04 September 2012

Road Trip: Day 2


The second day of the road trip was dreaded by me. It was the day we drove through Montreal. Since I moved to NS in undergrad I have heard nothing but horrible things about how hard it is to drive through Montreal – how crazy the drivers are and  how confusing and poorly labelled the highways are. Well, Oz is a master navigator and driving though Montreal was a breeze (for those of you interested – we took the 40 through the northern part of the city). Quebec City, on the other hand, was less breezy because the exit we wanted to take to connect to the 40 was closed. I didn’t have a proper city map for Quebec City because I had no intention of getting off the highway there, so that caused me some panic. But in the end we got on the right highway – in the right direction to boot, so it was fine.

We didn’t do any touristy stops that day. My French is horrible and Quebec makes me uncomfortable.  I did, however,  buy gas and conduct the entire transaction in French. I am so proud of myself. I believe the exchange went something like:

Me: Bonjour!
Cashier (in French): Good morning. That will be $53.76 please  (or something to that effect)
Me: (displays my Visa to indicate method of payment)
Cashier: (does cashier stuff, hands me the card machine, prints off receipt, hands it to me)
Me: Merci! (leaves the store with chest puffed out with pride).

We got to Ottawa pretty early, just before 3pm. We eventually found the place where Oz was staying, and I headed off to my brother’s place in Kanata.

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