In search of Mr. Buble.....

After commenting to Brian and Sharyn earlier in the week that 'Canada can't be another country its just up the road' I discovered just how wrong I was this week after a whirlwind 3 days travelling 2,226 in total miles to Quebec and back again.

We left Knoxville at 5am on Wednesday the 18th July, a little bit later than intended as someone overslept which of course yes I was the guilty party. So we headed off into the dark with Bob Dylans Like A Rolling Stone on the radio, and then i promptly fell asleep to be woken up for breakfast in Virginia. A brand new state for me, in total on the way to Canada we would go through 7 states: Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and New York. Before reaching the Canadian Border at around 10pm in the evening. The journey was long and we had many coffee stops to keep the magnificent Beth wide awake at the wheel and MB did an excellent job of creating loud ridiculous CDs. We had a couple of mad rainstorms with thunder and lightening whilst going through Pennsylvania so I hid under a blanket and listened to Frank Turner to distract myself. The rest of the journey was uneventful, aside from a Toll Booth guy serenading us singing "Are you gonna be my girl".   So we arrived at border control at around 10pm and had to wait in line to be inspected and answer a few questions, and i was very excited to get another stamp in my passport. I was sad to notice that both the American and Canadian officials stamped my passport upside down. Bah. Anyway so 2 hours down the road we arrived in Drummondville and were greeted by the beautiful Mary who would be our "tour guide" around Montreal. After being introduced to lots of lovely people, who for the life i can not remember most of their names, sorry! We headed to bed 21 hours after leaving Knoxville.

Next morning we got up feeling slightly more humane but not by much and had breakfast which had been made by Chuck, he called it the Breakfast of Kings, and they were some sort of homemade bars involving Bananas and Pineapples- he wouldn't tell us his secret recipe though! After breakfast we headed out to Montreal, I was in the search of Michael Buble in the hope of meeting him and the 2 of us falling in love. We met up with Vanessa and shortly parked up and headed down to the Old Port which was beautiful full of European style buildings. It seemed one of the most popular ways to view the city was by horse drawn carriages. We had lunch in a french restaurant, as Quebec is a french speaking province which is no good for me, when it came to pointing rather than try and pronounce my lunch i just pointed.  After this saw some naked paint men with only leaves for their modesty we weren't too sure what the deal was with these guys. We did a bit of shopping by the main area by the Notre Damn Basilica of Montreal then headed right down onto the Old Port and walked around, from there you have a wonderful view of the full city and were able to get some good pictures of the city and some expensive looking yachts, still hopelessly looking for Mr Buble. After this was Ice Cream time, before going to amazing Record Store, then onto Mount Royal which offers great views of the whole city. After taking lots of pictures we found we had some visitors. 3 Raccoons, and if anyone asks MB her favourite part of the trip the guaranteed answer will be "We saw Raccoons!"

After going awwwwwwww a lot of over he raccoons we head back to the house and discovered we were having a BBQ on the roof! Which was pretty awesome. I got to talk to a lot of wonderful people; Julie, Sef, Ben, Alex, Mary, Marjo, Chuck, Jeff, Matt and Moose, Mirium and Isobel; there were so many more but i just can't  keep up or remember there names! After food i got to see where they record the music in their own beautiful studio, as the band (Your Favourite Enemies) bought a Church and the joining house to for which they all live in and create music. The church has been converted into a rehearsal space, kitchen and bathrooms, along with bedrooms. In the main section of the church there is a wonderful live recording space, sound booths and a studio which the guys appear to work tirelessly in producing their next album. Alongside an area for the band to play there is a section to film their show Blah Blah Blah. Imbetween the house and church they have a yard are which is home to 2 ponies and a goat. As Ben pointed out several times it smells like "pee pee", he didn't seem to be a fan as much as Sef who was outraged MB had met the animals without him showing her. The whole group is filled with awesome people and it was brilliant to meet them all, learn a little bit of french Je suis belle, next time as i promised Julie we will carry out a conversation in French.

After a late night and early morning we said Bye to Mary and Marjo who packed us breakfast, including Cheetos for me, and headed back on the road back down to the border control and back into America. The journey home was more eventful involving Beth breaking Gas Pumps, Service stations being out of gas, scary blonde women and some big lightening! In 60 hours 38 were spent driving there and back to Canada, 32 spent inside Canada which includes Sleeping and sigh seeing and driving. A short but great trip, Bionic Beth drove the full 2226 miles without and complaints, not even other MBs song choices to keep her awake. Thank you so much to YFE for sharing their home with us for the 2 nights, and allowing me to see the amazing conversions they have done to the church, a HUGE thank you to Mary for showing us all around Montreal (You can tell them all you got a 10/10 and should be employed as a permanent tour guide!) But thank you so much for the amazing day in Montreal, sadly i didn't find Mr Buble but i am not giving up just yet! In short Rachael discovered that Canada is merely not just up the hill, but involves 7 states, 1113 miles each way and a whole lot of gas. 

Tomorrow headed to the Big Apple, before going to North Carolina for 2 weeks on Saturday, its going to be an excellent week!