You and Me

F and I went on a roadtrip for six days at the beginning of July. We departed on a Friday afternoon and stopped in Rimouski for a night's sleep. The next day, we visited Murdochville's old copper mine. It was a short visit, and our guide was a bit weird.

We then drove to Percé where we stayed for the two nights. The first night, we had supper at La Maison du pêcheur, one of Percé's most famous restaurants. We didn't have a reservation, but there was a cancellation and we ended up with one of the best tables in the restaurant, with a view on the water and just underneath the original roof where members of the FLQ had drawn graffiti. The food wasn't that great, though. I had a sea urchin which had a bit too much cream in it and lobster with a maple and algae sauce. The lobster was a bit too rich. 

We finished our evening at the motel bar, at the Pic de l'Aurore. This is the third time we have been to that specific motel. We always end up at the bar talking with the proprietor, Jean-François, and his girlfriend Marie. Even though they live in what is considered to be one of the most far off regions of Quebec, they are more worldly than most people I know. 

The next morning, we headed to the Bonaventure island, where there are four hiking trails which all lead to a huge bird colony. We started with the trail which allowed us to visit all the abandoned houses on the island. We then arrived to the bird colony, which was a lot more impressive than what I had expected. This is what it looked like:

We took the fastest trail on the way back. I would probably go back another time to do the two remaining trails.

That night, we had supper at a place recommended to us by Jean-François, the Bistro Sacs à vin. It looked less touristy than most of the restaurants in Percé, especially since it wasn't by the water. I found the restaurant to be way better than the Maison du pêcheur. First of all, it was less expensive. For 60$, we had two soups, two entrées and one liter of wine. I had cod cakes, and they were amazing. I also tasted F's dish. He had homemade maple sausage. They were also really good and not too sweet.

We also talked with the proprietor, a nice French guy. I will be going back there for sure.

The next day, we drove to Shediac, a beach in New Brunswick near Moncton. The drive was long, so by the time we were done with the beach, it was time for dinner again. We went to a restaurant next to our hotel called Pisces. I had oysters and a bouillabaisse-like dish, which allowed me to taste all kinds of sea food: lobster, shrimp, scallops, salmon, mussels and calamari.

The following day, we went to Halifax. We walked along the harbor for a while. We were supposed to sleep there, but we thought it might be too expensive, so we got back in the car and went to New Glasgow, a pretty small town.

From New Glasgow, we drove to the Glenora distillery, which I believe is the only distillery in Canada which produces single malt whisky. We arrived in time for lunch and we both had a dish inspired by Vietnamese sandwiches. The sandwich had pulled pork smoked with wood from whisky barrels and pickled daikon and carrots in it.

We then visited the distillery and took a hike around it. We had dinner at the distillery restaurant, but it wasn't a particularly memorable meal.

The next day, we returned home. I liked traveling around the Atlantic provinces, but I don't think I will be returning there anytime soon (this was my second time in those provinces). Percé, however, is still a favorite of mine, and I would go back there again and again, even though this was my fifth time there.

The Body of an American

For Easter weekend, F and I decided to go on yet another little getaway. Normally our first reflex is to go east, but at this time of the year, there isn't much to do there. We are starting to run out of places to go to in Quebec, and F hasn't done his passport yet. We settled on Ottawa, which is where we had one of our first getaways. We arrived at the Gatineau Sheraton on Saturday afternoon. After getting our room, we walked over to Ottawa and roamed aimlessly around for a little while. We ended up at Sparks Street Mall, a pedestrian mall that looked like it had declined in recent years. We walked through the mall and decided to go back up to the beginning of the mall, where we had seen an Irish pub. It turned out to be part of a chain, but the ambience of the place was good nonetheless. I had mini shepherd's pies, which were cute and good, but after a while the crust gets soggy. Here is what they looked like:

After that we sort of fell into a food and alcohol coma, and we spent the rest of our evening at the hotel bar watching the hockey game. The next morning, we went to the National Gallery of Canada, where they had a temporary exhibition on Escher. We also went through the permanent collections. There was a lot of everything: baroque art, Impressionists, American abstract Expressionists, and lots of interesting Canadian and Quebec art. We went through the whole museum pretty quickly, but at least we got to see a little bit of everything. After our visit, we went to the Byward Market for a little while, and then we took a walk on on Parliament Hill in an attempt to see if it was possible to visit the Parliament without a tour guide. We didn't have any luck with that, so we walked back to our hotel to get our car to try and find the Prime Minister's house, at 24 Sussex Drive. After a roundabout, we couldn't figure out where Sussex Drive continued, so we ended up in a fancy residential block which houses diplomats. We drove back to ByWard Market, where we got lunch in an Irish pub, which apparently is part of another chain of Irish pubs. In the Irish standards section of the menu, they had a mild curry, so that is what I got. It tasted just like my mother's curry.

