Who's been to Red Hook?

Braloo and I can claim we have :-)

I've heard so much about it from Bn and LV, I had to go. See, I'm calling my friends by their nicknames now, is this to protect their anonymity or just because it sounds cool? ;-)

Needless to say, they are some parts of this neighborhood that are much nicer than others. I really liked the whole post modern feeling that surrounds the waterfront area.

Red Hook

We enjoyed our walk so much that we decided to come back from the Fairway waterfront to Manhattan on foot, through the Brooklyn cruise terminal, Caroll gardens, Brooklyn Heights and the Brooklyn bridge. Nice day for an urban walk. Hopefully I can go hiking in the outdoors without suffering too much the next day (damn swollen ankle), otherwise this blog will have to change its headline.

Five-Star Wilderness - New York Times

And they call this hiking?
Usually, the NY Times has very good ideas for outdoors trip, but I personnally think this article is ridiculous, and only for rich city wimps who don't know wat to do with their money.

Ok, sometimes hiking a full day from lodge to lodge can be nice, but please, those people are barely walking before being taken to next spot by the helicopter. Maybe this should be banned.


Five-Star Wilderness - New York Times

Quebec, the province and the city

Given that we are (hopefully) past the big crunch time at the office and that there was a 3 day holiday week-end, I couldn't resist and decided to go visit la belle province again.
This time, instead of stopping in Montreal, I went all the way to Quebec (the city) to meet my friends Seppo & Sandra, that I had still not visited after all these years.

I didn't choose to travel the easy way: I went by bus. I guess I miss a lot those epic bus rides I used to take in developing countries; and travelling by night in and old stinky Greyhound bus gets close. Actually I think buses in Chile and Turkey are much better than Greyhound. It was a long ride, the line was long too at Port Authority (but I had had a wonderful dinner at Vincent's and Juliette's just minutes before, so I was in good spirits), and the unexpected stop in Albany to"clean the bus" was not cheerfully appreciated. Anyway, I got to Montreal, found another bus to transfer to Quebec immediately and arrived there around 11:30am, picked up by Seppo at the station.
They live in a beautiful apartment next to the old City walls, and we had lunch in the sun, on their balcony. What a great way to kick off a week end! Then they both showed me around town, and I was happy to see that they knew well where to take me. I am usually the one taking my guests around Manhattan, so it was fun to be in the guest role for a change.
We had a big international party in the evening, and the next day, I kept exploring town with Sandra, while Seppo had to work (Ah, those crazy scientists). We took really nice pictures of this unique city in North America. I particularly loved the fact that the city includes a huge park, and has beautiful views of the St Laurent river. At times I really had the feeling I was in France. Almost everything surrounding us reminded me of France...

Labor Day in Quebec

On Monday, Seppo and I bicycled around town, I was happy to see that they even have roads (ok, one long road only) for cyclists, again kind of unsual for America. We then grabbed one of his friends' car, and drove 15min to have a quick peek at the Montmorency falls (in French), a very striking natural attraction. The falls are higher than Niagara's. Seppo told me they are frozen in winter, I should probably come back to admire the even more impressive view.

We went on to have another delicious lunch at home (mmmh, tarte aux quetsches), and followed with a softball game organized by Sandra's friend. I think I have finally understood the rules of baseball now :-)

It was then time to start the long trip home. I stopped a couple of hours in Montreal, and had once again a great dinner with my Quebecois friends David and Valerie, on their terrace.

Perfect week end, I think people in Quebec really know what The Good Life means...