Here's the next installment of our adventure.
Sunday: Quebec City and the Arrhythmic Telltale Heart. We eat breakfast in our cabin. K&J have an excursion planned, so they head off. We decide to check out Quebec’s Old Town, as we had heard so much about it. Hint: When they say it has native art shops they really mean small locally owned shops that sell tourist stuff, not Native Art. Live and learn. Old Town is beautiful. Reminded us of New Orleans style housing, narrow cobble stoned streets with iron balconies overlooking the streets. It was really peaceful. And COLD. Oh gods it was cold and windy. I did not bring a jacket, which was stupid, and all I had was a windbreaker. I hate windbreakers. They make me sweat, so after a short time I took it off and just gave into the biting cold. We poked around for a time, read the markers in French as well as we could, took the funicular from the upper part of Old Town back to the lower, then headed back to the ship. Along the way we picked up some Canadian money, which is way cooler than US currency. Just saying. Karen went on to the farmers market and met up with K&J there, I went back to the ship to rest my poor tired feeties. Nothing really memorable happened until dinner. We might have taken a nap. Dinner was again fraught with peril, this time in the form of M&N’s 50th anniversary celebration. Kim was not feeling well still, but struggled gamely on. Nancy was feeling nauseated (apparently had been since we got to the ship, though she is not ever known for seasickness) and had a very sparse meal. The wait-staff brought out a small cake for them and were going to sing. We were all saying “no, that’s not necessary.” M freaked out and started saying VERY loudly “NO! No! No no no no!” This freaked the poor waits out (not to mention the people around us) and we were trying to calm M down. Meanwhile, the junior server was standing behind M miming the song and clapping quietly (it was the funniest thing ever!). Dinner broke up soon afterwards. Karen and I went to the bar at the top of the ship and played Lords of Waterdeep while looking over the rough water. We had departed Quebec City during dinner amid much rattling and shaking of the ship and were now headed out to the bay which would put us into the Atlantic. Monday was to be a day “at sea” with our next stop at Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island (PEI). Other than Karen wiping me out on the game we had a pleasant evening, even talking to and Aussie woman for about 30 minutes to help her figure out how to deal with her impending US daughter-in-law who seems a bit stand-offish to her Aussie self. It was cute. Headed back to the cabin to sleep. There was a ticking/thump sound coming from the window just behind our heads, we fussed with it a bit, but decided to try to sleep. Karen got an hour or so of sleep. I could not. The thumping was irregular and loud and right behind our heads. Finally around 1:00 am I couldn’t take it anymore and started to investigate it more aggressively. Eventually we determined that it was the ship stressing in the storm and waves and there was nothing we could do. We laid there for another 2 hours, then gave up. Got dressed and wandered the ship looking for a place to sleep. Since everything was closed, we found a back corner of a bar that has comfy sofas and pillows. Karen was able to doze for a few hours, I could not. We felt homeless. I rearranged the bottles in the bar to stop them from chiming. Wandered around the deck a bit. Finally at 6:00 am someone came to vacuum so I got Karen up and we went back to the cabin. Yes, the ticking was strong as ever.
Love to you all.