Another food  and alcohol coma fell upon us. We then went to the hotel pool for a little bit, and then we headed to Gatineau's casino. We ate at one of the restaurants, which on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays serves a buffet. The buffet was good, with lots of kinds of salads, seafood and meat. However, it was a bit pricy, especially considering that F and I never eat that much at buffets. F then played roulette and blackjack for a little bit, and then we were off.

I now have a newfound appreciation for Ottawa. The last time I was there, it was an even quicker trip, so it left me with the impression that there is nothing much to do in Ottawa. Now, however, I have changed my mind about that. There are a lot of other museums in Ottawa that we could have gone too, and there are more Irish pubs than in Quebec City. It might seem weird that Irish pubs are the places we hung out at the most, but they are more fun than clubs, for example. Also, apparently the Irish ethnicity is the third answer that comes up in the list of ethnicities Ottawa citizens identify to, so it isn't that weird. In general, Ottawa is a nice city, just big enough.

Come Into My World

A week ago was the start of a one-week break for F, so we decided to have a little getaway. We left Saturday morning at about eleven, and we stopped at Baie-Saint-Paul for lunch. We wanted to go to a place we had already been to, but it was closed for lunch, so we went to Chez Pineault. I had a good soup and a huge amount of mussels, and F had a burger, which had a good size. We then hung out in the town for a little while and bought some local products.

After that, we made our way to a hotel in La Malbaie, which is near a casino. We rested from the drive a bit and walked around the casino for the few hours we had before our reservation at Le Saint-Laurent. We had eaten there previously and I had some good memories from the restaurant. This time, I also had a good evening, but it wasn't really because of the food. For my appetizer, I had foie gras mi-cuit. The foie gras was okay, but I wouldn't really have called it "mi-cuit". There was a good amount of it, but I was given too much bread for the amount there was. I then had duck breast with truffle gnocchis. The duck was good and once more, the portion was satisfying. I was a bit anxious about the gnocchis, because I usually don't like truffles. In the end, they didn't taste too much like truffles, but I wouldn't exactly call that a redeeming quality. The gnocchis simply weren't smooth at all. Things got a bit better at dessert, surprisingly. A restaurant often disappoints at dessert, because restaurants which are known for their chefs often have another person manning the desserts. That evening, I ordered an apple cake, which came with a layer as green as a Granny Smith. The cake tasted a bit like an apple cheesecake and was a great finish to a so-so meal.

We spend most of the rest of our evening in the casino. In the later part of the evening, we listened to a band whose singer had more energy than the last one we listened to. It was the conclusion to our getaway which, albeit short, was a welcome break from our routine.

The Cure

I saw Tegan and Sara at the Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier at the Place des Arts last Monday. I hated the venue, it wasn't intimate at all. The concert was great, though. I liked the light effects a lot, and I found that the girls conveyed a lot of emotion.

Setlist:

Arrow

Don't Rush

The Ocean

Hell

Walking With A Ghost

I Bet It Stung

Burn Your Life Down

Where Does The Good Go

Speak Slow

On Directing

Red Belt

The Cure

Paperback Head

Night Watch

Soil, Soil

Knife Going In

So Jealous

Nineteen

Northshore

Alligator

Sentimental Tune

Someday

The Con

Encore:

Back In Your Head

Feel It In My Bones

My Number

Call It Off

Living Room

Other topic: Yesterday, I went to a great tea lounge called Camelia Sinensis near St-Denis. My friend and I had a black Chinese oolong that required us to use a special technique. We were given specific amounts of time for the infusions, and we each had two small cups in front of us, one of them being more cylindrical. We used that one for the first pouring. Afterwards, we would smell it then pour it into the other cup. The cylindrical cup would keep the scent of the tea, and that scent would change as time passed. The senses of taste and of smell would then be separated, very effectively: the tea didn't taste as it smelled. We also had a delicious grape scone, which was just the right amount of buttery, and a green tea cheesecake, which was as delightful as any cheesecake always is. I left the place feeling incredibly relaxed.

