The Carnaval
I survived the Carnaval (all my photos). Saturday was a pretty hectic day for us. We started off pretty early so we could eat breakfast at the Carnaval. We found parking pretty close to where all the activites were. We got out of the car and within a few seconds we decided to put on ski-pants as it was so cold.
Our first stop was breakfast. I’m not sure if these things have actual names but essentially they are just a sausage wrapped in a pancake. I call them morning-hotdogs. Everyone should just assume I’m right. They tasted pretty good. Here is Rachel enjoying one in 2 bites.
There were lots of things going on all over the place. There were some girls dancing to Dolly Parton that were making the most noise.
After we waited a couple times in line for morning hotdogs we walked over to the soapbox racing. I was expecting the cars to go faster than, well, me. Rach says I shouldn’t expect the kids in the cars to be going that fast. Hey, I want to be entertained.
After the soapbox “racing” we walked to a big sledding ramp that was set up. On the way were some big castles that looked pretty cool.
I didn’t go on the sled as it cost $2 per person and I was much too cheap. I can roll down a hill for free. Besides, this hill had nothing on the Don Ross hill.
After sledding we went out for some authentic poutine (my friends like to make fun of me how I say it, pooo…teen). They say it’s fries, gravy and cheese. Well I’m here to let you know the truth. The gravy is closer to ketchup than gravy from a chicken or turkey. I wasn’t a big fan of the cheese when it squeeked in my mouth. Rach says if it squeeks that means it’s good cheese. I think it means they hid hundreds of little mice in the cheese and they are screaming as you eat them.
After lunch we went over to the “plains” where something happened that I don’t know anything about. The ice sculptures were pretty cool. There is a lot pictures of them on my flickr pictures but here are a few of the ones I thought were the best.
This one was pretty cool. My 2nd favorite.
And the ultimate ice sculpture was the one from Saskatchewan. I was pretty excited for the SK showing. It’s pretty funny that SK had a dolphin humping a whale. You may think that the dolphin is jumping over the whale. No. It’s humping it.
There was a huge hill where people were sledding on big tubes and rafts but we didn’t go on it this time. I’ve been told we are going back to Quebec to experience this another time. When we were leaving the plains we used the timer and got a shot of all 5 of us.
After that we checked out the big “ice palace” which is suppose to be awesome every year. Apparently they skipped 2007. We saw some pictures from previous years and really this year was just some walls. Good work.
After all day outside we took a break at a friends house for a few hours before heading out to the parade. By the time we got to the parade it was getting pretty cold so we didn’t stay very long. I did however record a short clip of the beginning of the parade. The song they were singing was played over and over again. I sing a rendition of the song with just the word “carnaval” that rivals most versions.
After the parade we went out for a late supper and called it a night. Sunday we slept in and ended up back in Montreal at 6pm. I had the joy of driving through another mini-snow storm on the way home. Traffic on the highway is so annoying. I look forward to driving in Saskatoon every day. Driving when it’s dark in Montreal is causing me problems since there are so many lights and I don’t know when the traffic lights turn green. The joys of being colorblind.
I have one last photo to end this post. I laughed over this for awhile. Apparently in French “flammable” is “inflammable” so you get signs like this:
