Québec, and the trip to Fredericton

I spent most of the trip to Québec in a total fog. The toboggan ride really took everything out of me. At least that's what I'll blame it on :) But I spent the bulk of the bus ride unconscious. I was still really out of it when we arrived, and happily Sandria, another person we met off couchsurfing, was at the station already. She took us back to her place, and after dropping our packs, Neil insisted we go look for dinner. It was about 9 pm and we hadn't eaten since breakfast, which was maybe a couple of bagels, so on top of the exhaustion, my head was swimming from lack of food as well. So my first impression of Québec was a bit foggy.

We were able to sleep in a bit the next day though, which helped. And then wandered the old city. It was like being transported to some European city, and the weird fog of travelling of the previous day resembled jetlag, so maybe that's why I spent that first day in a daze of not really knowing where I was. Row houses, tiny streets, old gateways and towering walls. And suddenly stepping out to a view of the St. Lawrence and realizing that it's THE St. Lawrence, the same river I had to draw on all those maps back in social studies class.

And we had to get some tire d'érable (maple taffy served fresh and steaming on a bed of snow, and rolled around a stick as it hardens). I'd had it at the Festival du Bois in Coquitlam, and then at the Rendezvous Festival in Whitehorse, but it was a bit surreal slurping it up while watching the St. Lawrence river go by.

We ran into our first problems here trying to get interviews. I can't speak French unfortunately, but I really want the documentary to be multilingual. So I've approached people and said I would ask questions in English, and they could answer in French (or whatever their first language is), and though I wouldn't really know what they were talking about, I could get it translated later. It's worked a few times, and people are usually more than happy to find out they can answer in their own language. However, we got a lot of people who just weren't interested at all. I was sorta expecting that, I guess what I wasn't expecting was that it would all be concentrated in one area.

Don't get me wrong, we got our quota of interviews for the city, and they were really good, and the people we spoke to were really insightful. I'm just starting to worry that we're approaching the same types of people, or maybe attracting the same types of people, and not reaching the diversity that I'd hoped for. Though really, the diversity I originally wanted would require at least a month in each province. We can only do what we can. Maybe this is Canada through rose-colored glasses, and is that so bad? It's a beginning.

We're heading to the Maritimes now. Now the schedule starts to get sketchy. Fredericton is the first stop. I'm still beat from Mont Tremblant . . . I'm gonna sleep.