The "old" French Provence

After a night of no sleep in fear of sleeping in, I got on my 8am train to Montreal. It was all going smoothly until it came to crossing the border... I was rudely awakened by the border officials standing over me and then had to fumble bleary eyed in my bag for my passport and white card. After a long grilling I ended up having to get off the train and be escorted back to the office at the border itself for them to print out my visa and staple it into my passport. A very long process during which the officers had lots of pizza delivered while I sat and watched hungrily from the other side of the thick glass. Two hours after the train stopped for inspection I was chucked into a taxi, legally allowed to be in Canada until February 2009, and set off for Montreal. I got great views of the city lights as we crossed over the bridge into the city. Ironically I only arrived at the hostel half an hour after the people I'd met on the train, luckily still in time for the 'Bar Tour'. A must after my stressful journey there :P It turned out to be an excellent way of meeting people too, the hostel was full of college kids on spring break who had crossed the border so they could drink legally and we took over the bars we descended on. To finish the night we headed to 'Club Campus' for 'Retro Tuesdays'. Danced the night away to the music you remember from P.7 discos with the odd French track thrown in for good measure. The more hard core of the crowd went round the corner for poutine (chips, cheese and gravey, a Canadian delicacy) when the club closed. I've not quite gotten round to trying it yet... Makes my stomach turn just thinking about it.
In the morning I set off to explore. The downtown area has some great architecture, old meets new with perfect elegance and grace. Church spires reflected in all glass office blocks and such. It was really nice. For lunch I went to this random diner, recommended as having the best burgers in the east. It was amazing. Even the chips looked and tasted like they were potatoes very recently. I did a lot more walking after lunch, all round the "old" port and through the random cobbled streets of the old town. In the evening I headed to the Museum of Contemporary Art which was full of poor students and travelers (it was the free night). There was a couple of interesting works but overall I was glad I hadn't spent 10 bucks to get in.
After a slow morning (12 people in a dorm sharing one bathroom takes its time) I haded back to the station and discovered I was still following the 2 ladies I'd met on the train from New York! Together we did the short hop up to Quebec City and then a long uphill walk to my hostel. (It didn't help that I missed my turning and walked almost twice as far as I had to!) After trying and failing to check in speaking French I went out for a bit of a walk around the town and took the escalator down to the port. The water was flowing very fast and was still full of ice which was nice. Plenty more pictures! Back at the hostel I met a French girl who's accent I could understand which was nice! The only other person who's French I could easily understand was an Australian so I wasn't totally lost! We went out to one of the local bar but left early when the bartender tried to charge us cover even though we'd been there for over an hour. We were not impressed! I guess they weren't expecting many more people. I spent the night shivering in my sleeping bag liner with all my thermals and hoodie on having not wanted to pay the $5 for linen thinking that there would at least be a blanket but no such luck.
I spent ages in the huge Musee de la Civilisation first thing (after making full use of the free breakfast of course). There was so much to see and lots of buttons to press which is always fun. I was there at the same time as a young school group and enjoyed watching their excited faces as they played with dragons and babbled away in French. When I was in the supermarket getting some supplies for the train journey (lettuce and orange juice) a woman came up to me and started nattering away to me in a very strong and excited Quebec accent. Totally lost, I managed to get her to speak English and it turned out that she owned a hairdressers across the street and wanted to cut my hair because she loved my curls. Canadians are funny.
We got first class treatment at the train station. There was only two of us in the waiting area and the woman on duty told us to go through to the business lounge and get comfy. It was great. Huge sofas and free tea :) She came back a while later with $2 for each of us to use the massage chair. So nice and relaxing. When the shuttle finally came to take us to Charny there was 6 of us crammed in, with all our luggage, to a tiny people carrier with a crazy driver. We got to the other side of the bridge and then turned round comically as he got a phone call from the station telling him to go back and pick up someone who'd gone to the wrong station. Lots of mumbling/shouting in French and then an even tighter squeeze until we got to the train station in Charny.