After Hours

Books: Read Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer, it was great. Horrors of war, once more. I loved the description of Brod's character, and a lot of other things, including the meaning of the book's title.

Movies: Saw The Fountainhead, Gary Cooper is weirdly handsome as Howard Roark; Patricia Neal is not how I pictured Dominique Francon, but she is also weirdly beautiful; I enjoyed Raymond Massey's portrayal of Gail Wynand the most; one of the greatest things about this movie is that it is old and black-and-white, so, not much there; I don't think the movie makes much sense to anyone who hasn't read the book, oh but how I love the book, I reread it recently and all along I was going ohmygodIlovethisbook.

Saw The English Patient, so horrible, I don't understand how it got so many Oscar nominations, both of the characters of the love story are utterly unlikable.

Saw Ne le dis à personne, a terrific French thriller directed by Guillaume Canet, I guess the boy's got brains too.

Saw Up in the Air, it had some good moments; Vera Farmiga's character is really hot; a good reflection on unemployment; it is scary how somebody can get to the point where George Clooney's character has, i.e. with no connection to anybody whatsoever.

Saw Inglourious Basterds, it was okay, but I wasn't blown away by it or anything.

Music: Have bought The XX album from iTunes recently, not exactly breaking news in the indie world here, but I like them a lot.

Places: Went back to Laloux, one of my favorite restaurants, before it changed chefs; perhaps I mentioned this restaurant before; the servings are usually very small, and it is always frustrating because the dishes are both always expensive and delicious; this time, perhaps because they are changing chefs, the servings were a bit more generous; I had a delicious plate of lamb with a tajine of carrots.

Went to a fancy Vietnamese restaurant, it was excellent, had imperial rolls, a Tom Yum soup, chicken sautéed with vegetables, and a very original dessert: chocomaki, a dessert resembling sushi with sweetened rice replacing the rice, fruit replacing the raw fish, and chocolate sauce replacing the soya sauce, all along with some coconut ice cream.

Real life: Arrived to L.A., it was weird, I kept thinking about all the broken dreams that must go down there; went to Santa Monica, a nice little shopping neighborhood; went to Venice Beach, didn't stay very long; drove down Rodeo Drive, a fancy shopping street; visited the Vietnamese mall in Santa Ana; went to a Vietnamese vegeterian restaurant, it was weird.

Drove from L.A. to San Francisco, the road was really nice, desert-like; San Francisco is pretty beautiful; went to a fancy restaurant called La Folie, had snails, Hawaiian butterfish and a Valhrona and passionfruit bomb; went to Napa Valley and Sonoma, i.e. wine country, it was really beautiful; walked around Fisherman's Wharf; went to a contemporary Vietnamese restaurant, it was so delicious; went to Berkeley; went to Chinatown to eat some dim sum; went to City Lights Bookstore; went to Haight-Ashbury; went to Union Square; saw some Chagalls and Picassos; ate at a great Thai place; went to Stanford.

Stadium Love

I went to the Metric concert on September 17 at Metropolis. It was cool. The Stills were the opening, and they were okay. Metric's show was a lot about the lighting effects and the long, weird instrumentals with lots of synths. Not sure that's what the fans wanted, but it was interesting. Honestly though, once you've seen Karen O, no other indie songstress makes the cut. 

That Time

I went to see Regina Spektor last Thursday at the Metropolis. It was a pretty great concert. Little Joy opened, they were cool. Regina was onstage for approximatively an hour and a half, but it felt longer, perhaps due to the nature of her songs. This is by no means a bad thing. She had three musicians with her: a drummer, an Asian violonist and an Asian cellist, who were awesome :D They stayed onstage for the first part of the concert, and after that it was only Regina and her piano or her guitar. In the first part of the concert, she played "Eet", which was one of the better moments of the concert. "On The Radio" was also awesome. She took out her aqua guitar for "Bobbing for Apples" and "That Time". "Après Moi" made me want her to sing in Russian far more often. For "Poor Little Rich Boy", she had a wooden chair next to the piano and was hitting on it with a stick all while playing. We thought the stick would break, but it made it. The encore was so great. She played "Samson", "Us", "Fidelity", "Hotel Song" and "Love, You're a Whore". I was waiting for "Hotel Song" during the whole concert and I finally got it! "Love, You're a Whore" was a country-like song, very fun. She played 23 songs in total, and the only song from Far that she didn't play was "Genius Next Door". Here is the complete setlist:

