Experiencing Canada

     Having become experts at Le Metro in our two short days in Montreal, it was easy to find our way back to Gare Centrale, even though we had no real idea where it was directionally.  Once there, we dropped off our bags and spent a morning wandering aimlessly beneath Montreal in some massive mall type thing. We came up for sunlight briefly to look around McGill, but went back under when it started to rain.
  And oh did it rain.  By the time we had reached Quebec city aboard the Corridor (a really fancy train this time!) it was absolutely pissing.  But we wouldn't be disheartened- we wanted to ride the funicular and visit the plains of Abraham!  And so we wandered through Basse-Ville, rode up the mountain, wandered soaking wet through the Chateau Frontenac (take that rich people!) and got to the plains of Abraham to find out they were closed at this time.  How do you close plains? Apparently just the visitor's center was closed, so we took a brief hot chocolate break at Le Grand Cafe, which wasn't a cafe at all, but a fancy restaurant which we felt very out of place at.  We went back and crossed the plains of Abraham to get a view of the St.Lawrence, then we headed in for dinner.

      My experience with speaking French in Quebec is that they will play along with me for a while, then they will ask me something which I've no idea what it means and I will stare blankly at them and they will ask me "Anglais?" and I'll nod and then we actually get somewhere.  I had an authentic Croque-Monsieur along with some beer, very happy to be out of the rain briefly.  As soon as we boarded the Ocean later that night to go to Halifax, I changed out of my wet clothes and was almost instantly asleep.