Showing posts with label Quebec. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Quebec. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Bas-Saint-Laurent



Ah Bas-Saint-Laurent! Of beautiful sunsets and peaceful beaches. It was the most romantic vacation I ever took, given also its short duration. These tiny little fishing villages make me think weird thoughts like I could move up here and live here for the rest of my life. I could open up a little café to get myself some income. And have a little house close to the beach of the fleuve St-Laurent, on the water side - the other side (of the streets) doesn't work! And have a little swing to watch the sunsets! And then when I entice cuisine of the big city, I can drive down there once a month, hangout with my friends and all that stuff. See, I have it all planned out.

I have never lived in a small town, hence the extreme romance - ah ignorance is indeed bliss.

Also check out the impressive (and over bearing windmills) just out of Matane.

Saturday, February 12, 2011

René Lévesque


Enough mush mush.. time to vent...

So we were walking in the parliamentary grounds... and there were all these statues of former Québec premiers, among them, my favorite and most respected, René Lévesque. I know he was a vocal advocate of QC separation, but not in this racist exclusive way this Marois woman does. I have always claimed that it is hard to be a separatist without being a racist, with the one exception of René Lévesque. Besides he fits my ideal human - he gave his life for the cause that he thought was right (and actually under him I would have voted for separation, if I hadn’t known what crazy successors he would have, and Marois is not alone, Parizeau also comes into mind...), lived a common man’s life smoking and having café in your neighborhood coffee shops (in those good old days when you could smoke inside coffee shops and politicians could exist without body guards) and also apparently dressed shabbily and smoked his life away (as evidence by the missing button on his statue). To clarify, I don’t care too much for smoking and being the health freak I am prefer non-smoking, but I advocate the right of an adult human being to do what they want... and smoking does impart some romantic idealism.... :) So anyway, this group of people walk up to his statue, clearly at least some of them were Quebecois francophone, just said a couple jokes and posed for photos, hugging the statue or cradling their head in his larger than-life palms... and they did not say a word, about the struggles of the man who fought so they could walk freely and speak French without embarrassment, here in Québec. I wonder what René Lévesque would have said about that episode... probably taken a deep breath of nicotine and said “c’est la vie”... I on the other hand am disgusted...

Bye bye Québec



In a fitting tribute to the place I called home for more than two years, the place I felt most in sync with its people, I spent the last weekend as I did my first weekend here. That warm summer first weekend in June of 2008, I went to Québec City, by train, for a conference (like I wrote here). This cold snowy last weekend in February, I went there again, by train. It wasn’t planned to be all nostalgic... I just realized this while I was on the train... That first weekend I took the train with a whole bunch of people who were in awe of me (and me of them) and we seemed really to like one another. Today two of them are all but estranged, two of them remain close friends... Today I took the train with my best friend, (so best that I will list him as my emergency contact in all the bureaucratic documents in Vancouver and Japan) and my closest confidante. What will our future bring?

Monday, June 21, 2010

Quebec Strawberries



Quebec strawberries - the best strawberries I have had... smaller and tastier than the Californian ones - see how they shine even when they are out of focus in the second pic... You can tell which ones are the Californian and which ones are ours right?

yum yummmm...