quebec city

Date traveled: August 6-7, 2016

Quebec City was the last place we stopped on my first-ever east coast round trip. We found a cheap airbnb near old Quebec to get a better sleep before returning to the grind of work routine, which I was pretty thankful for. I was too exhausted to party it up, but even in the late evening it was still a lot of families gawking around the very narrow cobblestone streets.

Old Quebec smells like horse manure, which makes sense when you see all the carriages carting around tourists, to which I bit my tongue instead of yelling ‘shame!’ repeatedly, which I really, really wanted to do.

Quebec City is one of those places it’s imperative for me to find an urban area away from the tourist section cuz it was particularly overwhelming. It’s a bizarre overlap of obvious history with the old architecture and cityscape, but it also seems fake by how it’s dressed up and framed for the barrage of tourists who want to spend money, like that’s what they should do to capture something from that place, a memory they can point to in the form of something material.

The amount of outdoor patios was awesome, but finding veggie-friendly places was a nightmare. The people standing outside the restaurant coaxing us to come in reminded me of club promoters on the strip in Windsor, luring drunk Americans to their bar with promises of skipped lines an drink specials. Very different vibe from Montreal, and only two hours away.

I’d like to go back after doing more research about where to explore. We only had a bit of time so I wanted to see old Quebec, and we did, so I’m happy about that. There has to be an energetic underground somewhere, where the dishwashers revolt and spraypaint cave walls of a secret meet-up spot, all along the themes of anti-capitalism in the belly of capitalist culture.

It’s a shame how everything has become commodified, and nowhere is it more obvious in eastern Canada than Quebec City. It’s like it’s trying to recreate what the tourists want to see, such as with couples dancing to an accordion player beside the patio we had a late dinner on.

It didn’t take long before I wanted to escape all the faux coated over the history and urban beauty of downtown, but I didn’t know where to go. So it was time to rest. Next time. It’s only four hours from Ottawa, yet it’s never occurred to me to weekend there before.