The weekend in review - Québec Winter Carnaval 2008 (Saturday)

Saturday Feb 16th.

Saturday started with a quick breakfast of waffles and coffee. We then soon departed to the Musée de la Civilisation (conveniently located directly across the street from Jeff and Stef's! It was free admission so we HAD to go. There were two exhibits we went to see; Dragons: between Science and Fiction and Urbanopolis.

The Urbanopolis was a little too sci-fi / space agey for me, but I did, enjoy the Dragon exhibit, enough to take some illegal photos for you all to see. :-)

This was an impressive instellation... a chandilier...

This was in the main lobby... the boys (Didier, Stef and Jeff) are underneath...

A wonderful marble statue of St Michael and the Dragon...

After the Musée we made our way slowly up through the old city. Snow snow wherever you looked!...

This was a car in a parking lot... you can just make out the rear bumper and top of the tire...

And ice... cascading down the cliff face like a frozen river... I love this...

After brunch, we made our way back to the Carnaval, and passed Bonhomme's Palace again...

Then made our way to the plains to see the snow sculptures..

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At this point I have to unfortunately report that this year, over all, both the snow and ice sculptures were greatly lacking, both in creativity and number. Last year I must have taken almost 150 pics alone of the sculptures, this year not even 50. What snow sculptures there were were a bit to 'conceptual' for my liking - hence I've only shown you the two that I actually really liked - and the Ice Sculptures.... well generally you can't spit in the old City without hitting one... they're in front of every bar and resto and store... this year I don't think I saw 30. Disappointing to say the least...

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And now back to Carnaval fun...

Here's a pic of a bunch of of retards out for the annual "Bain de Neige". Yup, 'mature' grown adults stripped down to their skivvies playing in the snow... it was MINUS 18 plus windchill at this point in the day... and each team had to stay outside for a minimum 15 minutes at a time in their competition... to win what we don't know... my guess was double pneumonia.

Please notice now how Civilized people dress on a day such as this...

...please notice the sheer lack of exposed flesh... It's not that we're prudes, we'd simply rather live past the weekend...

While on the Plains of Abraham we were passed by a few of the local Public Transit vehicles... seems that little has changed in 400 years on this front...

From about 3pm to 5 pm Didier and I explored the city some more, window shopping, sight seeing, and on occasion sampling hot cocoa and delicious pastries. We returned to the boy's place around 5:50pm had a wonderful Raclette dinner and then made our way back out into the frost and snow to see the Grand Parade... It was short and sweet, maybe 30-35 minutes. Just the right amount of time to entertain, amaze you with their visual splendour, without causing any un-due hypothermia.. And here was my money shot of the parade... Bonhomme Carnaval...

As soon as the parade was over, we scurried our butts back to the condo for, yup, you guessed it hot cocoa and bailies... and then off to bed... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz