Winter Wonderland

Quebec City - oh my, what a place! Our journey there went without a hitch (unless you count our driver playing Jon Lajoie to us). We were dropped off somewhere in Quebec but without having the slightest clue where or how to get to the old quarter. We asked a few people which didn't exactly help a huge amount. After finding the bus stop but no timetable we decided to pay a visit to the nearest hotel for a bit of information. The rather helpful man informed us that the bus came once an hour and we had just missed it. We opted for a taxi.
This saved us quite a bit of time and allowed us to drop our things at the hostel and go exploring. We didn't wander very far but found a number of things. It was dark already and snowing (it snowed pretty much constantly whilst we were there - it made taking photos at night kinda hard).
We stumbled across the German Christmas market. Sadly I didn't get any Glühwein, which makes me sad. By this point however, I had realised that my boots were NOT by any means suitable for this much snow and as a result I was wandering around with some icy puddles by my toes. Not so much fun. We managed to have a nice nosy around some shops, where I finally found something I've been dying to buy my god-daughter. SCORE! After some mooching we settled down for some dinner in a restaurant, which turned out to be down the road from our hostel proving that everything really is close together in the old quarter. I was most uncouth, taking off my boots and socks and using hand warmers to get some feeling back in my toes. Probably not what people want to see but I tried to be discreet about it at least! Although this was a fantastic idea and it made my feet feel about 100 times better, it did mean that this cupcake shaped hand warmer, courtesy of my mother, began setting itself off at random occasions all by itself. Hmm...
The next day we had a few things in mind to visit - first stop being shoooeeees! Man, I felt so much happier walking around in my new boots that kept my tootsies dry. We did a fair bit of shopping, I have now sorted all christmas presents with one exception. Sweet no?
I walked past one shop and saw something which instantly reminded me of my sister so I rushed in to buy it. Victoria was left not knowing exactly where I had disappeared to.

Our day wasn't entirely devoted to shopping. We visited the Basilic. Unfortunately, I seem completely incapable of pronoucing this correctly in English and often found myself refering to a rather large snake as appears in Harry Potter. Isn't it pretty? I like the wreath. The 2 candles say vigilance and espérance. Just to add some detail there. From there we went on a hunt for the Break-neck stairs. I was sorely mislead into thinking that these would be incredibly steep/narrow/some other sort of thing that would make a flight of steps particularly perilous but alas, they seem all to safe. The original steps, which may have been responsible for numerous injured parties, were replaced a long time. What a let down. They did however lead us to a very quaint shopping street. The photo doesn't really do it justice. It had classy christmas decorations!! I didn't even see tinsel in any of the shops. I think that this is because there wasn't any but you never know, one of the many snowflakes to land on my eyeballs could have blinded me somewhat.
Our aimless wanderings took us to many an interesting spot before we worked our way towards to Christmas market. First stop being lunch. I thought the christmas market was a bit of a let down to be honest - it was almost entirely food. I did get a nice sample of some ice cider which can compensate for it the lack of Christmassy things.
After the market, I followed my nose. Map skills? pah - who needs 'em. Besides the old quarter of Quebec City is so small before you know it you're back where you started. Getting lost wasn't going to happen. We walked along part of the fortification walls. where we found this snowman.  Isn't he cool? Looking all G, chillin' on a cannon. What a dude. I wish I could boast that we made him but sadly this is not the case. We continued along the wall and found ourselves back at the beginning (I said that's what happens!). We mooched over to Chateau Frontenac. That's a hotel but it's super fancy. We had a sniff around. I approve of the choice of Christmas decorations.
From there I think we returned to the hostel. We chatted away to teh Australian girl, Georgie, who was also in our dorm. The 3 of us went out for dinner. We went to an Irish bar. So cultural. I got a damn good burger though and some creme brulee. Yummy!
That's pretty much it for day one, aside from all the chatting and giggling that took place once back in the dorm. Day 2 can have a post of it's own - I'm sleepy!