Quebec City

Earlier in the semester I joined the UMass Ski ‘n’ Board club, not because I have any skiing or snowboarding ability/interest, but because I was told they organise wicked trips (which you can do without skiing). This weekend, I discovered that was very true!

On Friday afternoon Julienne and I hopped on a bus headed for Quebec City. We’d been told our bus theme was “Boston Sports”, so I borrowed a Bruins (hockey) t-shirt off a guy who lives on my floor, and was suitably themed-up. We met lots of people on the bus, including our room-mates for the weekend, Anna and Becca.

Dancefloor!

When we arrived in Quebec City we got a quick bus tour- mainly to ensure that we would be able to find our way home that evening. We dumped our stuff at the hotel, quickly got changed and headed out. We were meant to get a bus to the club, but missed it. This meant we had to walk twenty minutes up very steep hills in the freezing cold (and, when I say freezing, I actually mean below freezing). Of course no one really knew where to go, so it took us even longer. But we eventually got there! The club (called something that sounds like shay-dey-go-bear..but it’s French, so I’m sure it’s not spelt like that at all!) it was HUGE. Someone told me it’s the biggest club in North America! There were three floors, one with live music, one with a massive dance floor and one which overlooked the dance floor. Needless to say, there was lots of dancing that evening. Fun!!

On Saturday Julienne and I slept in- in the most comfy beds in the world (whilst others got up to go skiing at 7am. Ha.) Eventually we dragged ourselves out of bed and into the cold cold city. We got a tourist map off the hotel staff, and began exploring. Quebec City is SO gorgeous, particularly seeing as it was covered in snow. After roaming the streets and popping into a few shops we stumbled upon a “German Christmas Market” which Julienne (who is German) thought was the most amazing thing we possibly could’ve found.  Whilst I didn’t buy anything, it was nice to look around!  Julienne got some sort of hot wine...It’s a German thing, apparently.

We made our way into the historical part of town, which is surrounded by a fort. I would’ve liked to have learnt a little bit more about the history, but most of the museums seemed to be closed for “the holiday period”. However, I thought it was stunning. My feet were starting to feel like they might freeze at any minute, so we made our way back to the hotel to relax a bit. We arrived back at the same time as Anna and Becca arrived back from their skiing, and caught up on each other’s activities of the day. Apparently there hasn’t been much snow, so only one trail was open, making it not really worth the $40 for the ski pass. We went to a little Thai place for dinner and soon after began our night’s adventure.

Room-mates

On Sunday the journey back to UMass was LONG. First one of the buses was having issues, meaning that we all had to sit on our buses outside the hotel for more than an hour. Then when we stopped for food the place we stopped at only had two staff members working, and there were at least sixty of us queuing up for food. Then we were at the border for almost an hour and a half. After what felt like an eternity on the bus we made it back to UMass, exhausted. Two days later I’m still tired. But it was an awesome weekend; meeting new people, lots of dancing, and seeing the stunning city.