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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