August
19
Well,
here I am at the airport again…. It’s
I
had breathed a sigh of relief a couple of days ago reading the newspaper to find
that Air Canada had finally cleared its backlog from the blackout and was back
on normal schedule. As usual, I was premature in my relief. About the exact
moment I arrived at the Air Canada section of the airport their computer
reservation system was hit by a virus. Lucky me……
Actually,
I was further, and temporarily, insulated from the impending mess because after
I wended (wound?) my way through the enourmous lineup of people waiting to get
to the check-in counter I ended up at the kiosk computer check-in section where
there were only short lineups. I noticed that the person in front of me in line
could not get her boarding pass at the kiosk, but I thought little about it. My
turn came and I got my passes right away.
At
that point I noticed that almost none of the kiosks were working properly. It
turned out that very few people were able to get boarding passes for any flight,
either at the counter or at the kiosk. Only thirty out of over one hundred on my
flight had gotten passes before the virus closed things down completely.
At
that point, as the PA system announced what the problem was I began to realize
what kind of a day was ahead of me. My boarding pass was going to be no good to
me if the flights couldn’t leave!!
After
one and a half hours in the holding pen they decided to issue hand written
boarding passes to those with e-tickets, use “festival seating” and get the
planes the hell out of there, which they did.
We
arrived in
We
arrived at the gate just in time for a flight which was then ready to leave, and
was boarding its last passengers. Some had not shown up for as they
were, of course, delayed on some other Air Canada flight somewhere. Some of our
bunch got on this flight, and as we had been wait listed by Air Canada
for this one we got to the top of the list for the next one in ¾ hour. Most
of us made it onto that plane so I arrived in
While
I am most definitely not a fan of Air
So,
here I am in
One
of the reasons I come to this conference is to “network” with the people
here to remind them of how I can help them make money by doing what I do, and
they get more opportunity to do what they do. While on the short flight from
As
an example of the value of this, the client for whom I was working in
I
met up with the aforementioned friend from
We headed off past the Legislative building and turned left at the edge of the entrance to the Citadel. Just ahead was a gate
through the old wall surrounding most of the old city
(P) and,
after passing through we found ourselves in the midst of a highly developed, but
charming tourist version of
We
had a very nice, and typically French, lengthy meal (Marsha would love that) and
talked shop some, and some general conversation about Dubbya and American
politics. All of the others were ‘Merican so I
was outnumbered, but in some cases I had a better handle on the facts
than some of them did.
It
was very pleasant and about
August
20
I
struggled up at
At
the end of the sessions, and a wee rest, I again met up with my friend from
The
restaurant which the group had chosen to host their event was obvious, even from
a distance, because the crowd outside on the narrow plaza was very rowdy. Ken
and I both said that this must be it, and it was.
Typically
for this kind of event, it was noisy, crowded, and crawling with boys and girls
posturing and trying to impress each other. A long time employee of mine, who is
now on her own as a dealer, and a consultant has not lost her touch. Five
minutes after she got there she was surrounded by ten guys all vying to impress
her with their charm and wit. She sure knows how to work the crowd. We used to
call her “flip” after her habit of flipping her long hair back when men are
around.
Again,
I got the chance to say hello to some old friends and catch up on each other’s
lives. After a couple of hours of this a large group of us calved ourselves off
of the crowd and headed off to find a place for dinner. It turned out that we
ended up being fourteen in number and after a loooong walk led my a member of
the group from New York who claimed to know where we were going, we found the
place he had in mind.
It
was a noisy Italian restaurant, and after a short wait they were able to seat us
all (at three separate tables). I sat with my friend and two guys from
These
two squabble like husband and wife constantly, but in the same vein, they share
each other’s food and seem to like each other. Very strange.
So,
once again after a couple of noisy hours at dinner we headed back to the hotel,
where the others headed for the bar, and I headed for bed.
August
21
Today
I am a tourist. After a late-ish breakfast, I transformed myself from a
consultant to a tourist and ventured out to see the sights. After examining the
map of the centre of the City (P)
I decided to take a circle walk from the hotel
starting at the same gate to the old City which I had seen on my first evening,
so I set off past the Legislative Building (P) again and
turned once again toward the wall and the river at the bottom of the picturesque
street.
All of the buildings, once you pass through the old wall are very quaint looking and all are created in the style which one imagines was prevalent in the nineteenth century and earlier. The buildings are either amazingly well looked after, or are newer than the design might indicate. It’s probably a mixture of both.
