Whale hunting and much more

We left Michigan and drove more or less straight to Montreal. On the way we got stuck in a heavy storm. It was very scary because the lightning was striking not far away. But we survived and arrived at Charly's bubby's place where we were welcomed with open arms. We had a lot of catching up to do with Charly although she was very tired because she just flew in from Hanoi.

We decided to keep the car for 2 extra days to drive up north and see some more of Quebec. We slept in a cosy cheap hostel in Riviere du Loup. There we met some students from Quebec who had been to east end of Canada hitchhiking. We asked them if they felt like going to Tadoussac and they decided they would come with us. We crossed the St Laurent river with the ferry. The scenery was unbelievable! Those fjords are breathtaking. We spent the day walking around  and in the late afternoon we took a zodiac to see the whales. We saw a lot of them and very close, a little to close maybe... It was definitely worth going! 

So at night we drove back to Quebec city. We stopped on the way for putine (typical fastfood dish from here) and to watch the stars. It was amazing. They invited us to stay with them so we stayed at Melanie's place in the heart of Quebec. She was working in the youth hostel there and so had to get up early in the morning. 

We got up and went to have breakfast at the hostel then went on a quest to find one of my good old friends that i (Ingrid) hadn't seen since i was 8. This was a real challenge because she didn't have internet, nor a phone... We found her appartment and with a whole note system, ended up finding her! On our way we stopped at a bank where we came to the disappointing conclusion that my bank card was missing! we looked everywhere but no results.. oh well nothing we could do... She brought us to a famous quebecois ice-cream place across the river. On our way we started talking about a guy (Jean-Philippe Caissy) that used to be in our class too and knew he was supposed to live somewhere in that area. So we looked him up in a phone book and called him. Amazingly he remembered me ( or at least he said so...) and came to meet us! we ended up spending the whole night together and saw a bit of Celin Dion's concert!

As the evening passed we came to the subject that we where heading back to Montreal the next day. And half joking, half seriously asked them if they wanted to join us. And against all expectations they did! So they came back to Montreal with us! Charly was extremely happy they where there cause she had just been furniture shopping in ikea and could use some helping hands. We had fun being carpenters for the day and in the end it was so rewarding: the appartment looked so much better and livable!

We went out that night and got to meat a lot of Charly's friends...

Montreal has the best sundays in the world: all the shops stay open and there is the "tamtam event"! Every sunny sunday hundreds of people gather on a gassy hill and and each enjoy the lovely day in their own way: some just lay in the sun, some do circus tricks, some play the tamtam, some dance, some are dressed as nights and fight with each other... It may sound very odd but i promise it's breathtaking!

This is also where we met up with Raphaelle!! (One of our other good old friends from vietnam) 

In the evening Genevieve and Philippe went back to Quebec and we made lunch for the very first time in charly's kichten together with Jess and Sophie ( two of her really good friends).

The last few days have been a bit of a blur for the rest... We are spending very lazy days here and enjoying it a lot! Charly on the other hand is having extremely buzzy days. Her phone rings every ten minutes and she is a frosch leader this year ( helping new McGill students orientate them selves). I'm SO happy i'm not her right now! We are participating with some of the frosch events. It's quite cool if you think about it: we are going out with only McGill students and they all think we are one of them! McGill is considered as THE best university of Canada and is compared to Harverd!

Frosch started yesterday and we went out with them. Originally the plan was to go clubbing but the line to get in was so long that i changed my mind and went to a bar instead with Charly and some of her friends. Katrien on the other hand got in really quickly with two of Charly's friends. 

Hopefully we'll manage to add some more pics soon! Montreal is really a fun city, boring is not part of it's vocabulary.

On a dairy farm in Michigan part 2

ok, this is the first time that i am going to try and write something on the blog. I'm going to try and not write to many details ( i'm really bad at keeping to the facts). ( Oh, and a little warning: if you see spelling mistakes, that's only because of the qwerty system..:))
It's just so lovely out here that we decided to stay as long as possible! (We're leaving tomorrow and heading back to Montreal). Everyone is just SO nice to us! They're all making our plans: and that's wonderfull. What i call a real holiday, not having to plan anything and still do heaps of fun things! We sleep at Ric ( actually his real name is Eric, but every body calls him Rik) and Donnas place. Donna went to visite her granddaughter down south so we only got to see her the first evening we got here. Roger and Darleen have a house a bit closer to the farm and that's where we go to eat. Darleen always makes shure we get a great breakfast: sauciges, eggs, blewberry pancakes and muffins, bagels,... we're so spoild! We get some nice typical American suppers like meatlofe, hash browns, mac and cheese, zucchini bread and of coarse sweat corn!!!! They like to put butter on a lot of things :D

We have seen so many people sins we've been here and seen so many things. Darleen makes shure that we meet everyone! Stacy ( Rik's sister and Roger + Darleen's daughter) and her daughter, Katy, took us out to see the new baby in the family and we went to eat ice cream!

Yesterday was a very buzzy day. There where two calve births on the farm. But they both hade the same complications, so the vet had to come twice. Unfortunatly the first calve died, but the secund miraculously survived! We got to see one of the births!
We went to see one of my dad's good old friends: Barb who lives on a lake and she took us tubing! (tubing: there is like a speed boat that goes round 30 miles an hour and you're holding on to a inflatedthing and it pulles you acroos the water, very fast and hard to hold on) oh, now that was loads of fun! And Stacy took us to the golf cours where her son Jason works as the pro-player. We had lunch there and got to golf a bit: and it was more fun then we had expected! We had some good air and an ok swing:)

Today we went shopping with Stacy and Katy in a big mall! GIRLS MORNING OUT!
When we got back to the farm there where like 9 other poeple waiting for us and we had a great lunch together.

