Today was the day of the museum. From 10:30 a.m. until sundown, we hit nearly every museum in Old Quebec (Vieux Quebec). I can't remember a time my legs were so sore.
But it was so worth it.
My favorite museum, which was also the museum I was most looking forward to seeing on this trip, was la Musee de l'Amerique Francophone--the Museum of French-Speaking America. It was one of the coolest museums I've ever seen, and the thing I loved most was the exhibit on les Acadiens. I love that story, tragic as it is, because of the Longfellow poem, Evangeline. It's a love story, and no one tells the story better (sorry Longfellow) than French-Canadian singer Marie-Jo Theriot. The version below has handy English subtitles:
Tucked neatly inside la Musee de l'Amerique Francophone is a beautiful chapel, one that used to be used for "practice" Masses by priests-in-training from la Seminaire de Quebec (inside which the museum is located).
Stained glass window within the chapel
The marble altar of the chapel, saved from the chapel's many fires over the years
One of the many reliquaries -- the chapel holds over 600 relics!
The chapel. Just to the left of this photo was the tomb of St. Francois de Laval, first bishop of Quebec. His body is no longer entombed there, but there's a neat plaque that says that Pope John Paul II visited there to pray back in the 80s. Gotta love JPII.
After the museum, we headed over the seminary for a tour. I didn't take any photos here, partly out of respect and partly because I was too busy being amazed at the history of the place. They built onto the seminary little by little over the centuries, so going through the building is like taking a trip through time.
After that, it was off to la Musee de la Civilisation for the Greek and Roman exhibit--tons of statues, pottery, and military gear from antiquity on loan from a museum in Berlin. To get there, we walked past Chateau Frontenac, down the steep and winding streets to Place Royale.
Chateau Frontenac
Inside the main gate of Chateau Frontenac
View from outside Chateau Frontenac
Chateau Frontenac peaking over the trees on our way down to Place Royale.
View of Chateau Frontenac from the lower city. Isn't it beautiful?
Street in the lower city.
We took the funicular back up the hill--by this time, my feet were shot.
Tomorrow, we're heading out of town to see the Montmorency Falls and the shrine at St. Anne de Beaupre. So it'll be another active one...better get some sleep.
*Pardon the absence of accents--I haven't figured out where to find them on my new computer and I haven't the energy to figure it out tonight!*
Today we began the process of falling in love with Quebec. It isn't hard to do; this city is a charming blend of old and new, of cosmopolitan and hometown, of European class and Midwestern comfort.
Our day started with an adventure in parking, which began with the best intentions and ended with a turn into an empty, underground parking garage. Upon entering the garage, we learned that the ceilings were only about 6 ft 5 in., which meant that Dr. Heidrick was in constant danger of scraping his head. Amazed but undeterred, we set out to find our way to the street level, which took a few doors and a few tries--a process that I'm sure was incredibly entertaining to the guard monitoring the security cameras.
Our tiny Fiat snugly parked in a very, very short parking garage.
Dr. Heidrick experiencing a little height bias in the parking garage.
After some time, we burst forth into the sun and set out to find the Basilica of Notre-Dame-de-Quebec for Mass, a journey that took us through the winding streets of the old city.
The main gate at Rue St. Louis through the fortifications around the old city
A street view of Rue St. Louis
Rue St. Louis
Flags along Rue St. Louis, bookmarked by the Quebec flag and the Canadian flag
The French consulate in Quebec
Back of Chateau Frontenac
Looking down Rue du Tresor
La Basilique Cathedrale Notre-Dame-de-Quebec
Close-up of the altar
After a much-needed long lunch (and a heavy slathering-on of sunscreen...damn pale skin), we visited the provincial parliament building, which proud Quebecois call l'Assemblee Nationale. While echoes of British rule and nods to Quebec's British heritage are sprinkled throughout the building, the entire experience--and indeed the entire city--is decidedly French. Or rather, French-inspired but uniquely Quebecois.
View from the front of l'Assemblee Nationale
"Je me souviens" = "I remember" - The motto of Quebec.
A painting depicting the debate over which language would be the official language of government: English or French
View of Chateau Frontenac from the steps of l'Assemblee Nationale
By this time, our feet were sore, we were hungry, and my pale skin was thoroughly scorched, so we made our way back to the hotel for an early bedtime. Tomorrow we'll continue our exploration of the old city, including Chateau Frontenac, Dufferin Terrace and a trip down to Place Royale.
Saturday, 6/28/14: Travel
ST LOUIS > CHICAGO > QUEBEC
I still can't believe I'm going to Quebec. It seems unreal that I'll actually be seeing the things I studied in my college courses.
After a solid day of traveling, though, it's starting to sink in. But before a family of bleary-eyed yet wonder-struck Heidricks spilled out of the United airplane onto Canadian soil, we had a few adventures already checked off.
First was letting our poor pups off to get boarded. Chloe turned into a shivering, terrified blob in my arms when we walked into the vet's office, and even adventurous Mojo seemed unready to be given over. I'm can't lie; I shed a few tears as we pulled out of the parking lot and left our dogs behind. I can't wait to see their little faces when we come back to pick them up.
We made it to the St. Louis airport in plenty of time, and encountered this happy Coke bottle while waiting for our plane. Being a die-hard Diet Pepsi fan, Matt was not as enthused about the bottle as I was.
As per my usual, our plane didn't even make it off the tarmac before I was passed out. It's a gift, really; Superman got X-ray vision, Wolverine's got those metal claws, and I've got the ability to sleep anywhere and at any time, whether I'm actually tired or not. I think everybody's got their own travel super power. For me, it's sleeping. For Matt, it's reading maps and having a spot-on inner compass. It works out well for us--he figures out where to go and I sit comatose in the passenger seat until we arrive.
