Day 3 July 9, 2009

PGC Tour 2009
Day 3, July 9, 2009
2128 heure
Well, the end of another fabulous day. Starting this morning in Quebec and ending in Montreal/La Val, where our girls are getting to know French and their new Quebecois families!
We started this morning at 0700 with a departure from our super 8 hotel (with the fun slide) at 0830 heure. We had a 2 plus heures bus ride down to Montreal which gets us closer to home with every mile. As most everyone slept or read, the bus was much quieter this morning than on the way up here! Gary, our infamous autobus driver, let us stretch our legs on the outskirts of the city before we drove into the heart of Montreal. Saw some very spectacular buildings some left over from the 1976 winter Olympics, and the former home of the Montreal Expos (recently relocated to the Washington DC area and renamed the Nationals, for all you baseball fans). One looked like a ship plowing through the water. We had lunch in our chaperone groups at the Railroad station which was the fanciest station ever. We never even saw a hint of the Rails and Trains. There was a huge food court with every choice of ethnic food including Mickey dee’s (McDonalds), sushi, Chinese, Italian, hoagies, salads, Greek, etc – and of course – pizza. So lots of choices and the food court was surrounded with glorious shops for quality shopping- which is mostly window shopping. That was our 1 and a half hours of lunch and entertainment. Then we bussed to Place Jacques Cartier where there were numerous vendors of artistic endeavors. We had a guided walking tour for 2.5 heures and ended up back at the artsy vendors and ice cream stores for a few minutes of MORE SHOPPING. We saw on our walk numerous historic buildings and streets and sites, some of which may be in the photos, but don’t ask me any questions because I will fail that quiz!
We once again rendezvoused with Le Autobus and Gary and were whisked off to meet with our host families. Leaving Montreal at 1700 is not a good idea as there is this thing called commuter traffic. We all discovered what that was! So Gary persisted and we arrived at Laval a little late, around 1820 where we were met by many enthusiastic Quebecois’. Some of the girls remembered the girls they had hosted in the Spring so there were reunions and hugs around. We filed into the Centre de Creation Artistique to socialize and eat from a wonderful array of homemade foods provided by the host families. It was very curious as the girls were all (both French and American) quite shy and reticent to gab with each other. After eating our girls performed about 7 chansons to the delight of our hosts and we even had to borrow two metal spoons to use as the triangle for the French Arcadian song. Check out the photo of the spoon washer! Jan even enlisted Fred (favorite husband) to turn pages of the music.
Then the girls were introduced and handed off to their host families and Bonne Nuits were hailed around the room. They were spirited off and we adults were dropped at the local hotel by 2100 heures for an evening off. Hey wait a minute-Is this what you call an evening off? Here I sit writing, downloading photos, culling through them for the best, uploading them, creating this blog for your pleasure and this is my evening off? I want more money!! OH right, I PAID to be here!
Having a wonderful time- Wish you were here 

Thanks again to Cindy for helping tonight. We are signing off at 2353. Bonne Nuit

Here is the link to today's photos. Everyone and their host families are at the end!

http://picasaweb.google.com/PGCTour2009/Day3July92009#