Hullabaloo Quebec, Quebec

Quebec, Quebec. Where Canada's at its coldest, snowiest, and Frenchiest. None of that may be individually or collectively true, but what is true is Quebec, Quebec is the home of the BeaverTail: Canada's contribution to the global obesity arm's race. Watch out America, they got Nutella on their funnel cake. Which they then smashed out and flattened with an iron... 

 If it's two-dimmensional there're less calories right?

Perhaps just as imporant as beaver tails in ensuring Quebec's eternal awesomeness, though, is the Carnaval de Quebec. In part because they have an ice castle, in part because they have Caribou liquor in hollowed out plastic canes, and in part, a very large part, because they have human fooseball.

She kicks like a French-Canadian girl

No, excuse me. Human fooseball on ice. Just in case strapping children to metal poles in freezing wheather wasn't already a good enough idea, they then make them dance. And if they don't want to dance, that's fine. They can feel free to dangle limpy from their chains. Unfortunately we only got to play human ice fooseball twice -- and the second round was prematurely ended by a family from Bufallo who play ice fooseball as if the life of their family pet depended on it -- but it was quite possibly the highlight of my year. Regular fooseball will never again provide the same joy.

A few brief moments struggling to stay upright while people kick balls at my head is not where the Carnival de Quebec ends, however. No, no my ignorant angloophone friends. There're also ice sculptures, toboggan rides, innertube slides, late night dance parties, maple syrup on ice, hottubs on ice -- which I guess are just regular hottubs -- broom hockey, regular hockey on TV probably somewhere, fancy crepes, psychadelic light parades, and snowball castle attack -- where you throw plastic snowballs through each other's ramparts or just at each other. It was awesome because instead of saying, "brrr it's snowing outside, lets stay inside and watch some curling," they said,"brr it's snowing outside, lets strip down and roll in it!"

Lest things get too sexy...

This isn't to say the Carnival de Quebec was all fun and whiskey, though. It also involved showers without shower doors -- why do Europeans insist on this insanity? -- long lines at the border, a few surely Quebecois restaurant owners, escargot, sleeping on the ground using hotel window curtains as blankets, and an indomitable, French-Canadian snow-king-man.

Juiced by a Caribou-fueled rage.

Photographie!

The Winter of My Discontent

When I first moved to New Hampshire I was told to get my affairs in order, I would likely die this winter by snow storm. Inevitably at some point during the six months of continuous freezing maelstrom that is a Northern New England winter I would perish in a snow bank, in front of a snow plow, underneath a snow mobile, or inside a giant snow ball. The towns would all freeze over and the wilds would be no refuge. Especially seeing as how they would both be packed with blood thirsty snow men living in snow forts bent on righteous snow vengeance, the worst kind of vengeance.

Instead there was never more than a few inches of snow. Temperatures never got below zero. Only actually got to zero once the whole time. And my snot never froze to my face -- a true indicator of a good winter I am told. January was actually most notable for the amount of drizzle there was. It was an angry drizzle, no doubt, but just drizzle. I never got my chance to break a leg snow skiing, fall through the ice ice fishing, fall through the ice ice skating, fall through the ice snow shoeing, or even to build an army of eight foot tall snowman storm troopers a la Calvin and Hobbes. I was robbed. I was promised an icy death and all I got was a relatively temperate, boring waiting period between fall and spring.

Speaking of spring. It is now springing and I am told to anticipate the start of Mud Season where, from what I can gather, everything gets covered in mud. I'm not buying it, though. I come from a state where it rains mud! Unless I'm swept away in a river of brown goop sometime this April I will be unimpressed.

Not all was lost this winter. We did have enough time to build a tiny late season snowman -- err snowthing.

Part snowman. Part mothman. Trapped in two worlds, he is accepted in none. He will lead a life of tragic irony chasing the light that will one day be his demise. Coming to Lifetime this spring.

Montreal en Lumiere

This last weekend I went to Montreal with Kristen for the annual winter festival. For those not in the know, which is I am guessing everyone south of the Canadian border, Montréal en Lumière is a yearly food and arts fair for those more cultured than myself. This year's theme was Belgium and so they had a variety of expensive Belgian food we largely did not partake in. But we did have Belgian waffles. Sweet, delicious, chocolate filled Belgian waffles. No doubt just like the Belgians make.

Montreal's about a three and a half hour drive from Lebanon, and it's a fairly beautiful one at that. The Northeast Kingdom, a green hilly feudal area I believe run by hobbits, is very picturesque and Southern Quebec though largely flat farmland is punctuated by mountains that emerge periodically from the country side, climb rapidly into the air, and then descend back into the flat plains just as quickly again. You'll have to take my word for this, though, we didn't take any pictures.

But we did take a picture at the border! It was a small crossing and so small in fact that the Canadians did not care to put much in the way of a welcoming banner around it. Just a sign at a largely abandoned rest stop.

Montreal is a beautiful city and Old Montreal is especially so. Although there's a fairly efficient metro system it's perhaps better to walk if the distance is not too far just to see the city. We got in Saturday afternoon and immediately headed for the festival. After redirecting ourselves in the proper direction about twenty minutes later we headed for the festival again. The fair grounds were a collection of random colored lights, plastic domes to keep warm when it got too cold (and which had their own random collections of random colored lights inside but otherwise served no real purpose), a Ferris wheel, bonfires, and a giant ice slide that unfortunately had a two hour wait. It was my only regret.

Things got a little crazy at times like when they played a trippy, psychedelic video short on the wall of one of the nearby buildings, and a little rowdy at times when the Canadians spontaneously broke out into dance during the free concert by a French Canadian band later in the evening. Belgian waffles aside, we also had some poutine which is Quebec's contribution to the culinary world. Seriously, though, I cannot get the video short out of my head. Or my nightmares.

Much of the rest of the city was beautifully lit up as well, and we took pictures of some of it, but you're going to have to use your imagination for the most part. I was told by Kristen that much of it looked like Boston so, you know, if you've been to Boston before it's kind of like that but with more Frenchmen. The next day we tried to go to the biodome, but there was over a one hour wait in way too sweaty a line so we hiked over to the Montreal history museum instead. That's when our camera died, and when we'll say the trip ended. After a very long wait at the border to get back into the US. I'm pretty sure I've smuggled Mexicans across the border in less time than it took to get back into New Hampshire. It's good to know that part of the border is safe, though. From the terrorists and their flannel.

Pictures!