This old guitar

I invented a strap for my guitar yesterday and so I'm showing it off. The guitar I'm playing nowadays is a classical, and has no knobs anywhere to attach a strap to. So while I can walk and play with it, it's difficult. And last night around 10pm I wanted to stroll and play without the difficulty. So I improvised this strap, using an office clip (courtesy of my job) some duct tape, and a telephone cord. And I walked and played around old Québec to my little heart's delight. During which time I saw three street shows: a comedian-magician, an escape artist, and two loudmouth kids on unicycles and trampolines with a flaming torch finale. I also met a girl in a hammock shop who I kind of know. I really enjoy being able to walk out my door at night and see street performers and crowds of people. I like crowds. Usually. And for when I don't, like this morning, there's a park to the left. I got up late and spent about an hour there today.
P.S.: For those who didn't catch the title, the references are John Denver and Bob Vila.

The boring parts!

So a few of you lovely people have left me sweet comments to the effect of: you look like you're having so much fun!
Annnd... I mean, I am, that's true. But you also make me feel guilty because: am I really going to write a blog about the boring parts? No, that would make me a whiner. So I post about the fun stuff and it makes it seem like it's all I ever do. So now, in the interest of balanced reporting, here's a rundown of the less blog-worthy parts of my summer:

• I work at the Québec National Assembly as a translator (see previous posts). Cool? At first. Now boring? Yes.
• Parliament was in session when I started here, which was cool, but now the politicians are on vacation, along with a lot of the bureaucrats. Too quiet? Yes.
• I've been mostly working on the book "La Procédure Parlementaire", translating chapter 7: "Order and Decorum". Then I get to move on to "Le consentement unanime et les autres moyens de dérogation au règlement". Hard, which is good. But does that sound exciting to anyone? No, it doesn't.

So I'm actually longing for May, when there were still laws coming in. And people, if longing for legislation to translate isn't an indication that my 9-5 could use some spicing up, I don't know what is. I've also included pictures of my office so you can note the marked lack of fun happening in it. (Click on them). See, I don't want to sound ungrateful, cause I'm really grateful for this job. But just to say, let's not get too envious, people. If my after-work time is occasionally interesting, it kind of needs to be for me to be able to make it through the next day at work, you know?

Sunny country hitch-hiking

I'm on a sunny-day hitch-hiking high right now! Quick background: on Friday a friend from work invited me to join her and some friends at her cottage up in Lac-Saint-Joseph. For the Americans: think Maine and you've got the idea. So I went, and it was great. We went swimming at sunset in the warm lake, stood in a freezing spring, made spaghetti, had fun. Today we drove out to a huge waterpark, but I didn't feel like going, so I said goodbye to them at the entrance. Now, though, I was on foot out in the boondocks, so how to get home to Québec? Hitch-hiking, definitely. But with no cardboard to make a sign, how would people know where I wanted to go? Fortunately I had a marker in my bag, so I took off my T-shirt, got a little artsy-fartsy, and quickly solved that problem.
...
Sweet hitch-hiking fashion, I know! Before thumbing it, I walked aways and came to a country craft sale, full of maple products, handmade soaps, pickled turkey eggs, country music and a quilt exhibition to boot! So I walked around the tables and talked to people who taught me all kinds of stuff about beekeeping, maple syrup making and quilting. Strangely enough, as I soon realized, almost everybody there was English. It turns out Saint-Gabriel-de-Val-Cartier is one of those rare anglophone farming communities out in rural Québec. So, bought some honeycomb, some pickled ketchup, an egg sandwich for the road, stuck out my thumb, and within 10 minutes a fireman picked me up. Yes, a fireman. He was going to Québec and brought me right to my front door! Every time I hitch-hike I end up feeling so good about human nature.

If you want to see the cottage and some quilts: 12 pictures here

Peaceful after work time

After work today I took a ramble around the old city. The summer festival just finished, but that hasn't depleted the crowds much. In a park beside Chateau Frontenac, they had set up an outdoor silver-catered buffet among the trees, with dancers dressed up as blue glittery pixies entertaining the guests. No kidding. Pixies. Complete with blue glittery spandex, wings, pointy ears and purple wigs. Most of them were doing dance-y posing, and one tall pixie on stilts was greeting guests "to our magical forest" and doing magic tricks, much to their middle-aged amusement (as opposed to childlike delight). It was weird, because this was a private catered function in a public park. They had hired security to keep passers-by out. So I was unsure as to how upset I should be about that, but mostly I was fascinated at the old-fashioned decadence of hiring actors to amuse the guests! It was like some kind of renaissance court-jester stuff!

