Easy to stumble into parades along the streets of Oaxaca, sometimes religious, sometimes protest marches you need to avoid and sometimes simply an exuberant wedding celebration….
Postcard from Oaxaca: Wedding at Santo Domingo
Tag: travel photography
Ceci n’est pas un grafitti: Random snapshots and superficial observations of Quebec City
Ah, historic old Quebec City. So clean, so orderly. It makes sense the only graffiti we spotted would deny its very existence.
Building upon the initial observations of Quebec found in my post about Montréal, the following represents additional random thoughts from our stay in Quebec City:
1. Quebec City is spotless. Amazingly litter-free. Everywhere. Even by the port where we were staying.
2. Within the walls of the old city, the buildings are beautifully preserved. Williamsburg-perfect. Virtually everything appears as if it has been carefully restored only yesterday. Even the architecture of the train station is Disney-castle-looking perfect.
3. While we often appeared to be the oldest couple in restaurants in Montréal, Quebec City made us feel the opposite. Blame it on “the boat people,” as I call them. Cruise ships pull up at the port at the base of the city, and empty their contents ashore. Herds of elderly (at least in the fall) take over the streets, swarming their way through the shops.
4. Which means the oldest part of the city is filled with shoppes (which I pronounce shoppies) designed to appeal to the repetitive invasions of the upscale boat people. People who might think opera-length giraffe gloves a necessity.
5. While we loved the pedestrian-dominated streets climbing upward and the perfectly restored buildings, it was when we broke out of the walls and walked past the state capitol that we found the Quebec City I liked. The buildings were all still historic; everything was clean; but there it felt real. More people lived and worked there on a daily basis, there out of the walking range of most of the boat people. Instead of shoppes, the ground floor of buildings housed businesses providing practical services and necessities. Small, neighborhood multi-ethnic restaurants flourished. Outside the old walls, the city has a more authentic feeling personality.
6. And, saints alive. Well, dead actually. Canadian Catholics still elevate relics, as in bones, to prominent display. American Catholics tend to ignore this old-world religious tradition. While I am fascinated but strangely accepting of this, to the point I was not content until I purchased some saint’s bones of my own, the Mister is more mystified. He always comes up with remarks such as, “One saint sure must go a long way.” And he worries about when they chop up the saints into all those little pieces spread out to inspire faith and prayers in churches around the world. Is this the fate of all saints, or only the ones who were martyred in such a brutal fashion their bones already were rendered into shards? Out of curiosity, I thought I would check on the disposition of the body parts Canada’s newest saint, Kateri Tekakwitha, declared so by Pope Benedict on October 21. Stumbled across a virtual audit of her skeletal remains from skull to sternum. The Mister is right. One saint does go a long way.
To view more snapshots taken during our vacation in Quebec City, visit shutterfly.
À vous de jouer: Random snapshots and superficial observations of Montréal
You fly in and plop into a setting without any logical geographical approach; obviously your impressions are superficial. So I do not pretend to delve into the distinctions between North American neighbors, Canada and the United States. This is a quick take from someone who has lived in Texas, a long way from that border, for all her adult life.
1. How ignorant am I? Up until I climbed Mont Royal, I was clueless that was the derivation of the name of the city I was visiting.
2. Staying in the Mont Royal Plateau area, we were plunged into a land where everyone was youthful. Frequenting Southtown San Antonio, we’re accustomed to being the oldest one in a restaurant.
3. Montrealers are fit. They walk; they ride bikes; they climb stairs. While we were there, the marathon ended a few blocks from our house. We walked a lot. We were staying in a Bermuda Triangle of metro stations, in the exact center of three stations, each probably a little more than a mile from our flat.
4. I bike-share in San Antonio all the time and threatened to make the Mister do so in Montréal. Stations are everywhere and highly used. I read the more people riding, the safer they are. It’s true car drivers are extremely alert and diligent about yielding to both pedestrians and cyclists in Montréal, but, be careful what you wish for. Although numerous, the bike lanes are crowded, particularly during rush hour. Someone like me riding would have tailgating traffic piled up behind. These people are serious commuters; they are not riding leisurely.
4. Canadians are incredibly calm and orderly drivers. No squealing brakes; no cursing; no birds shot; no screeching starts. Once in a great while, you might hear someone give an extremely slight tap to their horn.
5. Canadians have longer attention spans than I. In museums, they stop and read all the accompanying text in exhibits. They patiently sit through all related documentaries. They stay in their museums a long time. While I found the Samurai exhibit at Pointe-à-Callière interesting, I felt an unappreciative, uneducated bumpkin breezing through in contrast to the Montrealers devouring the detailed description of each warrior’s outfit.
6. The housing stock in Montréal is amazing. Miles of three-story, sturdy structures all being refurbished for young urbanites.
7. Living in a loft, I’m accustomed to hauling groceries up a floor to the kitchen. Staying in a second floor apartment in Montréal was fine. Loved the space. But my stairs are inside. Most of their stairs are wrought-iron and outside. How in the world do they manage maneuvering them when iced over in winter? Thank goodness this Texan did not have to try.
8. While I did not witness hoards attending mass, Catholicism is emphasized, if only to remind everyone this is not turf conquered by the Church of England.
9. Quebec is amazingly stubborn. French is dominant, but it has been hanging in there for a long time. The French were expelled by England more than two centuries ago.
10. My belated apologies to Dr. Wayne Reilly. I was pretty all-knowing while I was at Hollins College. Or at least I thought I was. I preferred the laid-back, liberal air of Dr. Henry Nash. I concentrated on important, real world issues; my thesis surely would resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Brought up provincially in then-little Virginia Beach, I totally dismissed Dr. Reilly’s focus on separatists in Canada. What a waste of time. When the secession vote came squeakily close in recent years, I felt my face redden in embarrassment for my attitude 40 years prior. Mea culpa.
11. You have to love a city where a piano sits on the sidewalk inviting people to play. Someone always seems to be playing, and an appreciative audience is always nearby.
To view more snapshots taken during our vacation in Montreal, visit shutterfly. The Mister shares photo credits. If a photo is taken at some wild angle, it definitely is mine. It really bothers some people, but I have this theory. People don’t always look at things geometrically straight on, so why should photos have a level point of view?
Or maybe, that’s just me. I’m the only one not pausing to see things squarely.
Maybe that explains a lot….
Postcards from Barton Springs 