Quebec City Day 3 | One Day at a Time

Continued from Quebec City Day 2.

First, some pictures from last night. Making use of our “living room” in our room. Watching the French Dispatch, and we both realized we had seen it together but both have forgotten much of it. I guess we’ll watch it again, inspired by all the French we’ve been hearing all day today.

Now, it’s morning time. Another cloudy cold morning.

Starbucks this morning for coffee. They still have cold brew here even though it’s cold!

Coffee in hand, a stroll along the boardwalk by our hotel.

Looking down from the boardwalk to Lower Town. There’s a funicular to go down there, and usually I’m really into funiculars, but somehow, this one feels too short for me to even attempt to ride.

Found a semi dry bench to sit on under a pergola.

Mini pancakes.

It’s pretty chilly out here, but we are dressed for the occasion.

Permanent ice slide, but too warm right now to operate.

What a cool building. Honestly if Chateau Frontenac isn’t here in Quebec City, don’t think I’d ever come visit the place.

This is the coldest day so far.

Shame they’ve blocked off the stairs, we would have kept on walking. Wonder why it’s blocked off?

Alright, time to do our one ticketed event today. Going to head 30min out of town and visit a sugar shack. We can get a taxi out there no problem, but let’s see how easy or difficult it is to get a taxi back in town from the country. Talked to the concierge, she said that they could call us a taxi from out there if we have trouble finding one to get back.

30 min drive, but all is not well. In the last 10min or the drive, I started feeling heavy waves of nausea. No idea what’s going on. Something with the smell in the car? The way our Moroccan driver was driving waving his arms while he was talking and swaying the car? My sinuses giving me a headache from allergy? A combination of it all? Who knows.

Thank god we are here, I feel like I’m about to puke everywhere. Ugh.

The sugar shack dining area. We came in, and I felt so ill, I had to go outside in fear of throwing up. Thankfully we’ve got about 15min before our dining time.

The actual sugar shack with all the maple products.

This front building is the dining area. Feels like driving out to The Salt Lick. You go out in the country for lunch or dinner, and it’s in this rustic setting. Communal tables and served family style buffet. Instead of BBQ sauce tying everything together, it’s maple syrup.

Alright, I’m starting to feel slightly better now that I’m out of the car and had a chance to walk around a bit. Let’s try this again.

More fruit ketchup.

Some bread and pea soup is making me feel better. Slowly, but seems to be finally settling down.

Meat pie.

Eggs.

Pork ears.

Yum. Let’s eat. I’m finally feeling pretty good, and got my appetite back, yay.

A Canadian family from central Canada sat next to us. This whole sugar shack experience is also foreign to them as well. It’s pretty much a Québécois thing.

Last, maple pie with maple syrup. And in typical Québécois fashion, almost all the food is sweet and then coated once again in maple syrup.

The Canadian family have 3 kids aged very similar to our kids, but despite all the sugar, they were all still very calm. WTF, how are these kids so calm and well behaved! A big group of seniors here also have some sort of awards ceremony for their organization. It was all in French, so we had no idea what they were saying.

Done with lunch, now out walking the grounds. Cool to see actual maple syrup collection here.

We’ve called our taxi driver who took us here, and he’ll be coming back to pick us up again. It’ll be probably 25min until he comes back. I hope I don’t feel sick again.

Headed here to get maple taffy.

They pour hot super thick maple syrup onto snow.

Wait 10 seconds for it to cool and harden some, then you use the wooden stick they give you to wrap it into a lollipop.

Time to eat more sweets! You like the photo background in front of the trash cans? Behind the blue trash can is a small shed where they collect all the maple sap from the trees.

A whole network of pipes all up this mountain connecting to all the taps on the trees leading to this shack.

This is where it’s all collected, and it’s actually a stream of maple tree sap flowing in like a half opened water faucet. From here, I don’t know where it goes, but somewhere to get boiled filtered etc. etc.

There are also some traditional buckets here collecting the sap. And there are different colors in the different tree saps as well. I tasted some, it did not taste very sweet yet. We looked it up and it’s about 40:1 ratio to be boiled down to turn into maple syrup.

Didn’t have much planned for Quebec City except to visit a sugar shack. Glad we did a very authentic(hate how this word has been hijacked) Québécois thing, despite me feeling violently ill on the way here. We are towards the very end of maple syrup collecting season, and in about another week or two the shacks will shut down until spring of next year. Lucked out that our anniversary date coincided with it still being sugar shack season.

While we wait for our taxi to arrive, we visited the little trappers museum.

Super old school snowmobile! Cool.

Chainsaws for days, even some two person operated ones.

Wood burning stove, but there’s more, there’s a mirror on it! You can look at your pretty self while you cook!

You just straddle a hot engine in these old snowmobiles. Look at the position of the carb…sucking air right next to your crotch, hah.

Alright, our taxi is here, let’s go back to old town.

Unfortunately, whatever caused the nausea on the way here struck immediately within 3 minutes of me getting in the taxi. It must have been the smell or something, who knows. This is fucking miserable trying to hold it all together. I must have looked pretty sick because at one point the driver looked at me and asked if I was feeling sick. Hold it together please…ugh. At one point, my body just went into some sort of shock and I could feel my hands, arms, and my torso going numb. Pull over, pull over, I need to puke.

We made it all the way back until 5 minutes from our hotel, and I just couldn’t do it anymore. Violently threw up 3 times in a planter by the sidewalk. Ugh. WTF, I feel like shit. Still feel like shit after puking. Had to get back in the taxi and go 5 more minutes until hotel, and almost threw up again. We arrived, I left RL to pay the taxi and made a beeline up to our room. I feel sick, I hope I don’t throw up again. I laid down on the bed and immediately passed out and fell asleep.

Woke up from my nap, I feel better. Still off, but no longer miserable. What happened? Who knows. All I know is that really sucks. But, life must go on, let’s go to dinner. Let’s see how I feel after a while.

Down the stairs again back to Lower Town.

It’s Wednesday night, there’s a few more people here today than yesterday.

That cliff separates lower town from upper town.

This is the Main Street down in lower town. This is basically it…we thought it would be bigger and longer and…well, more.

I like this hybrid spiral staircase.

Dinner spot.

No reservations for us, but we came in pretty early. Good thing, because very soon after we got here, the whole restaurant filled up.

It’s a restaurant that specializes in rabbit.

RL’s rabbit saddle dish. Very tender!

My duck confit and duck sausage stew dish. Yummm.

Love all the comfort food. They have all these traditional high caloric food probably because it’s always so cold here and people need the calories to keep warm.

Thankfully, whatever nausea hit me from the car ride is now mostly gone. Enjoyed my dinner.

We had no idea when we took this picture, but the red door next to RL’s head was featured heavily on the Korean hit drama Goblin. We’d find out about all of this the next day.

Nice. I think this triggered some sort of memory. I feel like I’ve been to Quebec back in my younger days with my parents and I remember seeing this? Maybe?