Bonjour, c’est va?  Getting this out a bit late today.  Had a great day yesterday, but I think all the late nights and long days caught up to me today as I was a little tired.  Sorta tired and low energy, so today’s post will be more about photos and a quick update without the usual sidetracks, offshoots and tributaries fondly flowing folly and foolishness.  Kind of a yo here’s what Wags is up to.  But hey, if you get bored, you can just look at the pictures!  And don’t be too critical of the photos today – somehow I broke my good camera (dirt roads?), so today’s pictures were all iPhone pictures.  Not quite the same.

My nice server Luce.

A nice spot to put a few things down.

Yesterday was full and fantastic.  Started with a walk around the city and then a stop at an elevated cafe looking over an area of the city.  My server, Luce, was nice enough to let me camp out for a while as I did a little work and wrote.  After I spent some time wandering the Old City, I headed back to the house and got a quick tour of the Loius Garneau factory and did a little shopping at the warehouse.

Check out that form. Perfection. I can't believe I'm even able to hold on.

The factory is right behind the condo, so it was a short walk.  I bought some new Euro glasses and put on a short time trial clinic for Kangaroo while we were at the plant.

Euro Wags. Le Wags if you will.

After the quick tour we headed out to Louis’ “lake house.”  Pretty sweet setup, and I’m sure that all my racer friends won’t believe that I hung out and had a huge dinner at Louis Garneau’s lake house.  For those not in the know, Louis is a famous Canadian racer, and now owns a phenomenally successful biking company.  The guys who stayed with me this summer race on his team, and all of our Hollander and Velo Trocadero racing kits come from LG.

On the boat with Aurelien and Kangaroo.

The group at dinner on the shore of the lake.

We ate sushi and steak, drank more wine than we should have and wrapped up the night with a great campfire.  Louis and his family were phenomenal hosts, and it was great to be part of life in Quebec, and the setting could not have been any better.

This morning I got up a bit later than planned.  I was a touch crusty to say the least.  When I finally got up, I made my way back into the old Quebec and took a bus tour to get a more high-level look at the city.  It was a great way to see parts of the city I may not have seen otherwise, but man, people who go on bus tours are weird.  Traveling would be so awesome if there were no tourists (except me and whoever I’m with of course.  After the tour, I just bombed around the city hanging out at some cafes and taking some pictures as best I could.  Most of the old city inside the walls (Quebec is the only fortified city in North America, bet you didn’t know that) is closed to car traffic this weekend, so the city was just absolutely on fire.  It was a great way to see the city.  Here are a few pics:

This is hard to see, but trust me, I could not make this up - these stairs are for cats only. Yea, cat stairs.

A beautiful fountain in Old Quebec. Touristy photo, I know, but come on, it's pretty.

Hey, it's Wags! And he's sitting in a cafe! No way!

Closed streets on weekends. So awesome. Why don't we do this?

Just part of the fortification. So cool to see this still standing. Ha, the British will never get throug...

Ha! Totally sneaking in a self-portrait. Suckers.

Ok, so I thought the gates were very cool. We don't exactly have these at home.

Last one of the gates. I bet that now it's over, you're feeling bad.

Had to sneak in one more self portrait with my sweetass Euroshades.

This wraps up my last day in Quebec City.  I’ve loved the city, had a great time with the boys, truly enjoyed meeting Louis, and finally experienced that Quebecois delicassey called poutine.  What is this poutine you ask?  Well, you won’t believe me even if you hail from Wisconsin and are used to seeing ridiculous foods consumed in large quantities.  Poutine starts with a layer of French fries, then heaps on a load of squeaky, melty, goody cheese curds, and then gets topped off with an overwhelming amount of hot, brown gravy.

Um, uh, eh, uh, yum? Yea, yum. (psst, I ate almost all of this. things are not going so well for Wags right now.)

Yea, fries AND cheese curds AND gravy.  Can you say State Fair!  Yaous! Apparently there are chains here that specialize in just this snack!  Is this heaven or hell?  I just can’t tell!  It was truly heaven as I stuffed my face in a blind fit of glee, but now that I’ve had some time to consider my actions, I’ve entered into some kind of low-level hell.  I can’t wait for tomorrow morning!  I wonder why the guys already went to bed?  Hmm, very peculiar.  Oh, and did I mention that I added a “smoked meat” sandwich to my order.  Am I a genius or what?!?  Time will tell, but I see my vision paying off in spades.

Sorry for the boring post.  Today was more of an update, hey what’s Wags doing kind of a day.  Back onto the road tomorrow.  Northeast I think.  Stay tuned…  Maybe poetry tomorrow?  Or how about I write a song?  Would that do it?  You’ll just have to wait and see…