To the East!

Yes. This has been a while coming. But I am finally getting around to it!

This summer was great. I got the opportunity to do all sorts of fun and exciting things. One of those things was take a road-trip out east with two friends! The furthest in Canada I had been before this was Montreal, but it seemed like everyone I knew was making the trek out east this summer, and I had only heard wonderful things. The end goal of the trip was to arrive in Brookside, Nova Scotia and attend the wedding of Andy Sanchez and Stephanie Fraser, two friends who have meant a ton to me over the last several years!

On August 12th Lindsay picked me up in Oshawa, and we set off to Ottawa to meet up with Natalie at her parents home. This trip, as big as it was for me, was even bigger for Natalie, she packed up her whole life into two huge suitcases and prepared to move to the UK right from Nova! So on Saturday morning we spent some time packing and repacking everything to fit into our little car, and away we went! We mapped out a general route, but had nothing specific planned or booked, just going with the flow. Exciting...and a little out of my normal planned, list loving personality!

By about 4pm we arrived in Quebec city, and just by chance we happened to end up wandering into one of the most historic parts of the city. I loved Quebec city, it was beautiful and had so much history. It also seemed a lot more laid back than a lot of cities I've been in (well..I guess compared to somewhere like Seoul...haha). We walked around, took some pictures, stopped into a few shops, and finally decided to get some real authentic Quebecois poutine. Yum. Finally we decided that we should probably get a move on since we had no idea where we were going to spend the night. We drove a few more hours and then decided to look for a place to spend the night. Our first stop was to a property full of cottages where we asked the owner if we could pitch our tent for the night. Well..Natalie asked, since she's fluent in French. Lindsay and I felt a little out of our element with our gr. 9/10 French. Yikes. We were unfortunately unsuccessful in our pleas, and ended up stumbling upon a campground at 10:30pm who let us in even though they were close. So, using our headlights, we set up our tent in the dark. Good start to our adventures.

The next morning however we realized we may have taken longer than we thought to set up the tent as our car battery was dead and our car wouldn't start. We recruited some help from a nice guy from Guelph who was staying one campsite over, and after boosting us he stood and waved as away we went! This day was probably my favorite of the entire trip. We decided to take the highway along the Gaspe penninsula. And honestly, if you ever get the chance, I'd highly recommend this drive! It was probably the most beautiful drive I've ever taken. We (being girls) would squeal around every turn and yell "let's stop!". We'd jump out, take in our surroundings, snap a few pictures, get back in the car and keep driving. By the evening we had arrived in Gaspe. Our original plan was to camp in the National park, but some lovely locals told us of a "cheap" campground, so we decided to go check it out.

What we found was the COOLEST campground in the world...I'm sure of it. The staff were great, there was a main building with kitchen facilities, games, and ping pong. Out the back there was a fire pit, and hammocks which were on the edge of a cliff overlooking the mouth of the St. Lawerence river. Amazing. We went out for some awesome local seafood and then hung out and met people from France, Italy, England, the States, and all over Quebec! The next morning we took it easy, ate a nutritious and delicious meal, and then were back on the road! The east side of the peninsula was also beautiful, but we found it a little more touristy (yes. even though we ourselves were tourists.) Halfway through the day we made it our goal to get into and stay the night in New Brunswick.



And make it to New Brunswick we did. We had called ahead and booked a campsite, but at the last minute we decided against it and ventured off the beaten path to a beach were we decided to pitch our tent for the night. So we set up our tent on the beach at midnight. We thought we were being super adventurous, a little rebellious, totally cool. We envisioned waking up in the morning and eating muffins as we watched the sunrise. All of those were good thoughts, and probabl would have happened if a huge storm didn't roll in about an hour after we had gone to bed. So instead of waking up to the sunrise we woke up to a storm, high winds, and the tide creeping closer and closer. Not as idealistic as we had pictured....

BUT. We moved on. Across the Confederation Bridge and to PEI to be exact!
So, up next. PEI and Nova Scotia. Stay tuned!