Anniversary trip to Quebec

You don't need to read this post. How's that for a way to start off? Of course you don't need to read ANY post, but when I imagine friends and acquaintances sitting down with this, I feel like one of those archetypal travelogue-ers who buttonholes strangers to come watch him flip through the 300 slides in his Hawaiian Vacation slideshow. However, when I envision my future self and children reading through old blog books…I don't want to leave out a single picture. So here we are.

When I was feeling so sad about leaving Quebec in December, Sam tried to comfort me by saying "We can go back for our anniversary! We can come back every year if we want! This won't be the last we see of this place." But we both knew it was a bit of a stretch. And we knew we couldn't really go back—not to our house, not to our real life there. When we got home, though, I put an alert on Google Flights for flights to Quebec City, just in case. And a few times through the winter, prices went down, but the cheap flights were always bad in some way—long overnight layovers, or right on the days Sam had finals and the kids had performances, or not over a Sunday. We couldn't bear the thought of being in Quebec and not getting to go to church! I finally gave up on the idea as school and life got busy and Sam's window of availability (he didn't want to miss more than a couple class periods, and he teaches during Spring term) got narrower.

But then I got an alert that prices were down in early May. So hardly stopping to consider it, I booked a flight from the only possible Thursday to Tuesday—and then spent the entire 24-hour cancellation period fretting that it would be too hard to get away. Quebec in the spring, though. How could we pass that up? So I didn't cancel.

The kids were all SO sad we were going without them. They all said, "Can just I come with you? I won't be any trouble! You won't even know I'm there!" I wished we could take all of them, which of course meant we could take none of them. And we were going to miss Goldie's birthday. But that's not unprecedented; we move birthday celebrations to different days all the time. And Sam really could not have gone any other time! So we went off with many promises of an even more festive celebration when we got home! (And a few secret plans with Goldie's older sisters for a fun day while we were gone!)

There are no direct flights from here to Quebec City—not even two-leg flights—so we really had to spend two of our days just traveling. And we got delayed in Toronto so we were even a couple hours later than planned. But at least we reached the Quebec City airport (which we hadn't actually been inside of, in spite of dropping off and picking people up there multiple times) and saw good old Bonhomme, next to whom Sam posed (can you pick out which of the two is which?).

It was cold and grey, and not very springlike…though the trees were starting to have a green mist of new leaves. We picked up our rental car and drove into Old Quebec, saying all the time "Oh! I had forgotten these 'Réduisez le brrrrrruit!' signs!" or "Oh! Doesn't it feel right to see the Delta Building again?" I had gotten a tiny apartment for us as near our old house as I could, up on Rue St-Jean, because I knew we'd want to walk in all the familiar places. And without a parking place, because what would a visit to Quebec be without driving around trying to find parking for 20 minutes before getting home? When we finally found a spot and got out of the car (it wasn't quite like old times because we were in a little car instead of our huge van; almost too easy!) I almost started crying to step onto this familiar street. In fact, not to put too fine a point on it, I did start crying.

…And again when I looked out our apartment window and saw the Delta building lit up (and wasn't able to go to our dear balcony and look out over the rest of the city)…

…And again when we walked through the playground by St-Jean-Baptiste and we had no children there to beg us to stop and play for a little while!

In fact, I cried off and on all through the trip, which is really quite silly when you think about how much I had wanted to go there in the first place—but it wasn't because I was sad. Or not only that. I was sad and happy and nostalgic and grateful and thoughtful and wistful all at once. You can't ever really go back to a place. I already knew you couldn't. But being here made it crystal clear. We were on the same streets, walking past the same people (we recognized many faces, even just people down the block we'd never really gotten to know), eating the same food (yummmm), but time had passed and things had changed. We'll never have quite that time with our kids again, with Clementine being three and saying "I'm trois!", and our missionaries running up the street while the kids hung out the windows calling hello to them, and Malachi heading off for his early morning runs, and the girls doing ballet at the kitchen counter. We'll never be quite who we were when we arrived the first time, scared and overwhelmed and awe-struck. And that's why I cried…I guess??

