Finally, travelling...

So we are off in the morning for 4 days in Québec City. This is our first real trip since returning from overseas, unless you count trips to visit family in Toronto and Winnipeg. Though I guess our 3-day, cross-Ontario drive to Winnipeg and back last September shouldn't be so readily discounted. Fine. This is our second real trip since returning from overseas, and the only one that involves no family component whatsoever.[1]

Randal has never been to Québec City, so it will be fun to show him around. It won't be a total Greatest Hits of Julie's Early Adolescence, since, really, I'm sure he's not that interested in the church hall where I spent countless hours rehearsing with the Québec Art Company for their latest musical, nor in Place Laurier where I spent way too much time shopping with my girlfriends and dodging boys I had crushes on[2], nor even Jessica's old house where we whiled away hours and hours in the basement putting together the QHS Scoop newspaper or watching Guns N' Roses and New Kids on the Block videos.

[As an aside, click that NKOTB link for a good laugh. They're getting back together! And, well, they're just not as cute as they used to be......]

Anyway, where was I? Ah yes, the Tour of Québec City. We are staying at the Hotel Acadia, which I stayed at the last time I was in Québec City, about 8 years ago, back when it was called La Maison Acadienne. It's a hotel in a heritage home, and really, really nice. It's right in the Old Town, so we will be well-poised to visit all the Old Town sites. Don't know about a ride in a calèche, but maybe.

The ulterior motive of the Québec City trip, however, is to attend a reunion of sorts at my old high school. This is a muddled story, and it hasn't quite turned out the way I'd hoped, but oh well. See, 2008 marks 15 years since I graduated from high school. Originally, a small group of people were trying to get together some kind of reunion to take place in either Québec City or Montréal. But that fell through. Then we found out that the school itself was hosting a reunion for all alumni, Back to School 2008, as one of many events being held in Québec City over the next few months in celebration of the city's 400th anniversary. So I decided I would go, since it gives us the excuse to take a short vacation in a lovely city![3] The only problem is, now, I only know of FOUR other people from my year who are also attending. I mean, I guess there will be teachers there that I may know, and others may show up of whom I did not know they were coming, but generally, it's just not going to be the great "how-nice-to-see-you-after-15-years" event of the summer. Which, now that I think about it, is kind of okay, since I really don't want to be reminded that I am old enough to have been out of school for 15 years.

Anyway, that's where I'll be if any of you are wondering why this daily-updated blog is suddenly no longer being updated daily.


And now, without further ado, I am off to watch Grosse Point Blank, the movie that has taught me everything I need to know about how to comport myself at such an event, only I'm not actually a professional killer, so when the guy comes to bump me off because I bumped off some other guy's dog (by mistake!), I may just beat him senselessly with my shoe and cry.[4]


[1] Well, sort of. I plan on going to visit my grandparents' gravesite, but that doesn't really count, does it?

[2] OK, that only happened once. And I'm sure Jen is going to whack me upside the head the next time she sees me, for the mere fact that I still remember this incident. Also, Place Laurier had this excellent hat shop that I frequented numerous times in the hopes of finding the perfect Debbie-Gibson hat. (Not the jacket, mind you. That would have been too uncool.) But, alas, it never happened, and thus ended my dreams of a musical career.

[3] i.e., a city that isn't either Toronto or Winnipeg, though both of those are lovely cities in their own ways.

[4] It was either that or Romy and Michele's High School Reunion, and I figure that I'd just never pass for a blonde bimbo. Besides, GPB has John Cusack, and what more could I possibly want in life? :)