les impressions
quebec city is lovely but hostile to english-speakers, which was very much expected; the manners were there, at least, and in my opinion they have every right.

in one interesting case there was an attempt to sell us a $5,000 painting (which was really.. just.. stunning. i will be ruminating and pickled for the rest of my life so maybe buying it is not so unreasonable).

in another, a taxi driver with serbian roots sang the two words of kalinka that i know, asked me to sing more (which i couldn't), and we all established in a mix of four languages that strong similarities exist between the two slavic ones.

memorable phrases:

> who the hell are these people?

when, in the middle of the night, three severely drunk adults (a married couple and one of their mothers) decided to yell every one of their syllables at the top of their lungs

> we appreciate a bowl of soup

when we had walked around a very slushy 'old city' for hours and something warm and liquidy was very much required. we did not, in fact, appreciate since it was much too sour but the effort was acknowledged.

the link is for pictures but there is not much of quebec to be found in them :)