That night before bed we ate at the Fish and Chips place (Poisson et frites) on Rue St-Jean and talked to the English-speaking New England guy there as if we'd never left. I wonder if he recognized us without our kids?

And now I'll stop giving the play-by-play and just put in pictures and what I want to say about them. :)

We had two days of what should have been not-too-bad weather (low 50's), but were made intermittently freezing by the bitter, bitter wind, and two days of the most beautiful perfect spring (high 60's), so that felt just about right. It felt like the season was generally about a month earlier than back in Utah. The forsythia was out, the leaves were just starting to come out (but not all the trees had leaves yet), and there were a few daffodils in people's yards. There were bluebells in the parc across from the Assemblée building.

"Daisy's tree" in front of L'Église Saint Matthew was covered with new spring-green leaves, much to my delight. I had so wanted to see that tree in the spring!

It looked almost yellow when the sun was out.

And here is the updated collage of that tree in all the seasons! Twice in Fall.

(And a little bigger.) I love it!

We walked past our house whenever we could and stared unashamedly into the windows trying to see if anything was different about it. The new tenants, whoever they are, had the blinds closed in most of the rooms! We never kept those blinds closed. Tsk tsk. We speculated about whether or not our tomato can is still propping up the houseplant in the living room (I think yes). They had moved the plant to a different window, though! I was tempted to see if our door code still worked for the lock keypad but I didn't quite dare. 😄

On one of the colder days, we drove out to L'île d'Orléans and there were waterfalls everywhere! It was beautiful. The trees were just barely starting to green up. The grasses and moss were like green carpets. And we saw a black whale tail flipping around in the St. Lawrence River (at least, that's what I'm going to keep believing. It was definitely something…some big fish.)

View from the observation tower. You can see a bunch of other islands up the river.

The goat farm we love was open too. We got goat cheese for our Sunday meal, and goat milk ice cream too, of course! The lady there was nice as always.

I don't know if I ever got many pictures of these little roadside chapels on the island. They are all around it. There are some up on the other island, Isle aux Coudres, too. Probably not even used anymore, but I like them so much!

Church and cemetery in the village of St-Jean on the island

Praise be, Chez Mag was open for the season so we could get lobster poutine! Here I cried with joy.

Sam got the smoked meat poutine, also a solid option (but not quite as good as the lobster).

Sam and I are good at packing light for trips and always only take carry-on luggage, but we had checked an almost-empty bag specially so we could stock up on some foods we and the kids had been missing. You'll be pleased to see we didn't skimp on the Canadian Kit-kats:

It was strangely wonderful to be walking through Walmart and Costco again. They were so familiar, yet so different from the ones we have at home. I was even inexplicably happy to see bagged milk again!

We couldn't bring that home, of course, but we were happy to drink as much as we could of that delicious Québon milk during the time we were there!

San also got me a good cartload of this Bovril chicken stock. (For my Mother's Day present!) I don't know why it's so good, but it just is, and we can't get it in the States. It feels like it makes all my soups and gravies better. I thought maybe I was just imagining it, but when we got home and I went back to "Better than Bouillon" I did notice quite a difference! I think this could possibly last me a year, and then we'll just have to take another trip to Quebec, I guess!

This is where our little apartment was, above the secondhand shop "Entre Nous" (but on the back of the building), which we had visited lots of times when we were here before. It was a good spot right on Rue St-Jean.

There's Sam coming out of the little stairwell up to the apartment.

Looking across the street. It looks different from up high! On the bottom there is the little chocolate store, Érico, but I never looked up to see the "1923" on top of the building before!

Inside

The pillows in the apartment were SO uncomfortable that I ended up getting this squishy cow at Walmart just to have something better to sleep on. He was a pretty good pillow, and I grew fond of him, but I couldn't possibly bring him home (it was him or the Kit-Kats). So he stayed at the apartment. I hope the next guests made use of him.

