July 16th, 2006

Sunday... We went back to Bromont. Ahhh, the country and its calm!!!!!!
Nothing extraordinary to report since we've been pretty much enjoying the calm, silence, nice people and good food (like we've been eating mostly tomatoe salads with some hams and such almost every lunch)!




July 18th, 2006

Today more chilling, but los Twangueros were playing again at Chez Sam.
So we went and even recorded them so they could have a live demo type of thing(they are not very tech inclined so they were very happy)!
It was a lot of fun again and my parents and Jeremy's parents (Georgia and Francois who also run the bistrot with the crepes, and Jeremy is the lead guitar in the band) were twitching again to the sound of their younger youths!




July 19th, 2006

We just sort of chilled, and went for a ride for a little bit, it's so pretty here....
Then of course we had a tomato salad with hams and stuff!!!! hmmmm
Our days are pretty much punctuated by trips to the public library and crepes here and there at Georgia and Francois' bistrot etc etc...



July 20th, 2006

After a typical day doing this and that at home, going for a ride, grocery shopping etc, we went to the local micro brewery for a beer before going back home for dinner, very nice beers!


Weird local bug:


Cool orange flower:




July 21st, 2006:

Friday was the trip to Vermont day! We decided in the morning we should go explore a little more. So we just organically gathered to the car to go to Vermont, not even forgetting our passeports. WOW!
We started of course down through Quebec, stopped at Freighlisburg for a lunch in a very cute old general store, very well redone into a restaurant and had croque monsieur:


oh, and my dad apparently expires very soon:



After this nice lunch we were on our way towards Vermont, but first... CUSTOMS...

Well that was an event!
First thing of course, I notice my favorite people on the wall:


Honestly, I had never seen or noticed the official pictures that are put in the governmental places like these and I thought it was a joke photoshop job... Especially on Cheney... I mean, how much more do I have to say!?

Mike and I were fine (I have a green card), but my parents both have french passeports without any US visas.
So we had to get out of the car to go fill out some of those green papers where they ask you if you are a communist or if you belonged to the nazi party, then also whether or not you commited a crime, and if you're therefore a felon ("why, yes sir, I'm a criminal, but I'd still like you to let me in there!"... Would anybody ever answer these questions by a yes? Anyway...).

This was not the only thing though, the french (and other people from other countries but I don't know which) have to undergo some special treatment... Yes, you read right, they have a VIP pass that gets them access to backstage rooms where they can be photographed and even have to give their digit autographs. Can you imagine, people, how popular are my parents!?
Well, all kidding aside, we got lucky to be examined by a couple of nice officers who clearly were bored out of their mind because one of them really got into chating with the frenchies!
Still, it is not a joke, the process seems banal, but it took about 45 minutes to be over.

First they ask a million questions about where you come from, where you live, exactly where you are going (which was a problem since we just wanted to roam around, we didn't have a precise address in Vermont which of course is needed!), why you're going to the US today, etc etc...
At that point, they check out both my parents' passeports with scrutiny (in case maybe my parents misspelled their names, maybe? *just jokin', god!*), then inform us that they need to call in something because these passeports were made prior to a date where new rules about pictures were made (meaning only black and white, no smiles, no glasses, no hats etc, and most importantly no smiles, and again, no smiles, it's a country where people are all equal, we all have to look like terrorists I guess!)... That took a while.

After that it's time to take finger print scans... Which my parents have taken everytime they've been to the US since that law was enacted, so I would love to understand why these photos and scans need to be taken every time, and if it's because they are not in the systems, what's the point!?

Of course, the finger print scanner never works, so it takes a little while to have that going, about 4 to 5 passes per finger (both hand indexes have to be scanned, not your toes... yet, they probably will come to it if we continue to take off our shoes at the airport! THEN it will be a really long process!)...


Ah, it's time for the picture, NO SMILES!



So after quite a while trying to be funny, being cool about it taking forever (they also needed to call in some computer stuff they couldn't figure out!), we finally were able to leave the post to enter Vermont!
Here's your stamp!
Woo-ee!



Of course Vermont was beautiful, although we were surprised to see a few little towns that were very much on the very very low income end of things and were feeling bad for these people who had to spend these hard winters in such old old houses (that could be very beautiful if they could be redone, btw!).
Anyway, we went all the way to Stowe (very cute village), stopped there for a tea and went back around.


We did a loop, very beautiful, in the middle of the mountain and amazing plains...



Back into Quebec we stopped at a famous foie gras place (to buy it) where there was a really nice dogette (she was very cute even though the owner said she usually doesn't like the clients... can't help return clientele that much, but their problem! haha):


Another local flower: