Gaspe

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Tuesday 

(Thursday posting-finally have a connection)

We arrived in Quebec City Monday afternoon, relatively unscathed by our trip. We had a very close flight connection with a second overbooked flight, but all 40 of us but one made it on, and he arrived today Tuesday before the ship sailed.

Hoping that we would not miss the beautiful colors of the Fall, even just here we have not been disappointed.

Jan and I had a bit of dinner last night and called it an evening. This morning we enjoyed a bus tour of the new and old city here in Quebec City, as well as the Montmorency, a waterfall as old as Niagara, one and a half times as tall.

Interestingly, Quebec City is a walled city, complete with a variety of cannons. Placed there in 1700’s, they aimed a number of them toward the United States, fearful of another invasion. I was surprised to learn that America did in fact attempt to acquire Quebec as another state.

One of the interesting facts that our morning guide (Renee) shared with us is that in Canada the average salary here is $36,000 with the average tax rate that is 51% (and I thought mine was high). Her comment was that Canadians are “subsidized from conception to resurrection”.

After a wonder dinner tonight and some great entertainment by an Italian pianist and back up, I decided to chill in our cabin. (Jan, on the other hand decided to go back to the big theater to hear him again at 10:30pm)

In preparation for our visit to Nova Scotia, I have been reading Anne of Green Gables, a very old book that was written there long ago. I found one found one of Anne’s stream of conversation with Marilla that particularly resonated with me (although she was talking about being in church during a long winded prayer and looking out the window.

“Mr. Bell made an awfully long prayer. I would have been dreadful tired before he got through if I hadn’t been sitting by that window, But it looked right out on the Lake of Shining Waters, so I just gazed at that and imagined all sorts of splendid things.” “You shouldn’t have done anything of the sort. You should have listened to Mr. Bell.” “But he wasn’t talking to me”, protested Anne. He was talking to god and he didn’t seem to be very such interested in it, either. I think he thought God was too far off thought. There was a long row of white birches hanging over the lake and the sunshine fell down through them, way, way down, deep into the water. Oh, Marilla, it was like a beautiful dream! It gave me a thrill and I just said, “Thank you for it, God,” two or three times.

I found myself saying this several times today as we toured.