We made it up to Lac-Saint-Jean in northern Quebec to see our friends in the Canadian Air Force, Chris and Nancy LaRouche. Our friends were stationed in Germany with NATO, and lived in our village; attended our church on base; and, drove the same model Volvo – what a match! We ended up spending the last couple of Christmas Eves with them and other Canadian Air Force members celebrating Christmas in the French-Canadian style: eating “tourtiere” at midnight on Christmas Eve, having Santa arrive, and trying to understand rapid-fire French.
In Germany, we took a couple of trips with the French-Canadian contingent of NATO, but nothing prepared us for our entry into Quebec – it was more foreign that traveling in France. I think France has more spoken and written English than Quebec. Quebec is like a distant, foreign country plopped into North America.
Our friends took us north to camp at Lac-Saint-Jean, which sits on the only fjord in eastern North America. The beauty was spectacular. The best part of this excursion was continuing our “Eating Our Way Across America” segment into Canada (we’ll have to change the name now). We went berry picking and had the best raspberries yet (sorry, New England). The kids were popping them into their mouths left and right. No wonder our boxes were continually empty. It was great to hear the kids exclaim that they wished movie theaters sold berries instead of popcorn.
I can’t wait to hold them to this declaration next time they ask for popcorn at the movies and I pull out my snuck-in stash of berries.
