to watch Cowboy Frangant, a Québécois rock band that's really popular, but I struck out on my own to find the blues stage where The Derek Trucks Band (one of my faves) was playing. Concert was fantastic! The weather turned out to be nice, no rain as expected. The flash on my old camera wasn't good enough to get a good pic of the band but later I'll post a picture of Scène Métro, a really cool set-up right in the middle of the city. Much more on the festival to come, but tonight I have a couple of reports to finish for class. Tomorrow is a trip to l'Île d'Orléans, an island community in the middle of the St. Lawrence River.

Laval 1--l'arrivée

1er juillet—After a couple of uneventful flights—only a slight mix-up at the Newark airport and a plane-change due to a lightning strike, I arrived in Quebec City on time. A couple of nice students with ‘Ecole de langues’ signs picked a few of us up at the airport and brought us to our dorm. I had to get my mind in gear for the Québécois accent all over again.
The rooms in Pavillon Moreau are small but comfortable enough, and cleaner than the dorm rooms I’ve seen at home. The weather is uncommonly cool, even for Quebec and the locals feel bad for us. A few students had to go out to buy coats. Hopefully it won’t last past this week.

July1st is the Canadian national holiday. At the informational meeting we were told that there was a celebration that night in the Old City, so of course I had to go. I met another student, Susan, from Philadelphia, in the airport, and we decided to hop on a bus—in the wrong direction unfortunately—but finally arrived in the ‘vieille ville’ and I had dinner at a nice restaurant on the Grand Allée. I’ve seen this street many times during my ski trips but the patios were always covered with snow.
After dinner we walked over to the Plaines d’Abraham where we could hear music playing. It was a rock band from Québec, singing in French of course, but I didn’t catch the name. There were pretty good but we didn’t stay long enough for the fireworks because we kept feeling raindrops and it was already pretty chilly.

Les tunnels

Université Laval has a really nice campus. It’s fairly modern compared to LSU. The earliest buildings were built in the 60’s but there are several that have very modern architecture. It’s obvious that art is really important here too. There is a rock sculpture in front of the ‘student union’ type building engraved with quotations from Felix LeClerc. There are several other sculptures around campus too.

All of the buildings on campus are linked underground with tunnels for pedestrians who have to walk to class during the snowy winters (or the rainy and cold summers). Artists have been commissioned to paint murals all along the walls of these tunnels. One artist was working on a painting but he didn’t want to be photographed. He showed us some of the murals he had already completed. (see image)