Desperate to travel...

[garbon]

Too old for gral as his testicles have descended.

[Capetan Mihali]

Not to drag out this thread, but I'm looking at the week of Dec. 14 - 20 for my voyage to Quebec.  Is Quebec City worth the excursion?  I'd like to make a little side-trip at least to some non-metropolitan part of La Belle Province just to see what it's like.  Shawinigan?  Sherbrooke?

The other big decision is youth hostel vs. seedy hotel.  Youth hostels are going for 25-30 a night.   Pros are maybe some friendly conversation with other travellers; cons are sleeping in a public setting.  Seedy hotels going for 40ish on Rue Ste. Catherine.  Pros are privacy, ambiance; cons are loneliness, ambiance. 

[Barrister]

Youth hostel.  Meet up with other people, have fun.

Seedy hotel just means being woken by crack addicts at 3am in the next room.

Yes to Quebec city.  No to Sherbrooke or Shawinigan.  Not on the timeframe you're looking at (1 week).  But of course I've only ever been to Hull and a baseball game in Montreal.  I'm only going by what others have told me.

[Admiral Yi]

Yes on Quebec City.

[Sheilbh]

I'm always surprised how easily disappointed I am by a cheap and seedy hotel.  All too often they are just cheap and seedy. 

Sometimes though you find ones with little communities living there.  In Casablanca in a seedy hotel and spent every night sat around the sofas talking to my other guests who were all relatively long-term.  A Dutch Moroccan who, for example, who came to Morocco for a month of every year to receive folk treatments for his weak chest (it looked to me like folk surgery) or the recently divorced mother who lived in a suite with a daughter because she didn't want to return to her parents in the country and hadn't the money to find a place of her own.

Other times they're actually just hidden gems.  I found one in the some tropical bit of Argentina (I forget the town) which was basically a dilapidated nineteenth century villa.  Each room was huge (bigger than most living rooms), as were the beds.  The shutters and the fans hadn't been updated in years but that just added to the charm and everything was clean.  While I was there I met a Swiss man who has been slowly travelling the world for ten years (he spends several months in every city).  He always wore a cream three piece suit with hat and looked like a mix between Blofeld and the man from Del Monte.  Apparently he'd discovered a system that let him beat the house at roulette - a system which he was always refining by changing notes and adding different figures.  He was a bit suspicious, though.  He would never let anyone prepare his drinks.  He had to boil his own water and would then carry around a large flask of self-prepared tea through the day which he'd top up as necessary.

Sometimes seedy is romantic, or enjoyable, or a step into a different world - and it's great.  All too often, however, it is just unpleasant

[Sheilbh]

Incidentally I love trains.  Best transport method

[Grey Fox]

Not to drag out this thread, but I'm looking at the week of Dec. 14 - 20 for my voyage to Quebec.  Is Quebec City worth the excursion?  I'd like to make a little side-trip at least to some non-metropolitan part of La Belle Province just to see what it's like.  Shawinigan?  Sherbrooke?

The other big decision is youth hostel vs. seedy hotel.  Youth hostels are going for 25-30 a night.   Pros are maybe some friendly conversation with other travellers; cons are sleeping in a public setting.  Seedy hotels going for 40ish on Rue Ste. Catherine.  Pros are privacy, ambiance; cons are loneliness, ambiance.

Quebec will feel small enough no need to go Sherbrooke or Shawi.

[Grallon]

Not to drag out this thread, but I'm looking at the week of Dec. 14 - 20 for my voyage to Quebec.  Is Quebec City worth the excursion?  I'd like to make a little side-trip at least to some non-metropolitan part of La Belle Province just to see what it's like.  Shawinigan?  Sherbrooke?

The other big decision is youth hostel vs. seedy hotel.  Youth hostels are going for 25-30 a night.   Pros are maybe some friendly conversation with other travellers; cons are sleeping in a public setting.  Seedy hotels going for 40ish on Rue Ste. Catherine.  Pros are privacy, ambiance; cons are loneliness, ambiance.

I do hope you will make time for us to drink some wine together.  Perhaps GF would also condescend to leave his distant suburb.




G.

[Caliga]

Capetan Mihali does not drink... wine. 

[Grallon]

Capetan Mihali does not drink... wine. 

So you two have met?  Well whatever he fancies he can have.




G.

[Grey Fox]

Capetan Mihali does not drink... wine. 

Ice cider is pretty good.

[Caliga]

So you two have met?  Well whatever he fancies he can have.

You fail at literature.

[Capetan Mihali]

Capetan Mihali does not drink... wine. 

So you two have met?  Well whatever he fancies he can have.




G.

  No we unfortunately haven't, and wine is infinitely pleasing to me.  Though that ice cider sounds intriguing as well...

We'll just have to find a time that works for you and potentially Grey Fox (Oexmelin is still in Europe, I believe, and Viper is far away?).  I'll PM you both my contact information closer to the trip.

[Admiral Yi]

Hope they don't go all Dreyfus on you.

[Caliga]

  No we unfortunately haven't