There
are quite a number of horse drawn carriages available in this area offering the
tourist a restful way of getting around. (P)
I
wandered down the hill looking at the pretty sight and taking my usual
gazillions of pictures. (P) Almost at the end of the street I
took an arbitrary left turn and wandered down a hill to a nice little street
bordered on one side by a church yard which contained a semi-permanent craft
market. On the street below the elevated market was a street musician playing a
squeeze box. I took a movie of this pleasant scene and will attach it to this
narrative once I figure out how to compress the movie to a size which will
download to your computer quickly enough. The format of movies on my new camera
is different than on my old and supposedly less versatile one which I used on my
March trip to
After
enjoying this quiet and pleasant interlude I turned toward the river again, past
the entrance to the Chateau Frontenac (P) which dominates the
skyline from almost any vantage point, and descended a steep set of stairs to a
park across the road. The terrain here is interesting as this part of the city
is built on a high escarpment, which
I would guess to be about 200 feet, which then overlooks part of the City
directly below (P) and the St. Lawrence river just beyond.
After some more picture taking in the park (P) I returned to
the boardwalk adjacent to the Chateau Frontenac and for the photographic
experience, paid $3.00 for the trip down the escarpment on the Funiculaire. This
very vertical descent is interesting as you are surrounded by glass on all four
sides and it creates an illusion of falling, but slowly. (P)
At
the bottom we were ejected into the middle of a very touristy, but again quaint
looking set of streets which extend from the base of the escarpment to the river
about four blocks away. (P) I wandered virtually the whole
length of this section of streets taking in the sights and snapping away at
interesting looking buildings. One strange one is a newly renovated section of a
building clad totally in copper sheeting. (P)
One
building bordering a square, where some excavation of previous levels of the
city were displayed had an very interesting mural on its wall. The mural depicts
a number of groups of people going about their business, but the interesting
part is that some of the people are from today, and some are from much earlier
times. They are juxtaposed in the same scene. This to me was an excellent visual
way of showing that over time these places have been used and enjoyed by
generations of people. (P)
I
came across several street musicians in my wanderings, including a harp player
(P) and a fiddler playing traditional Quebecois tunes and
doing the heel/toe stomping routine on a board brought along for the purpose. A
movie of this fiddle player will be placed here when I solve my little technical
problem. I did go into several of
the shops but as I expected they offered only tourist souvenirs which were of no
interest to me.
I
decided to return to the top of the escarpment, but this time I climbed the
million (it seemed) stairs to the top instead of taking the return trip on the
Funiculaire. (P) (Don’t ask me why I took the Funiculaire
down and walked up, there is no rational explanation.) When I reached the top,
gasping for air, and with my knees wobbling, I got some bottled cold water and
sat down on a bench on the boardwalk to recover. It was very pleasant sitting
there watching the people, listening to the harp player and watching the comings
and goings on the St. Laurence River below. (P)
Once
recovered, which took some time, I decided to take the “Promenade” route
back to the hotel and started along the boardwalk in that direction. Within
about a quarter mile, this section of the boardwalk ended at the base of a set
of stairs easily twice as high as the ones I had recently climbed. I steeled
myself and up I went, slowly but with determination. I soon realized that the
stairs were going to continue to appear for quite a while yet, almost all in the
uphill direction, and interspersed with flat spots. All of the flat spots had
benches for the weary and breathless to recover, (P)
but I
pride myself on the fact that I did not use any. I did stop to take a few
pictures of the ship traffic on the river below. (P)
Eventually,
about three pounds lighter I arrived at the top which opened up to a broad
expanse of rolling green park, next to the old Citadel of Quebec. I recovered
there for a bit, again taking in the people and the surroundings, before
venturing across the park to look at a particular piece. (P) What
was interesting about this particular piece was that this is the
I stood there for a little while looking at the place and trying to imagine what that day must have been like. Of course the spot is surrounded by twenty story American chain hotels, so a little bit of the feel was lost.
I
then turned away to begin the short walk back to the hotel. I had an appointment
for a meeting at
The
person with whom I met gave me an extra entry badge so that I could spend some
time at the conference Exhibit Centre that evening. (I had not registered for
the conference itself, only the training sessions prior to the start of the
conference) I spent a couple of hours saying hello to many old friends, talking
to some product manufacturers and generally doing my networking thing. It was
rewarding on a personal level to get to see these folks, and has the potential
to be rewarding from a business point of view as well.
Having
had about enough at that point I retired to my room for the rest of the evening
and organized myself for my departure tomorrow morning to Toronto where I plan
to spend a couple of days with my cousins who live there.
I
have really enjoyed
I
was able to restrain myself from telling one or two of them (in fractured
French) what I thought of them. If you think about it, it is weird to be in a
part of your own country where you feel like a foreigner. That’s what it felt
like for me, and from their comments, for a fairly high number of my associates
who were there.
I
have spent only a very little time here and just skimmed the surface, but it is
very pleasant, and a place I would come back to for a longer visit.