QUEBEC AND FRANCE: TWO MORE PEOPLES DIVIDED BY A COMMON LANGUAGE

We had a morning tour of the old town this morning which was very interesting as well as very cold. It was raining and windy a lot of the time as well. Fortunately people on this trip are fairly fast walkers, so we didn't get too wet.  We visited yet another Notre dame --this one is a cathedral as well as a basilica. This church is a copy of saint martins in the fields, but I can't remember the name of it. There's a small cabinet organ in this church that was played (but not owned) by Haydn. 

Typical Quebec construction is stone covered with something else, like wood, to keep the wind from blowing through the soft stone in the winter. What kind of crazy people want to live where it's that cold?

. Our guide had some funny stories.

The best one was this:  the French are basically just as snobby to Quebecers, who speak French, as they are to everybody else, and they kind of make them a laughing stock.  

So about 35 years ago, they said they were going to give Quebec a present.  Something large.  Quebec got all excited, because, you know, they gave America the Statue of Liberty, and they were looking forward to this gift.  It was to the city of Quebec, so it wouldn't be so large, of course.  Finally it was delivered and placed in a position of honor near the river, covered with a black drape until the big unveiling.  When it was finally unveiled, it turned out to be a giant boxy structure that is sort of like a Rubik's cube, but with no colors.  The crowd was stunned.  Finally from the back of the crowd a voice was heard saying: "Open the box."

When our tour was over we had some free time to walk around the old town and part of the new town,  or rather the upper and lower town.  There were a bunch of very interesting shops I can easily spend the whole day tomorrow shopping in if we don't have other things scheduled.  I really wanted these shoes, but they don't come in my size. 

This afternoon we had the opportunity to go to Museum of the civilization of Québec. They have a traveling exhibit there about La Belle Epoch in France.  It was pretty interesting, talked about how the three big things that changed Paris were the automobile, moving pictures, and the Paris exposition.  

Our evening event tonight was a visit to cirque du soleil, which is headquartered here in Quebec.  Because they (Cirque) were grateful to the city for creating space for them when they started out, they do free performances here in the summer.

 These are heavily attended and people get inline an hour early in hopes of getting a seat.  And once you get a seat, it's on a cement bleacher.  After freezing most of the day I bought a polar fleece jacket or I would never have made it through the show.  But the show was exciting and fun.