"We are different", emphazised Suzanne several times while we stayed at her place. Suzanne had picked us already up in June in Montreal but actually she lives a two and a half hours drive further north from the city (for us a four hour drive) in the countryside. As far as we can judge it with our very limited experience in Canada, Suzanne is right.
Québec is different. For most of the people living here French is the mother tongue and wine and beer is available in a normal supermarket. Luckily the language did not cause any problems for us
who do not speak a single word of French as most of the Québecan people can switch to English within the same sentence when they realize that you don't understand a word. And the availability of
cold beer was sometimes a real relief as it was hot and the fridge in our old Bluebaer only offers lukewarm beer on hot days.
Indeed does the centrally located provice of Québec, in which nearly a quarter of Canada's whole population lives, a special status. Suzanne explained us e.g. that the legal system is rather
oriented towards the French system than to the English like in the other provinces. Not very estonishing that there have been several attempts to become independent.
After visiting the peninsula Gaspésie we first drove to Québec City how the English speaking people call it in order to distinguish between the province and its capital. Here the French
origion is very visible. One can find an old part with small streets which are very similar to some French towns. But as everything is very much focussed on and made for tourist to us it seemed a
little bit unreal.
The stay at Suzanne's place instead was completely different. She lives like we think Canadians live: in a small house in the forest with direct access to a lake with an own canoe. A place were
also we could imagine to live. Suzanne had prepared a long list with things to visit, but we were happy with just staying there and not traveling at all for a while. And there was enough to do.
Within the four days we sanded and painted the canoe, piled firewood, repaired windows and the stove but much more important talked and laughed a lot and enjoyed Suzanne's good cooking.
But finally we had to continue our trip. But who knows maybe we will be visiting her again next year on our way back.
