What was: Day 23 - Zai Jian Quebec

For those who don't speak Chinese: Goodbye Quebec!

This ship is enormous. I am still learning where everything is and how to get from my room to anywhere. The ship has six main levels - I live on the sixth level, which is lowest in the ship. Our portholes look out immediately above the water. The other day I had the incredible opportunity to go out on the ship's helicopter (yes, this thing is an aircraft carrier) and take some photos of the Amundsen docked in Quebec:


Keith Levesque (aka ship coordinator exdraordinaire) was with me - we're excited!



Today the ship is finally leaving Quebec! Time to say goodbye to warmth (for now I say: thank god). A ton of people came out to see the ship off, and after a series of bullhorn exchanges between the Amundsen and everyone else on the river, we set off down the St. Lawrence.

A note about the food: it's incredible, absolutely amazing. Unfortunately the kitchen crew doesn't 100% speak English, which makes eating a little difficult for me. The way it works is that there's a basic menu for each meal, and you get in line and tell the cook what you want and they dish it out. This is a problem when the menu is only written in French, and I can't see the food so I can't even point, and the cook understands that I don't speak French, but doesn't know all the English names of the food. Saying the food names loudly in French doesn't really help me either. So usually I resort to pointing to someone else and sort of nodding, indicating that "I want what they have". This works well enough to sruvive, if not well enough to get me what I'd really want to eat. At least this trip is teaching me to eat whatever is available. Today, for example. I ended up with fish, because the cook said "FISH OK?" and I was like...sure, whatever. This fish was amazing. If fish had tasted like that the firs time I had fish (and, well, every single time I had fish) then I might have possible been a fish eater. Considering some of the stuff I've eaten recently, considering what I usually hate...this may be a new era for Laurel. An era of desperation torn between social awkwardness and hunger. So really, not actually a new era at all, but totally normal.

A final photo - preparing to leave Quebec: