The Trip: Loot

Well, I picked up quite a bit of stuff during my trip, mainly in music and books. I'll list them here with a sentence or two, where I'll save bigger descriptions for later when I actually get to read them.

First stop was when I was in Ottawa. We headed to the Chapters in the market, the one that's two stories big. Wow, I had fun in there. Didn't think I'd spend so much time in there, but we spent nearly 2 hours there, maybe 3. It was almost too easy to get lost and get tempted to keep picking up more books. So, here's what I got there.

System of the World by Neal Stephenson: This is the book that finishes the Baroque Cycle. It's volume 3 of 3. Finally I have them all.

Kydd by Julian Stockwin: Saw this new series on the bookshelf and thought I might as well give it a try. It's a new series in the lines of Horatio Hornblower by C.S Forester and Aubrey/Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian. In other words, napoleonic era, which I like.

Star Trek Titan (book 2): The Red King: You'll remember I read Titan: Taking Wing earlier this year, and I thought they were well written, so I picked up The Red King, and Orion's Hounds.

Star Trek Titan (book 3): Orion's Hounds: You'll remember I read Titan: Taking Wing earlier this year, and I thought they were well written, so I picked up The Red King, and Orion's Hounds. Yes, I did this on purpose. You're not experiencing double vision.

King Jerry by David Arnason: Picked this up in the bargain section. Couldn't resist. Well, who wouldn't when it's priced at $2.99. It's essentially a modern retelling of King Lear. The book says itself "A satirical modern-day version of King Lear set in a western-Canadian university English Department. "

Now for the music. Well, when we were in Quebec, on our way back, that is, we went to View Quebec and stopped in at Archambaud, which I think I mentioned in my original post. This store is a treasure of a store for finding french music, and has 3 floors! A bit on the pricy side, but then I'll take that over not being able to find them at all. Over there, I found at least two CDs I wouldn't even have had the chance of finding in Ontario, and I found them so easily.

C'est Ici Que Je Veux Vivre - Marie-Michèle Desrosier: Got this one and decided to give it to my Mom as it has many old french Quebec songs by other artists on this. I thought that she would like it more than me considering that. It was so easy to find to and I didn't have very much trouble at all finding it. In fact, one could say that it found me. I went to one corner of the store and it was just there, staring at me. Funny how that goes.

Plus Grand Que Les Mots - Les Muses: Wow, I had been looking for this one ever since I'd seen them on the East Coast Music Awards two years ago. Ask about them in Ontario, and you get weird looks and people wondering if you're thinking of Muses, Throwing Muses, or other bands using that word. In other words, it didn't exist to them. This is truly an awesome record. Beautiful french songs, with very clear words, which is quite rare as recordings aren't always too clear and sound compressed. It's beautiful even if you don't speak french.

When We Get There - Lennie Gallant: The only non-french album that I got while there. It's really quite a good album. It's my first of his and he's a great songwriter. Good songs.

The Trip: Pictures (Part 4)

Misc

Will have to describe all the images here ahead of time since I'm having trouble entering text along with the pictures without the pictures messing up the text.

Picture 1: Beautiful sunset that we caught on the way back. We just had to stop. There was no alternative. It was gone very soon though as it didn't last very long.

Picture 2 & 3: Ok, there's a story behind the next two. At our second hotel, Motel a la Brunante, there was this fancy shower contraption. That is, the shower could slide up and down a metal bar to adjust height and the head could also swivel. There was a sign next to the hairdryer above the sink that basically told people to be gentle with the shower and not force it. It was both in French and in English, but the English version had a mistranslation to it that I found hilarious. I couldn't resist taking a picture as it's not something you see everyday.

Picture 4: Next is the windmill park next to La Maison D'Eole (Translates to The Windmill House) where I had breakfast one morning. There were a lot of these windmills in Quebec, and to the right is the biggest verticle windmill in the world, as the waitress at the restauraunt explained. Unfortunately, the braking system failed and it's too costly to repair, so it's not working.

The Trip: Pictures (Part 3)

Le Grand Rassemblement

We stopped at this roadside attraction on the way back and we found that it was actually a lot more than we realized. This art is just amazing. The artist, Marcel Gagnon made statues made out of concrete and wood that extend further down the shore. As you'll see, some of them are even on rafts and when the tide comes in, looks like they're floating on the water. The idea is that all seafarers are all converging together onto this point for a big get-together, hence Le Grand Rassemblement. It's really quite unique.

The Trip: Pictures (Part 2)

Rivière-Du-Loup

This next set is the house where my grandfather grew up in.It was built in the 1800's. My grandfather's family wasn't the first family to own it, but I think they were the second family to own it, and now, sadly it's a halfway house. I would have loved to have taken different angles of it, but I couldn't since we stayed in the vehicle the whole time.

The Trip: Pictures

I said the pictures would be coming, and guess what, they're here! I'm sorry for the poor quality of the pictures in advance. These were taken with my new video camera and video cameras aren't known for good still quality. I had to use it for pictures since my brother borrowed my other camera for his trip to Cuba. Click on them to see them full size.

Auberge-Sur Mer

This set of pictures was taken from the balcony of our hotel room overlooking the sea.