Sunday, 8 January 2017

4.Bienvenue a la ville de Quebec – Welcome to Quebec City Part 1


4. Bienvenue a la ville de Quebec – Welcome to Quebec City

Gary and I sat down for tea at our dining table. On the dot, it was 7:15pm. We sat in our usual chairs opposite each other. It was my homemade Spaghetti Bolognese tonight, which I always eat in my unladylike manner; in other words, shovelling it into my mouth resulting in sauce landing on my top and halfway up my cheek. When Gary pipes up and informs me he has a surprise. Now what...I cannot take anymore! He goes on to explain the company are going to pay for us to visit Quebec City and all we needed was spending money. What!? Yet again, I am speechless. I know I am writing this blog now, but this stuff couldn’t have been written. There are many stories I have read, yet I was in my own fairy-tale. There was only one catch though. We had to go in a week and be back in England by the Sunday so our Visas could be processed. 

Early Thursday morning, my mom’s partner dropped us off at Birmingham International Airport.  I said goodbye to the city I grew up in and into the unknown. We had been awake for 3 hours and the adventure was only beginning. We had to travel to Dublin, then Toronto and then Quebec City; this was going to be a long day!


When arriving in Dublin, the Irish in my blood, said go to the pub! So we sat at the bar waiting for our next flight. We both had only gone on European holidays. The longest flight I had been on was to Turkey for four hours. Now we were sat after an hour flight waiting to board onto a seven and half hour flight to Toronto. Whilst sat there we heard ‘Can Mr Riley and Miss Gibbs please attend to the front desk please?’ Oh no, out of all the flights I had been on, I had never heard my name over the speaker.  Luckily, it was to question whether we had any baggage. We were only going for a few days so we only had hand luggage. I think this looked suspicious to the airport security. In a panic, we tried to explain we weren’t doing anything illegal and weren’t a threat to Canada.  Our reaction was enough to persuade them we were most certainly not a threat. May I add, hand luggage is a nightmare! My bag was pulled out at Customs in Birmingham. My liquids were placed in the grey tray and along with my other items were put through the scanner. Then, surprise surprise, I had too many liquids. The information online clearly stated I needed to use a 20 x 20 clear bag but I chose to ignore this useful information. As you do, I was stood in front of a 6ft 2 stocky, miserable guy who clearly hated his job. My little case was wide open for everybody passing to see into...thank goodness I put my underwear into the zip section. So how was I going to get out of this; one thing I love about being a Brummie girl, is we know how to crack a joke and how to charm people. This skill has proven to be very helpful in the past but not today. He wasn’t charmed and I couldn’t even crack his face. Evidently, he had enough of my charm, then begging, then ‘you must be joking’ tactics as he decided to walk away without saying anything. I was faced with choosing between my foundation, concealer, primer, lip-gloss, shampoo, conditioner, shower gel, toothpaste, mouthwash, deodorant, hair products and my Gucci Perfume. This is any woman’s worse nightmare. How could I decide? Like a Super Hero, his more helpful and nicer colleague came to my rescue. She understood my dilemma and she was a professional at this. She put some of the items into Gary’s clear bag and took the big lid off my perfume – useful tip which I’ll use for my journey back. I even took a photo of the new compacted 20 x 20 clear bag. All I threw away was the shower gel and deodorant. If you were wondering, there was shower gel in the hotel. Gary and I did share his sticky ‘roll-on’ deodorant. This is what really relationships are all about, not the rubbish you see on Instagram.



After finishing our drinks we sat in the waiting area. It was time to move when the upbeat Irish voice asked the rest of the passengers to board the plane. There was this huge plane with Air Canada printed across the side.  As we were in Economy, we had to walk from the front of the plane right pass first class. As we were struggling to walk through the narrow aisle with our cases; this one smug guy looked up at us from his comfy chair bed, with his leg stretched out and reading his free newspaper. I really wanted to ‘accidentally on purpose’ knock him with my case but I resisted.