From there, I followed a footpath up the cape to a field high up by the Citadel. And from there the whole Saint Lawrence spread out below me. There were maybe 30 white sailboats dotting the shipping lanes, and you could hear the faint drums from the band on a cruise ship reaching up. It was grassy and sunny and deserted and so peaceful. I could hear a flag flapping in the wind above me! Think of that. Not the flag, just the sound. This isn't nationalist imagery, it's a peaceful afternoon. Mmmm.
By the way, I took the picture of the clover blossom last week, not today. But it gives you the idea. I didn't have a camera with me today, which is bad for my blog, but good for my peace of mind. I tend to savour the scenery differently when I'm not trying to fit it all into a frame.

My House, my Job

For Japhet, who asked whether I was wandering around until sunrise because I was homeless. Um, no. This is my house. The bottom right is my apartment. This is my backyard (c'mon, just click on it).
For those of you who want to mapquest it, I'm at #2 rue Saint Angèle, apartment 101, Quebec city, Québec. And not only do I have a house, I also have a job! And that's why I was out so late that night. Because I got home from work on friday totally exhausted. And so I fell asleep at 8pm that evening, and by midnight, I was wide awake and refreshed. So I got resteless and went out walking. The end.
As for where I work, I'm a translator at the National Assembly. That's the Quebec legislature. Why the "National" Assembly? Well, cause Quebec is a nation, as well as a province. That's as much as I'm going to get into it, I think. It's a full-time job, but it's only for this summer, which is good, because I don't think I could handle doing it for much longer. It's good experience, but it's not exactly.. exciting. Not exciting. Especially because all the politicians went on holiday June 20th, so there are no more laws coming in. ZZZ. Most of my time has been spent translating a new book on parliamentary procedure. Is that as boring as it sounds? Pretty much. Although I liked it at first. BUT, there are tons of perks, not least of which, the place is beautiful. Check this picture out. This is where I work, man.

Sunrise Alone Time

So, the last post might have given some people the impression that I'm spending my time entertaining and living it up. That's only partly true. I am living it up, but the girlfriends staying over was an exception. I'm mostly "living it up" by having amazing alone time in a city which 2 months ago was almost totally new to me. To recap: I'm from Montreal. And I had been to Québec before moving here, of course, but if memory serves, only on a grade 6 field trip. And back then I was way more concerned with who I sat next to on the bus than seeing the city. So now I've been exploring! Pictured is an example. It was Friday night and I went out with my little guitar sometime after midnight to wander the old city and play. When I got back, the dawn was about to break, so I ran in for my camera, then made my way along the city wall to a fire escape, which I climbed up to the top. And saw the light grow over the city slowly, which was my very first Québec sunrise.

But back to bus seating on field trips: oh, man. Those were wild and stressful days. Were any of you guys like really really cool in elementary? I feel like everyone I meet claims they were a misfit back in the day, but is that just because in retrospect being a misfit seems romantic? Where did all the cool kids go?

Houseguests in Québec

The last 4 days in my little apartment on Sainte-Angèle street were spent with these 3 friends. Aude is on the left, she's French, an exchange student in Montreal this past year. We met in October. The Université de Québec a Montreal had a weekend up at their outdoor center near Mont Tremblant for anyone who wanted to help them sweep out their cabins for winter, and so my roommate Rachid, being a student there, brought me along, and almost everyone else there was a French exchange student. So that's how I know Aude (and others) and now her year is up and she's going back to Ardèche, so before leaving she came up from Montreal to visit me in Québec along with Manuela and Lucie, two friends of hers. This was taken two nights ago. We lit a bunch of candles and put them all together in the living room to have a candle-campfire.
Other highlights: chesnut spread from Ardèche, a bunch of concerts, delicious crêpes, talking about Nichiren Buddhism with Manuela, and singing along to "Eternal Flame" by the Bangles.
We're all laughing in the picture, because when the timer in the camera went off, it made a rooster sound! Weird camera.

Canoeing in the Saint Lawrence

This weekend (July 10) I went canoeing in the Saint Lawrence. I live in old Quebec now, inside the walls, so I walked down to take the bus out to the Baie de Beauport, rented a canoe down there and set out towards Île d'Orléans. A storm blew in, though, so I had only gone out about 20 minutes when I figured it would be better for everyone involved (meaning me, and the boats in the shipping lanes) if I headed back in. Even then, it was a bit of an adventure, so I'm grateful not to have been silly about it.
Being a kid on the South Shore of Montreal, then living in Montreal, now in Quebec city, it's a funny feeling having grown up beside the river and never having been in (or on) it. When my mother was young, there was still a beach at the end of Pine Avenue in Saint Lambert and everyone would swim in the river all summer. This is the mouth of all the great lakes, plus Lake Champlain, plus a bunch of Quebec rivers and lakes you all haven't heard of. It's the largest estuary in the whole big blue world, and whales swim in it. Big old whales swim in this river. And it's the river of my life. So it was a great experience to get out on it and touch it and wade in it and paddle it and really connect with it for the first time.

Pictured: Quebec city seen from the stern of my boat. For those in the know, you can make out the Château Laurier and the Price tower.