The Calculation

Eet

Folding Chair

Ode to Divorce

Machine

Laughing With

One More Time with Feeling

Blue Lips

Two Birds

On The Radio

Dance Anthem of the 80's

Bobbing For Apples

That Time

Après Moi

Poor Little Rich Boy

Wallet

Human of the Year

Man Of A Thousand Faces

Encore:

Samson

Us

Fidelity

Hotel Song

Love, You're a Whore

Human

Three Sundays ago, I flew from Montreal to Vancouver with a friend. I spent three days there and after that, it was Victoria for one day, Banff for three days, Calgary for three days, Drumheller for one day, Regina for five days, Winnipeg for four days and finally Toronto for four days. Here are my impressions of each stop I made:

Vancouver, British Columbia: went to The Eatery, a really well decorated Japanese restaurant with some cool music; biked along the Sea Wall (10 km), which is awesome; as part of a pub crawl, went to Roxy, a pretty okay place, and met some cool English and Scottish people; went for a walk in the mountains, just one hour by bus from the city.

Vancouver is a pretty cool city. It has everything: mountains, the beach, the city. It is smaller than Montreal, and I find its downtown area simpler. Vancouverites are ridiculously nice people. Generally, we found that the more we went east, the more unpleasant people became. If you ask a Vancouverite for help, he will really go out of his way to help you.

Victoria, British Columbia: a really nice, small city. My friend really liked it. We went whale-watching, expecting it to be a nice ride in the sea, under the sun. As a matter of a fact, we had to go really far into the ocean, at 50 km/h. The wind was unbelievable. We were too proud to get inside the boat, so we stayed on the deck. I think we would have died from the cold if it weren't for a life-saving blanket. The experience was still awesome, though.

Banff, Alberta: went for the most extraordinary hike ever along Bow River, amongst endangered flowers, it felt as if we were in Pocahontas; did some canoe, and that was pretty painful, we only reached one lake out of three and had the laziest canoe ride ever on the way back, using only the current; met the greatest couple ever, Chris, 19, and Hannah, 21, both British and in possession of a rental car in which they brought us everywhere; went to Takkakkaw Falls, and they were awesome; went to Lake Louise, which is a million times more beautiful than any picture you'll ever see, and took a dip in it, the water was three degrees Celsius; went to a cool bonfire, though smaller than what we had imagined; drank way too much at karaoke; the next day, we added another person to our group, Tom, a cool Canadian with a funny dirty T-shirt; went to Johnston Creek, it was okay; went for a random dip in ice-cold water in front of Castle Mountain; went to hot springs; went camping with the most inclined tent ever; and, finally, went to Lake Two-Jacks and Lake Minnewanka/Mini-Wanker, both really beautiful.

Banff was my favorite stop. It is unbelievably beautiful. We were surrounded by mountains, and at night, we saw the starriest sky we would ever see. It was hard to believe we were still in the same country. I really like cities, but I fell in love with this national park.

Calgary, Alberta: went to Heritage Park, it was okay; went to the Calgary Tower, it wasn't that impressive.

Calgary was my least favorite stop. It felt like the least Canadian city to me. It felt (no offense to my US reader(s)) like we were in the United States, mainly because of the huge Wal-Mart and the equally huge stores alongside it, as well as its huge parking lot. It is not that big of a city, and not that pretty. 

Drumheller, Alberta: what a crazy name for a town. It is a real hellhole where the only thing they have going for them is a dinosaur museum. The museum is actually pretty neat. One cannot help but wonder what the young people who are growing up in that town do to pass the time.