The plane had two aisles and there were rows of four seats in the middle and two seats either side by the windows. Brilliant, we had two seats on the side. It wasn’t a full flight and it was a pleasant flight considering the seven and half hours. We could drink as much as we wanted; this included wine and beer! We hired an IPad and were able to watch films on the Air Canada App. Gary is going to kill me for saying this but we watched How to be Single. A nice Chick-Flick, I knew Gary was a catch. To be honest I think he was more eager to watch it than me. He teased how he could imagine me acting like the female characters when I was single. What a cheek and as he predicted I bite back; my reply being how they were free and living life to the full as independent women.  Who was I fooling? I was happy I weren’t single anymore. So, we laughed and admired the sights of New York in the film. We had always dreamed about going to New York. Now, we were discussed how it is a nine hour drive or a short flight away from Quebec City! A visit to New York was on our ever growing list of things to do whilst living in Canada.

Before we knew it, the seat belt sign came on and it was time to get ready to land. We looked down at the sight of Toronto. We weren’t quite prepared for the size of the city. Everything was enormous, the skyline was amazing. I felt like I was a kid again going on one of my imaginary adventures except this was reality. The runway was huge, the airport was huge. We didn’t have a clue where we had to go so we followed the crowd. Like rabbits before headlights we went through passport control. Beforehand, we were handed and completed the visiting visa form on the plane. The man checking our passports was really friendly and told us not to worry. He stamped our passport and directed us in the right direction. We officially had international stamps in our passports…whoop! We handed our visa forms at the right desk and went through connection flights. We showed our freshly stamped passport and boarding passes. Then we were at customs again. I took out my newly organised liquid bag and Gary took out his bag with my foundation and lip-gloss in it – He hoped he didn’t need to explain that one.

With twenty minutes until boarding we quickly popped to the shop. I was pleased there was the familiar slight of Cadbury’s chocolate. Whether it is because Cadbury’s chocolate originates from my hometown, Birmingham, it definitely is my favourite chocolate. This is one home comfort I am glad to see in Canada. When leaving the shop we walked towards the waiting area where there was an interesting sight. In front of us were men casually dressed in jeans, cowboy hats and belts with big buckles.  It felt like the cast of an old American Cowboy film had arrived. Either way it was amusing for two Brits.

It wasn’t long until we were boarding the plane. We walked along the corridor towards the plane and out into the fresh air. The plane was tiny, it sat forty passengers and the propellers were on the wings. I thought we struggled to get on the last flight but this was even cosier. We were lucky to find spaces for our hand luggage otherwise we’d have to cram the small cases by our feet. We weren’t sat together on this flight so I carried on to the back of the plane. As I was settling in a friendly American female voice said ‘”your friend asked me to swap seats with you.” We swapped and I thanked her. She replied “no problem, ma’am.” The people are so friendly and nice here; I could get use to this.

Sat on the plane we could feel the tiredness kicking in now. You know that feeling when your make-up has worn off and you’re desperate for a refreshing shower…that’s exactly how I was feeling. We took off on the long runway and enjoyed the fascinating sight of Toronto. Due to the plane being small, it took longer to reach altitude. This gave us even more time to admire the view. We had another drink which was included in the price of the flight. It was a full fat sugary Coke to give me the energy boost I frantically needed.

Finally, we arrived at our final destination. Yes, the flights were over! The time was 6:30pm in Quebec City, it was 11:30pm in the U.K and we had been awake since the early hours. We had only slept for 3 hours too. We would have been brilliant extras on the set of The Walking Dead. We officially looked like zombies and walked like them too.

We jumped into the nearest Taxi and were on our way into the City Centre. In our half dead way we examined the sights of the highways and North American cars. Everything looked bigger. It made England look like a country built from Lego.

We arrived at Hotel Pur which was a tall building, which dominated the area. We walked straight up to the desk and explained we were here to check-in. In response, we were informed there was no booking under our name. We wanted to collapse and were being told this bullshit – my patience was wearing thin now. Gary was getting stressed and agitated. Like the supportive girlfriend I am, it was my time to step-up and resolve the situation, but instead I collapsed on a bench nearby and closed my eyes. The manager was doing something and Gary was talking to someone. That’s all I can remember. Then we went up the lift and into our room.


In the middle of the room was a Queen-size bed, which I’m sure was talking to me at one point. There was a floor to ceiling window overlooking the city. I couldn’t be bothered looking at that right now so I shut the curtains. PJ’s were straight on, quick wee and a text to family saying ‘Here’; then we both KO’d. At 9:00 pm in this beautiful City we had crashed and our human batteries were in recharge mode.


To be continued…

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