Coming out on the street and looking up toward St-Jean-Baptiste (with another car parked in "our spot")

Amazingly, Sam had never been inside the Morin Centre, the English language library the kids and I loved. We remedied that.

Ice cream. Not the only ice cream that was consumed on this trip.

Sam suggested we go get pastries at a bakery in Lévis and I went into a cold sweat as I realized I had forgotten about that place! Without Sam, I would have forgotten to go there altogether! Horrifying. Sadly, without all the kids with us, we couldn't get our usual enormous assortment of pastries, but on the other hand, we were actually able to eat more than a snatched bite or two without fighting off the hungry hordes. Trade-offs.

We ate our bread and toursades at the park by Chutes de la Chaudière. All the underbrush was starting to grow and it was getting so green!

We hadn't seen the Chutes from this side before (upriver, at the top of them)

They were not as raging and large as they were in the summer, but still beautiful!

We visited some friends in Lévis—the Sagers, whose girls Gus had made good friends with. He sent a drawing and one of his little cars with us in our suitcases to deliver to Eva and Charlotte! It was so cute! It was fun to visit and catch up, though we (and I'm sure they) wished we had Gus with us too. They are moving to Scotland in the Fall, so that will be an adventure!

We drove around Lévis a little and got some pretty views across the river to the Château

And we drove out to the countryside, Dechambault area, to eat at another favorite poutine place (Casse-Croûte Vieux Moulin). That's actually two poutines sitting side by side, if you were wondering. One smoked meat, one regular.

Back in the city. Evening walk.

Good old "LTA" building

Though we missed the children terribly and kept saying "Oh, don't you wish we had Daisy to walk by the Château with us?" or "Oh, too bad we can't have Gussie and Ziggy here to play on this playground," I admit it was nice to be able to just walk wherever and not worry about who would be getting too tired or too grumpy. We went on so many good walks!

Oh, it was so good to see the Château again!

And the river!

Down the stairs to the bas-ville

Petit Champlain

Notre-dame-des-victoires

Back up to Parc Montmorency

Petit Seminaire, looking good—they've taken all the scaffolding off that one side

More bluebells!

Looking down along the city walls

And looking off of Porte St-Jean

Sunday morning, Sam put out a great Mother's Day breakfast of goat cheese and salami and hummus and baguettes. It was SO good. So good.

Sunday was by far the happiest and best day of the whole trip. When we walked into church (to be greeted by missionaries we didn't know *sniff*) my heart felt like it was going to burst. I think I was a little worried that I had exaggerated, in my memory, our closeness with the branch. I thought, "After all, we were barely there for half a year. It changed us, but we were still only visitors." But everyone was so happy to see us. We were enveloped immediately with love. So many hugs, so many happy tears and teary laughs. I could hardly sing the hymns I was so happy and overwhelmed, but of course I did sing the hymns because singing the hymns in French is something I have missed most!! I even got asked and gave the opening prayer (in French—nervously!!) Oh it all felt so good!

The kids had sent little notes and pictures to their friends, so I had a bag of things to give out and a list of people to see! Everyone was disappointed we didn't have our kids with us, and everyone said, "When are you coming back?"

I had texted some of our friends that we would be in town, and the primary president said, "Well, since you'll be here…do you want to play the piano for primary?" Haha. Of course I did. And after singing time I went into Relief Society and listened to half of a wonderful lesson and understood every word. (Or maybe I was just so happy that I felt like I did, haha.)

Our friends the Morieras had invited us over for dinner after church, which was SO nice, especially because it was Mother's Day and Greice should have just been relaxing and letting other people take care of her! We absolutely love this family. They always sat in the row in front of us at church, and the two little girls would turn around over the back of the pew and smile and giggle and play with us. They have the most beautiful curly hair and the cutest smiles. And the parents, Greice and Jeffrei, are some of the most amazing people we know. They immigrated to Quebec from Brazil a few years ago. Both are first members of the church in their families and later helped baptize their parents! They learned French when they moved and both speak it beautifully. And they've learned English too ("How?" I always ask them. "How can you possibly speak three languages?" And they always say, "Oh, well, it's not hard to learn English…you just pick it up from movies and music and everything." I can't fathom that. I can't fathom even speaking two languages so well. I would so love to be truly fluent in another language!).