Regina, Saskatchewan: we stayed there the longest, and it was the third smallest city we stopped into, after Drumheller and Victoria. This says everything. I didn't expect to like Regina at all. The first thing we did there was watching Harry Potter, because we thought we wouldn't have much to do in that city. (The movie was okay. I found it funny. I didn't like the beginning much, but by the end I was pretty caught up in it. The actors are still incredibly bad, though.) We stayed at a couple's appartment, Trixi and Max. Trixi was kind of hippyish, but like a cool hippie. Max was more punkyish. Their appartment was pretty cool. It had Indian drapes everywhere. Max had had surgery in his mouth, so we could barely understand him sometimes, but it was pretty funny. Trixi is really into belly dancing and drumming. We went to see one of her belly dancing workshops and we saw her drumming in the street for money. All in all, because of them, we got to see the hippie Regina. I never expected Regina to be a hippie city. We stayed there five days, and that was enough to see the whole city. We went to about every used books store in Regina. They had one really cool one in particular, Buy The Book. They also had a cool records store and an awesome restaurant with lots of vegeterian options. One night, we did about four places before hitting the gay bar, and that was where there was the most action in the city. We came back the next night, but the music wasn't as good.

Winnipeg, Manitoba: I didn't really like Winnipeg. It is a pretty big city, and its younger population, in its downtown area anyway, mainly consists of hipsters. The more time we spent in the city, the more impatient I became with them. They had a cool CDs store and a cool movie rental place in Osbourne Village, though. There was also a great vegan place in the Exchange District.

Toronto, Ontario: HUGE city. We went to the Distillery District, not expecting anything, and it was actually really nice. There were a lot of art galleries. Chinatown was also great, and huge. Kensington Market was supposed to be where they had the hippie scene of Toronto, but it wasn't that cool. We ended our trip with a bang at the Kool Haus for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs concert. It was AWESOME. The opening act was Amanda Blank, a cool and indecent rapper. The crowd went crazy when the actual concert started. I ended pushed against a girl who was against the barrier, right at the front, right in the middle. I don't know where Karen O finds the energy to perform the way she does for such a long amount of time, even though the concert felt really quick. She is incredibly beautiful when she performs, and she is completely crazy, as expected. "Skeletons" was beautiful, and "Maps" too. I am so glad I got to see them without all that Osheaga shit.

This trip was one huge chunk of a really great summer. And it's not over yet!

Soft Shock

Let me tell you about something that happened to me a little while ago. I was in the bus, and this guy was talking on the phone with his iPhone. He had his earphones on and was talking through a little speaker. This is one of the things I find the most unnatural in the world. People who talk on the phone on devices other than a phone just look crazy. It is even worse when it is only an earpiece. Often you will never see the earpiece, and will just assume that the person is talking to himself. That's not all that happened with the guy on the bus, though. I know that with the new iPod nanos, you can shuffle through the songs by shaking your iPod. I didn't know you could do that with an iPhone, though. So after talking like a madman on the phone with a device other than a phone, the guy started shaking his iPhone like a madman to shuffle through songs.

I think he saw me smirking at him, because he was staring at me afterwards.

Small Stakes

Today we tried going to a restaurant recommended on the Internet. We ended up in a really fancy restaurant, the intimidating kind. It was called Neichel. There were tons of weird appetizers at the beginning, the waiters had weird accents, and there were truffles and foie gras all around. The portions were really big, though, and the service was pretty fast. I had hare, which was weirdly presented, but the surprise foie gras pieces were great. There were tons of little sweets at the end as well. The coolest thing about the restaurant were the silver spoons hanging from the ceiling with invisible threads. Neat decoration.

The Start of Something

We went on a Picasso tour today. The museum was as cool as last time, but the guide was really annoying. Something funny happened, though: some really unsubtle noobish people started invading our tour, even standing in front of our guide and acquiescing to everything she said. My brother and I tried to make them feel bad by staring at them, but it didn't really work.

And for those who were wondering, I did bring my laptop with me. I'm not wasting my time in Barcelona running to Internet cafés. I'm just wasting my study time.

Kids

I thought I wouldn't be able to write as often as before, but I find myself blogging more than ever. I really should study. This morning we went on a tour of the gothic quarter, and we found ourselves in the middle of an elementary school recess. I guess the school's location had a rich history. Anyway, it was really funny, because there was a little girl who started translating the guide's explanations to her friend. 

I have finally figured out where our rented apartment is situated. There is a twenty-minute walk from our apartment to Plaça Catalunya, which is the commercial centre of Barcelona. There is also the University of Barcelona that is near to us. All in all, our apartment is located in a pretty quiet place, but it is still pretty central.

