Canada Vacation '18: Québec City - Day 2

The next morning I was first out the door, and I was greeted with 58 degrees and clear skies.

I yelled back into the apartment, "Ladies, you have to get out here!" When Charlotte ran out, she laughed and spun in a circle with her arms outstretched. She exclaimed, "This! Feels! So! Good!" The heat of Montreal was swiftly forgotten.

It was time to catch the shuttle bus to the Aquarium Du Québec after a breakfast on the go,

We have tried to replicate the tide pool experience Char had at Seattle, but every other aquarium has come up a bit short. 

One animal we hadn't seen at an aquarium was a walrus. The two they have at Québec were impressive.

Well, that's a pretty name.

Daphnée was quite a poser.

The white fox enclosure was one of the more popular exhibits.

They sure look like dogs. Char would have loved to pet one, "Aww. They're so cute!"

Sandcastle art.

The aquarium also has an Adventure Circuit for kids 6-12. "There are nets, catwalks, gangplanks, vines, and so on. A way to develop balance and self-reliance while burning up energy!" It's a cool feature.

Jellyfish displays are hypnotic.

The aquarium shuttle only has one drop off and one pick up time. You get three hours at the aquarium and no more, and that's perfect. Three hours is about all I can stand. 

When got off the shuttle we were greeted with a street performance. Monsieur Rene was pretty spry for a guy deep into his 60's.

For $95,000 dollars (but it's Canadian dollars!), you too can own the "Danse du temps I" statue by Salvador Dali.

Canons. Québec City is littered with canons.

The ice toboggan run wasn't open. It was a cool day, but not that cool.

Taking a break during a trail walk.

Here's the Saint-Louis Gate into the city.

Charlotte snuck into a store display window while Daphne shopped for shoes. I frown on such shenanigans. 

She's holding a cup of candy, by the way.

"Umm, yeah. I'm in Canada, and my cell phone doesn't work..."

"Gummy snakes... why does always have to be Gummy snakes?"

One strange feeling that I couldn't shake was the desire to call it quits around 5:30 p.m. We have had to be home by 5:30 to let our dog Maggie out for the past 11 years. You stretch the time too much past that, and you have some cleaning up to do, and no one likes that. 

I always check my watch in late afternoon, and more than once I almost said to Daph, "Well, we should probably be heading back." Instead of saying that, I usually said, "What should be have for dinner?"

There are restaurants and bars located up and down the streets of Québec City. Some would invite us in, some would say we couldn't enter because they were a bar, some said they were a bar, but could sit upstairs, and others said Char could come in, but we'd have to sign a waiver that we wouldn't give Charlotte alcohol. We never did figure out how to tell one establishment from another - they all looked the same and had the same open-window frontage.

Oh well, one place let all three of us in. After we signed the waiver, we had charcuterie for dinner.

Another thing I couldn't figure out is how to pronounce "charcuterie". "Meat and cheese tray" is so much easier to say.