We met Matt's parents in Chicago and made the last leg of the journey together. Our flight landed in Québec at a little before 11 p.m. EST, and after a few minutes of standing around lost outside a near-empty airport, we found our way to the car rental office. Dr. Heidrick--whose travel super power is being utterly unafraid of anything or anyone--befriended the Hertz employee, who offered us a brand new Fiat for our rental car. "It's not like those other ones," he reassured us as we murmured about the compact size of Fiats. "It's very big--like a minivan!"
A few minutes later, we found ourselves face-to-face with one of the smallest vehicles I have ever ridden in. It's tough to remember sometimes that Americans live in a super-sized world, and what is large to our standards isn't necessarily large to other countries' standards. We must have looked very entertaining to native Québecois, fiddling around with all the buttons and latches and trying with all our might to shove three suitcases into a two-suitcase car. The term "clown car" springs to mind.
Many minutes later, after a midnight food and map check stop at Tim Horton's, some sort of fast food restaurant I'd never heard of before but which was the only place open (and frankly wasn't all that bad), we found our hotel--and not a moment too soon, because we were BEAT.
Our hotel room in Levis, just south of Quebec City
My goal is to blog to you from Quebec each day this week. Please feel free to leave questions, comments, tips, or thoughts!
Sometimes genius comes slowly. Sometimes it comes all at once, in a fit of brilliance. But for me, most of the time, it comes from Pinterest.
Two Saturdays ago, I was planted on my couch, mindlessly perusing my own pins, when I stumbled upon an idea I'd pinned some time back to my "Wanderlust and Second Helpings" board. It was a collection of stamps that had been mounted, framed, and displayed on a wall as art. Some had been enlarged, giving the collection an interesting, varied look.
And then I had one of those face-palm, coulda-had-a-V8 sort of moments.
A few years ago, on an ordinary Saturday visit to her house, my grandmother (on my dad's side) gave me an unassuming yellow box. Time had dulled its color a bit, and upon further inspection I noticed that, in tiny powder blue script, it was labeled "Estee Lauder." I cracked open the box and was surprised to find not makeup, but something infinitely more interesting.
Inside was a collection of some of the most interesting stamps I'd ever seen. They were time-worn tokens of adventures, relics from countries all over the world, even some that don't even exist anymore. They told stories of exotic, far away places--Germany, Belgium, Vietnam, Japan, Nepal, Hungary. It was history, tucked away for years in a faded yellow box.
And to think that, up until two Saturdays ago, those stamps had sat in that Estee Lauder box on a shelf in our spare bedroom, gathering dust.
Now, a share of them hang on my living room wall, a reminder of family and a daily chance to imagine what adventures these stamps saw before they came to find themselves in my little yellow box.
And all it took was a moment of genius, some pre-cut mat board and stamp mounts from Hobby Lobby, a few cheap frames from Wal-Mart, a digital camera, and a few hours of creativity. Interested in showing off your very own stamp collection? Great! Come along, fellow stamp nerd!
Displaying Your Stamp Collection 101
Time to Complete:
An afternoon
What you'll need:
However many stamps you want to display
Stamp mounts (see note below)
Pre-cut mat board in whatever size and color you'd like--pick colors that complement your decor, but that won't overwhelm your stamps. They're the real stars here, after all!
Heavy card stock paper (again, in a complementary--but not overwhelming--color)
Picture frames in a variety of sizes (I used 5x7, 8x10, and 11x14)
A digital camera
A computer
What you'll do:
Pick out the stamps you want to display.
Pick out a few that are really special to you or are visually striking. These will be the ones you'll digitally enlarge for your display.
Place the stamps you want to digitally enlarge on white paper background and photograph in good lighting from directly above. Then, upload the photos to your computer and use a photo editing program (like Photoshop, or a free online tool--my favorites are Canva and PicMonkey) to tweak the photo to your liking.
Size those photos however you like--I did one 8x10 and two 4x6s--upload them to walmart.com or another photo service, and order them for just a couple bucks. You can pick them up at your nearest Wal-Mart's 1-hour photo service desk (ah, hell, who am I kidding. It's Wal-Mart. Better give your order half a day.)
Select the stamps you're going to group together in a display (the ones you're not going to enlarge) and arrange them on a sheet of card stock--do this for each grouping you want displayed. You can get fancy with the groupings--I just did grids, but you could do whatever you want! Then place the stamps in the stamp mounts and put them back in place on the card stock. If you like, you can trim your mounts if you have smaller stamps so that the black mount isn't so obvious. Stamp mounts are a great tool for nerds like me who love stamps and don't want to see them destroyed in the display process. There are things out there called stamp hinges. I do NOT recommend using those, because they require you to adhere the hinge directly to the stamp, so you could end up damaging your beloved stamp. Not cool, stamp hinge. Not cool. Here's a great video about how to use stamp mounts at the bottom of this post--definitely check it out. You might fall asleep while watching it, but even though the guy is super boring, he sure is helpful.
Once your stamps are in the mounts, adhere the mounts to the card stock by touching a damp finger to the adhesive side of the mount and pressing the mount firmly down on the card stock.
Center the card stock in your mat and tape to the back of the mat to secure. Then frame, hang, and congratulate yourself on a job well done!
Here are some more stamps from the collection now on my wall. I wanted to do a frame for each country, but Matt (the rational one in this family) said that having a frame for each of the dozens of countries in that little yellow box would be bordering on insanity.