There... now you have a small idea of what it's like!

On a dairy farm in Michigan

We left Algonquin park to head towards Michigan. We spent the night at a motel in North Bay and decided to order pizza to the room (you can easily do that there) Ingrid found 3 leaches on her legs and 2 on her bad. Luckily our receptionist smoked so we were able to get them off that way.

The next day was pretty much a driving day. We crossed the boarder into the US. We had to go over a huge bridge, the Makinaw bridge, it was quit impressief. At the custums we had to leave our fingerprints and they took our picture. The officers were friendly but it was still a little scary... We spent the night in the US in Sault St Marie in a nice and cheap motel with pool and a gigantic breakfast.

Driving through Michigan is a lot easier than driving in Canada, the roads are much better. To the point that we arrived at the Sederlunds farm the same day at a reasonable hour. We did stop at a public beach by a lake in Indian River just to soak up the sun.
Anyway the Sederlunds have a dairy farm (were they milk cows) and are the nicest people. We've had a lot of fun with them here and it's very interessting to help out a little on the farm.
But more of that later because I have to go have supper.

In the middle of forest and lake

So Ottawa was a very nice city! Apparently it has the lowest crime rate in Canada. Kesha took us out for a drink and a Thai dinner (really good) and then we went to see a movie in the mall. After that we were so tired that it was strait to our cell.

The next day we drove to Kiosk the last entry point of Algonquin park. On the way we had a bit of an ironic situation. In the beginning of the drive there were a lot of gas stations. Like every 10 minutes or so. So we thought there's no rush. But then our tank light went on. So we thought oh well, we'll take the next station. Here's the ironic part we didn't come across any. We were in the middle of nowhere. So we drove really slow (to keep the rpm under 1500) not to consume to much gas. After 50 minutes we finally came across a gas station. We were lucky.

Once we arrived in Kiosk we asked the lady at the information desk (Carmen) "what can we do here?" She said canoeing was a good choice but it was already quiet late so we better leave the next morning on a 2 day trip. You have to imagine there was not a lot there exept for a camping ground and a lake. So we said: "we don't really have a tent but we do have sleeping bags and mats" Carmen answered: "Well, I'd advise a tent"

We found a tent at the canoe place, a store owned by a very nice couple. They lent us pots and other cooking gear and gave us some oatmeal and hot chocolate to take on our trip for free. People that have deep and profound respect for nature but who also drive Harley Davidson's across North America to see ZZtop concerts. Yes very interessting people they would hunt moose and beaver and eat that. And be very cautious that their food was organic. They had a lot of humming birds that would come visit their porch. Lorrain, the lady, told us all about spirituality of the native people. She taught us a native song and we sung it while she played the drum made from dear skin (she made herself!). She explained what the rituals where and the way of thinking of this native belief. But this is a head of the time order in which our adventures took place.

Back to canoeing, on the morning that we were supposed to leave it was raining. We decided to go anyway. We had a waterproof map but still got lost. We were really cold and soaked. Luckily it cleared up and the sun came through. We found oursleves a nice camping spot and started to look for firewood. Unfortunatly all the wood we found was very wet. After a lot of effort we managed to cook our food and just when we finished, rain again! The next day was way better. I still have to add that we were eaten alive by mosquitoes and that was not so pleasant!

First canadian adventures

Our hostel was by a lake and they had canoes that we could use. The water was very clean and refreshing. There we met a very nice and funny spanish girl with whom we went canoeing. We met 2 quebecois dudes. One really had a Vin Diesel look, but aside from that they were great and even cooked us a "typical quebecois bbq".











The next day we woke up really early to head for Ottawa, the fine capital. But before that we..... yes we did...... saw bears!!!!!!! 2 real wild blackbears to be precies. They were really close, about 4 meters (13,2 feet) Don't worry blackbears are mostly vegetarian. And we had a guide who knew the woods like the back of his hand. On this trip we also met humming birds, chip and dale squirrels (knabel en babbel) but with a red behind, "chamelots" (something like a deer). We saw a beaver house but the inhabitants weren't very keen on meeting us.













Now we're in Ottawa staying in a prison! Well, an ancient prison that is now a youth hostel. We 're seeing Kesha later on and she'll show us around a bit.

Pictures will follow soon!

Aangekomen

Hello to all!

After a long discussion we decided to do our blog in english not to leave out the internationals that are interessted in reading about our adventures.

So we arrived in Montreal after a wonderfull flight. Ingrid couldn't stop talking about what was going on during the flight and who was who. The cabine crew members we're very friendly and so we decided that they deserved the cookies we had brought for them. We saw several movies on the plain on our personal screen :p It was so nice to be on this kind of plane again where you get drinks and food for "free".









We left motreal immediatly for a little village in the mountains called mont tremblant. It's very charming and the people are nice. We walked a lot already and enjoyed the lovly surrounding with the amazing vieuws. Later on we,re going to swim in a lake, canoe and visit the national park where there are bears and wolves :p But we're not scared cause we have a whole book with what to do if you meet one! Oh we also saw a dead racoon.

The french here is really difficult to understand and everyone thinks we're from France. So we're practicing our quebecquois Tax is not uncluded in the prices neither are tips and so paying is not an easy task. But we'll manage!












Tomorrow we're heading towards Ottawa!