The Chronicles - the photo evidence: Outta towners (Rimouski XX)

Wednesday, July 19
Happy Hour in St. Fabien
I missed the Monday morning meeting (thankfully!) because my boss was nice enough to tell me she wouldn't expect me until 11:00 AM. Remember, we left Montreal at 10:30 PM and arrived in Rimouski just before 6:00 AM. Anyway, so missing that meeting, I also missed the news about the concert...
We were going to see Julie LaMontagne in St. Fabien, where Catherine P. lives. A happy-hour..err 5 à 7 obviously preceded it. St. Fabien is a TINY town about 25 minutes west of Rimouski.
(these pics were all taken by Kit - remember I just broke my camera)

In Catherine's backyard. L-R Claude (coworker under Paule), Paule (my boss), me, Audrey, Brian (Catherine B.'s husband), Catherine B., Sebastian, and Kristel (newly arrived from Toulouse, France!).

There was sooo much food and people, it was fun. L-R Anne-Sophie, me, Audrey, Maxim (Catherine B & Brian's kid/mini adult), and Brian. Paule was the life of the party, if I recall correctly.

Catherine P. - who says pregnant women don't glow! Her house was amazing.
Just today, I got news that she gave birth over the weekend, a baby boy Maxence and Catherine B. gave birth to Daphné, a baby girl. Aww.

Did I mention the perfect weather?

Her amazing house. The upstairs was just one room with a little side room for the kid. It was painted like outside, with sky and a little pond on the floor. It was awesome. Kit apparently didn't go upstairs because there are no pics of upstairs.

After lots of eating, we walked the 1 minute down the road to Le vieux théatre à St. Fabien (the old theatre). There we caught the Julie LaMontagne show...it wasn't great. It was like listening to a CD..there were no lyrics and just annoying stories in between.

The place was really cool though. This is during the intermission, we went downstairs where there is another little venue.

Enjoying the intermission. L-R Catherine P., Sebastian, Catherine B., and Audrey.

After the show, we stuck around and talked to Catherine for a while before Anne-Sophie, Kit, Catherine B., and I piled into Julie's car.

Thursday, July 20
Random night drinking
We all met up at Alix's for one reason or another...and ended up watching Kit drink the better part of a wine bottle, so we went out and bought some beer. Kit ended up going home (due to extreme drunkeness) and Kollene, Alix and I ended up wandering around. Without further ado (sp? anyone?) Rimouski at night:

Behind the Cathedral and les salles Telus-Desjardins (concert hall) we found these neato dumpsters. I've come to the conclusion that Rimouski tried to make that their trademark, neat dumpsters. I guess it went well.

Then we walked back up to the Cegep...where we trespassed, on the outside this time.

That's Kollene trying to dodge the camera or something.

Rue de l'éveché...super nice at night.

Friday, July 21
The plan for tonight: get totally chizzashed.

We finally realised that my place has a backyard, so we took out a sheet and started drinking and talking. We drank LOTS.

In fact, Kit (about 5'2") emptied out a bottle of wine (minus about have a cup)...and I had to drag her to the bar. I was only slightly more sober.

At the bar, we had our usual annoying time ordering a drink - i.e. Sens Unique NEVER has anything except Molson ____ ...and I don' t like Molson unless I am getting drunk on it.
PS notice Sebastian behind Alix...what a jerkface...didn't even say hi.

While we were ordering our drinks, Kit was sitting on the floor half-passed out, and she was wearing a skirt, you do the math. However, since she was so embarassed by the photo and I can be a decent human being from time to time, I won't post it.

By the way, this is some of what Sens Unique looks like...this was the place we ALWAYS went for drinks.

Saturday, July 22
The next morning, Marie-Noëlle and Alix picked me up and we headed to get Kollene... the two of us were eating breakfast in the car (Kollene was wise and had a bagel, I ate cereal) on the way to the quay....why the quay you ask? We were going to the island!

Waiting at the quay...we found that we had to take the zodiac out at 12:00 but couldn't return until 5:30 - you have to book your spot since there is only one zodiac.

Then we put on our lifejackets. Sweet vintage.

The quay on L'île St. Barnabé...which faces Rimouski, if I didn't mention that before. So there's a man who seems like he lives there, but he doesn't and he explains the route to us. Then M-N declares Survivor: Rimouski.

It's a pretty small island, 3-4 km long and less than a kilometre wide. Check out the SLR version of today.

The slate is really weird there...it's entirely horizontal, so you have to walk on it, which is kind of difficult. Our resident geologist (Alix) couldn't come up with an explanation really. Nearly three months outta school and it's all over.

Art is everywhere. If you look through that hole at a certain time of day, you can see a flashing light at the museum. The time we got there said explictly not to look through it because it could cause eye damage. Kollene and Alix both missed that warning and looked through it anyway.

There are a few private property houses on there...it was unclear if people actually use them though or anyone except the 15 moose live on the island.

It's really nice there, though, right? In case you were confused, this is still the St. Lawerence. And not sure if you can see it, but there's the Rimouski lighthouse in the distance.

Me being an idiot. I was trying to take a photo inside of what seemed like an abandoned house.

That's another house right next to it...it's funny because I took this one and the next photo is the exact same thing because Alix took it - apparently I've influenced her - and since we're about the same height it came out EXACTLY the same.

That's Rimouski...and that big divide, Avenue de la Cathédrale.

Walking through the woods.

In the woods we discovered plenty of...

mushrooms!

And mixed signals.

We stopped for lunch when the trail took us back to the water...that was probably the most uncomfortable seating ever. Marie-Noelle, Kollene, Alix.

M-N and I ventured ahead...while Alix and Kollene spotted

a full size pylon, a dream come true.

They rescued it.

And posed with it.

That's me wandering out to scary seagulls...bizillions of seagulls (not as many as the Gannets on Percé though)

This looks half-impressive right?

Where I was actuall standing. That's us being umm chimps? There was a name for these things... a little help guys?

So shortly thereafter we parted ways with M-N, she was going to go around the whole island and since Kollene and Alix like to doddle, we decided we'd cut through about 3/4 of the way of the island. That's where we spotted this guy.

And poo! That's why "moose droppings" candy is chocolate covered almonds.

Boat

And then I really had to sneeze.

Check out the SLR version of this one. I'm proud of it.

Alix and Kollene found this a while after I did (and I photographed it) and they brought it over to me probably about half an hour later when they caught up to me. That says "Happy Birthday" on it.

random lawnchair. I wonder how this stuff even got on the island in the first place...you can take a zodiac on it or walk to it when the tide is low enough.

See they came up to me with it...and then we hung it in a tree so everyone could see it.

Kollene found this duck head shaped stick. This is around the point when M-N caught up with us...damn we take our time.

Then we spotted this...

a jellyfish!!! (remember this is salt-water)

Eww...I totally didn't think this is what they're like.

And I found this ancient cave drawing of a stick figure on a skateboard eating ice cream.

We got ahead again.

We came across this rusted out boat.

I wonder where these things come from sometimes.

It was so hard to walk on that.

While M-N and I got closer to the dock, Alix and Kollene found a flattened out jellyfish.

(the view from Alix's kitchen window)
Then we hopped the zodiac and headed back to the mainland. We stopped at the grocery store and picked up some pizza and ice cream and headed back to M-N and Alix's place where we ate.