The Griswolds Learn that Video Games are Important to Civilization

Day 9 - August 30, 2013

For our last day in a foreign speaking land, we planned to walk the fortifications of Old Québec and check out the highly recommended Musée de la Civilization. Thane and I woke up early so we could spend some Father/Son time together. After grabbing some chocolate croissants for breakfast (by this time we were addicted and worried about the withdrawals we would go through after leaving Québec), we headed to the walls.

Tourist aren't allowed near the walls without European shirts (in this case Danish)

Instead of taking the stairs like any normal solider, Thane insisted in walking straight up the steep hill to reach the top of the walls.

Tall building in background built in 1647

Once at the top, the views were incomparable. On the land side of the walls, the Plains of Abraham Lincoln spread out like huge tracts of land. In 1759, the English and French decided that fighting in Europe wasn't enough and duked it out on the Plains for control of the New World. Historians agree that the French commander, the Marquise de Montcalm (who despite his name was anything but calm when the British scaled the heights of Québec), made a major tactical blunder when he decided to leave the protection of the walled city and meet the British on the Plains of Abraham Lincoln. As Monty Python and the Holy Grail taught historians two hundred years later, Montcalm would have caused the English to run away had he just stayed behind the walls and hurled witty taunts and livestock at them. Instead, he and over 600 hundred of his fellow countrymen met their maker on the battlefield as the French were defeated. And as we all know, this allowed the English to continue on their quest for the Holy Grail.

Behind Thane are the Plains of Abraham. Notice the tower in the background, which wasn't helpful to the French in defending Québec because they accidentally built it outside the city's wall.

Recently discovered footage of English General James Wolfe arriving at the walls of Québec on that fateful day of September 13, 1759.

Perched high upon the Cap Diamant promontory, the views from the city walls facing the Saint Lawrence River were also stunning. Cap Diamant (Cape Diamond in English), was named by Jacques Cartier when he thought he found diamonds there in 1542. Upon returning to France with the precious stones, experts determined the rocks were actually worthless quartz. Thus, to this day, every 1542th diamond sold by Cartier Jewelers is actually quartz. Woe for those who get duped into buying that stone.

Look carefully and you can see an exact replica of the 18th century English cruise ship that carried General Wolfe's troops to Québec. The ship was commanded by an ancestor of Gavin MacLeod

The French made another catastrophic mistake when they provided benches for the English to rest on before assaulting the city's walls

Done with our tour of the walls, we headed down to the lower town to the much talked about Musée de la Civilization. Because of the museum's name, all of humanity's most important achievements are on display. Inside was a superb history of Québec from its beginnings to the present; Paris during the Belle Époque era; and then of course a display on civilizations most important achievement - video games.

This exhibit was probably one of Thane's highlights of the trip. On display were early video games such as Pong, which was excavated from a 5,000 year old site in Mesopotamia, to more recent and socially redeeming games such as Grand Theft Auto III.

Pong - a game in which the player violently engages in car-jackings and misogynist behavior.

Much more stimulating than Angry Birds

Because American children learn how to shoot guns within minutes of coming out of the womb, they  are instinctively drawn to anything with guns. Thus, the Canadian Secret Police use this video game to attract American spies.

It appears the Emily has her mother's lead foot

Assassin's Creed - Civilization reaches its highest form

After seeing the museum, we wanted some food that symbolized Québec's French roots. So Thane and I dined at a place that is close to France as you can get this side of the North Atlantic.

Julia Child's most famous dish

After lunch, Thane got some alone time at the apartment while the gals and I headed back to the old town. Because Emily was tired of being constantly heckled by the Québecois for looking like a tourist, she decided to go shopping for some new local themed threads.

Une vrai Québécoise

A 21st Century Québécoise

The gals have a long laugh after pulling the wool over the Canadians with Emily's clever disguises

Meanwhile, Nastassja and I bummed around the old town buying some last minute souvenirs. Nastassja particularly enjoyed the bookstores in which she perused the French language books. We also spotted several important cultural symbols. We spied the fleur-de-lis, long a symbol of the French. The three petals represent the medieval social classes: those who ate snails and frogs, those who were rude and arrogant, and those who wore berets and carried a baguette around with them everywhere.

The fleur-de-lis sign, required to be posted outside every house

No fashionable French woman would be seen in public without wearing a boat hat

Cannons lined up in case those damn Brits try to invade again

The largest putting green in the world

Emily attempting to cheer Nastassja up after a grueling afternoon of souvenir shopping

After the trials and tribulations of playing Pong, medieval clothes shopping, and scouting for fleur-de-lis, the family all rendezvoused at the Cafe St. Malo for a meal of steak frites and chocolate and cheesecake deserts.

Our time in Québec was over, but will always be with us

We all went to sleep that night dreaming of the blissful 1,258 miles on the road back to Madison that awaited us over the next two days.