Anyway, they came so courageously to start a new life in this new, foreign place (I have had only a glimpse of how hard that can be), endured the freezing winters when they're used to beautiful warm weather year-round, left their families behind, learned to love new traditions, helped their sweet daughters adapt and thrive, and stayed faithful and stalwart in the gospel all the while—amidst a culture that is definitely not friendly to religion and faith! They are AMAZING.

The girls danced for us, and played their tiny violins…

…and took pictures with their little instant camera…

…and we had the yummiest dinner and loveliest time with them! We hope they will come visit us when they get their passports next year!

I got some Mother's Day roses at church!

I-A-elephant. I had forgotten about these signs we always saw, and pointed out to Goldie

Sunday evening, Sam asked what I wanted to do, and I said walk to the Chateau and watch the sunset. So that's what we did. We got some pretty glimpses of Maison Mère-Mallet along the way!

I love the way the light from the setting sun races up the buildings until it is only warming up the very tops.

I love seeing that watery orange sun in the river

The very last sunlight…

…and then it's gone.

Look how green all the trees are! I think they got greener just in the few days of our visit.

There was a beautiful full moon. I noticed all the full moons while we lived in Quebec, thinking "just two more and we'll be gone…only one more and we'll be gone…we'll see the next full moon in Utah…" So it was fun to see another one in Quebec long after I was expecting to!

The next day we decided to drive up to Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré. It was a beautiful day for it. So warm and pleasant. The hills were covered in green!

This is another place I've now seen in three(-ish) seasons. It is beautiful at all times.

(but especially in Fall, I have to admit)…

…but Spring might be next best!

(the same hillside in Fall…for comparison)

I was happy to get another chance to look at all the carved animals on the pews. I didn't get to see them all last time. I found some good ones!

Including…finally…a bunny! I knew there had to be one somewhere.

Another season comparison shot: here in the Spring…

…and Fall…

…and Winter.

The little chapel on the hill across the street

There's a spot where you can walk out to the river nearby. It was SO windy as we got close to the water, it felt like we were going to blow away!

There were hundreds of white birds in the shallow waters (you can see them far away here above the jutting riverbank) pecking at the mud to find insects or little shrimp, I suppose. We thought they were some kind of ibis at first but on closer view they looked more like geese.

One more stop on the island

Back toward the city.

Ooh look, there's our house!

I miss it. :(

More walks. We got to walk ALL the way along the city walls (a couple parts were closed for repairs when we were here last), from the Plains of Abraham to the Armoury.

This street is old and cool. Rue Sous-le-Cap (under the hill). There are walkways going all along from the houses on the far side to those crowded up right against the hill. Now most of the hill-side houses are just garages or sheds.

This is the Hôtel-Dieu, the hospital.

This last day was the prettiest day. It was so nice and the setting sun was so warm!

The leaves on the tree by Saint-Jean-Baptiste were really out at last.

(Spring vs. Summer)

The church belongs to the city officially now. They still haven't decided what to do with it. I'm still holding out for a Millennial Temple! :)

We flew out very early in the morning (had to get up and walk through the dark streets at 3 a.m., as we'd done many times for airport drop-offs before!) but by the time we got to the airport it didn't feel early at all!

It was only May, but the sun was already rising SO early—5:12 a.m.!! That was a full hour earlier than sunrise in Utah on the same day (6:13 am). And the sunset wasn't very different (8:10 in Quebec, 8:36 in Utah). I don't know why things these fascinate me so much, but they do. I like the way my watch face adjusted to the new area—you can see instantly how much more daylight there was and how it is distributed.