Old town Quebec

Exploring the Old Town

It’s our last day in Canada and we had it set aside for exploring Quebec City’s old town. Having done our reconnaissance, we drove to Lower Town where we parked easily and relatively cheaply for the max allowable period of 5h.

The ferry to Levis was ready to leave so we ran to it and got it just in time. At $3.55 per it was a good way to get a different view of Quebec City. I don’t know how the ferry can be commercially viable for the low fare and patronage.  The car fares were very good value too but it seemed like a bit of hassle for just a tiny time savings (compared to using the bridge).

Over at Levis we wandered around the waterfront for 5 minutes before returning to the ostentatious terminal.  Again, I don’t know how public funds could be justified on it.  We boarded for the ride back to old town.

Back in Lower Town, we wandered around, admired its beauty and appreciated its history as one of the earliest settlements in the country. We continued by stairs to Upper Town where we did the same. The Fairmont Hotel is truly beautiful and the city wouldn’t be the same without it.

We wanted to go to Battlefields Park and found the walkway and stairs; it was a little bit of a hike and gave us some needed exercise. The Citadel was like no other that I had seen. It was obscured from enemies because externally, it was all covered in lawn. There was little giveaway as to where anything inside was.

Kim and I decided against going into the museum as we had diminishing interest after too many things this trip. We wandered back down into Upper Town; we had found the easier route between Upper Town and the Citadel. After a Subway sandwich, we wandered Upper Town a little more before heading back to the car. We had used about 4h30 of our 5h parking 🙂

We had dinner back at Normandin (yesterday’s place) and retired early due to our upcoming 0300 wake-up for our flight at 0530. It wasn’t easy to sleep so we took half a tablet each.
Parting thoughts on Canada:

• It is very beautiful at this time of year. Winter would be a different story.
• People are very polite and friendly. Customer service in many places reflect this. Because the surrounding are quite US-like, one expects surly staff but are pleasantly surprised by the patience and willingness.
• Drivers are aggressive and even rude. Even though Kim is quite an aggressive driver, he has been honked at quite a few times. Quite a few crazy drivers cutting in and changing lanes haphazardly.
• It is a blend of the USA and the rest of the world. Very American but they have a Parliament, work in metric etc.
• There’s a helluva lot of roadworks around, especially in Quebec province.  I wonder if they have too much budget or the financial year is coming to an end.  It was very disruptive for driving.

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North American English

I’ve often wondered how the American English accent grew to be so different from the English English. I finally found the answer; it is called “rhotic pronunciation” where the “r” sound is pronounced (as opposed to left silent).

My reading suggests that English English used to be rhotic but has turned non-rhotic. So, English people used to speak somewhat like Americans. In this respect, it was the English that changed and not the Americans.

Rhoticism isn’t confined to the English language. Northern Chinese (non rice eaters) speak rhotic-styled Mandarin (eg. 哪儿) while Southern Chinese (rice eaters) speak non-rhotic (eg. 哪里).

Before you think that rice consumption affects one’s pronunciation, Indonesian is rhotic (trilled rhotic) where as Malay is non-rhotic. Eg. Jakarta is pronounced as Jaakarrrrta vs Jaakaata respectively.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhotic_consonant
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhoticity_in_English