30. THE LONG ROAD HOME

Wednesday January 9 to Saturday 12, 2013

So our journey nears its end. Well the good bit anyway. Today we commence to fly home.

Thank you Tony for your warm hospitality and generosity that afforded us such freedom. We look forward to seeing you again one day.

And to our dear friends Mike and Linda. How can we express our appreciation for your friendship and generous hospitality. Thank you for driving us all over beautiful Quebec and providing us with such special accommodation and for introducing us to our new friend Tony. We thoroughly enjoyed spending time with you once again. There is so much to do in the work of the Lord and your example of self sacrifice in Jehovah's service is most encouraging. Till we meet again, who knows where, who knows when.

From Montreal airport, we flew 2 hours to Washington Dulles airport and then 6 hours to Los Angeles. That leaves just one more flight. The dreaded 14.5 hour trip from LAX to Sydney departing Wednesday 10:15pm.

At almost half way through our flight the pilot of United Flight UA839 woke us from our not so deep economy seat sleep with the following announcement: "due to a pressurization problem with our aircraft, we have decided to return to Los Angeles. We have already turned around and will be arriving in about 20 minutes". Ohhh no. What a waste of 6 hours flying time. Well, better to be safe than sorry. Good call.

So we arrive back at LAX around 5am Thursday morning. UNITED rescheduled us to fly at 10:45 in the evening. They gave us coupons for a hotel stay and meals. So there we were waiting at the carousel 5:30am for our luggage. Jostling at 6:30am on the footpath with the entire economy class of our plane for a few shuttle buses to take us to a hotel and then queuing outside in the cold for another 1.5 hours until 8am to check in to the 3 star Hacienda Hotel. Now, perhaps staying in a boutique Quebec hotel and in the homes of so many generous friends through out our journey has spoiled us a tad... but we have stayed at better $10 per night hotels in Vietnam than the LAX Hacienda... Oh well. It wasn't the end of the world. Perhaps it was the unexpected extension of our a 30 hour trip by another 24 hours that left us a little despondent.

Whatever. We did get home safe and sound in the end. Now we wish to say thank you to all of our friends in Canada and the USA for making our visit so so so enjoyable.

Thanx for following. Love to all

Lloydnalex

 

29. ICE ICE AND MORE ICE

Tuesday January 8, 2013

To cap off our time on historic Quebec City we spent a few hours at the...

Musee de la Civilisation or the Museum of Civilisation

When we first came to Canada in 2009 we never expected to return. Well, not in this system anyway. Mike and Linda took us to see the most amazing volume of water falling over a cliff we could ever hope to see. Niagara Falls is both the largest waterfall by volume in North America and is without a doubt the most well known waterfall on the planet... But it's not the highest waterfall on the continent.

The Montmorency Falls are a large waterfall on the Montmorency River about 12 km from the heart of old Quebec City. The falls, at 84 meters high, are the highest in the province of Quebec and 30 m higher than Niagara Falls.

The suspension bridge over the falls.

The water rushes beneath the ice

The 1920s Basilica of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré is a basilica set along the Saint Lawrence River in Quebec, Canada, 30 kilometers east of Quebec City. So, who was Saint Anne you ask? Well, according Catholic tradition, the patron saint of Quebec, Saint Anne, was the mother of the Virgin Mary and grandmother of Jesus Christ. Who knew? Well, there is nothing in the bible about her.

Mother, son and granny

 

And now for something completely different.

That's the floor plan of the Hotel de Glacé or The Ice Hotel. We took a tour of this most bizarre building that is literally made of frozen water.

It is still under construction. In fact it's rebuilt every winter.

Gothic arch structure. The doors have a steel frame that is frozen into the structural ice wall.

 

The furniture is made of ... Yep, ice.

Yes, it is cold.

A chandelier

The compacted snow seems to absorb sound.

It is a real hotel with rooms for the night

Each suite is different. The bed is ice. The hotel provides you with special sleeping bags and they say its very warm and comfortable inside the bag.

Walls carved with artworks by ice artists.

Another room

The Chappel that is solidly booked for civil weddings.

 

 

 

 

 

And the Ice Bar which serves as a night club

That's an ice glass

The rooms go for $200 to $800 per night and its full most nights. Mmm. I think we will go back to Tony's place at Sorel for a warm bed in a warm home.

Tomorrow we fly away home.

Good night

Lloydnalex

 

 

 

28. QUEBEC CITY AFTERNOON AND EVENING

Monday January 7, 2013 continued

Ferry across the Saint Lawrence River

Now it is seriously cold

But beautiful.

The ice creaks and cracks as the ferry breaks through.

Quebec, beautiful by day, spectacular by night.

What a drag.

The oldest surviving house (1675) is now a restaurant.

And a rather nice one at that.

The game pie

And the desert pies

A very big and enjoyable day thanx entirely to our great friends Mike and Linda

Good night

Lloydnalex