My pop culture two cents: I have watched the third episode of "Dollhouse" and found it pretty great. The moment when the singer says "I just want to be free" while she is ascending in a cage is good TV. Also, at the end (I won't spoil it for you), Eliza Dushku's character does something I would never have expected. This show seems like it will take a while before becoming interesting, because the main character cannot be awakened so soon (if you are interested at all in pop culture, you know what I mean, because the premise of this show has been everywhere over the web). I hope it doesn't get axed before things have a chance to get going on.

Restaurants

We have gone to two restaurants up until now. The first one was a typical tapas place. Pretty good, but I'm sure there are better restaurants out there. In Montreal, for example.

The other one was an Indian restaurant. My family has a knack for eating foods foreign to the countries we visit. It was really good, but also really expensive. It was called Namasté. We ate chicken vandaloo, mango lamb, butter chicken, tandoori chicken and masala prawns. The samosas were also really good, and we had two sorts of naans.

Barcelona is the laziest city I have ever been to. Nobody ever seems to do anything. On the other hand, the driving is crazy.

Laughable loves

I brought this book by Milan Kundera to Barcelona called Risibles amours. It can be translated as "laughable loves". I had already read the book before, and it is a pleasure to reread it. There are seven short stories in it. In the first one, there's a great moment where a couple comes into a factory of some sort in order to find a woman. (I'm sparing you the details.) The wife asks her husband to describe the woman to her, but the only thing he can remember is that she was beautiful. He is then pressured into giving out more details about the woman, and so he says she was blond and tall. But the woman, who is terrified to be found, is neither blond nor tall. The man had simply been so impressed by his beauty and so, to him, she was certainly blond and tall.

In another story, there's a great passage I will be attempting to translate:

"It was a situation that was never to be repeated in his life: he had confronted the unimaginable. He had just lived this brief period of his life (this heavenly period) when imagination is not yet saturated by experience, (...) when you know very few things, so that the unimaginable still exists; and if the unimaginable is about to become a reality (...), you start to panic. And he really did panic when, after a few more meetings where he remained irresolute, she started to interrogate him in great detail about his student room, almost begging him to invite her."

Besides that, today my taximan seemed like he was about to cough his lungs out. And the weather is not that great today in Barcelona, but I still hope to get some sun at one point!

This is for Alex (the first few sentences :P)

Yes, I am going to Brazil this summer. For a month. For a research project. I don't know which one yet, I have merely given out my choices, and they are the ones who have my fate in their hands. :) So, Alex, have you got any travel plans for the summer? If anyone else want to share their summer plans, feel free to do so :)

On a side note, I am going to Barcelona for spring break tomorrow... actually today. This will be the first time that my complete family (my parents, my sister, my brother and I) will be in Europe together. Usually, my parents bring only one of us to Europe each summer. Yes, I am a spoiled brat. I will mostly be studying in Barcelona, though, as lame as that sounds. I have exams coming on when I come back, and I do hope to get some studying done while I am in Barcelona. I have already been to Barcelona once, and in my mind, there is not that much to see in Barcelona, so I let it stay that way, so that I am not too tortured while I am over there. I mostly consider it as a gastronomic trip. Tapas every day, yum.

I don't know if I will be able to pursue this blog while I am in Barcelona. Perhaps not every day, as I have been doing, that is almost certain. I might just be telling you about the places I go, since it is so useful to you, since you are all always going to Barcelona... ;)

I have to pack my suitcase now, and I really don't feel like it, as I have just returned from a semi-goodbye party, where there was lots of wine and this Beauty and the Beast movie... I have to, though, all in all, I have five hours to pack my suitcase. Gaah.

Good moments

I know I said I wouldn't write about my own life often, but I just got back from an amazing weekend with my fellow colleagues, and so I decided to reflect a bit on the great moments university has brought me.

- Circle of friendship at... frosh? (not sure which word to use here)

- Halloween... that was nice :)

-Getting drunk on wine with an underage Noémie at the Flashdance supper

-Dinner at Noémie's before hitting the end-of-term party

-Victory at the sports event our faculty organized

-Skiing with my friends and partying at night!

More to come, I'm sure! :)