Quebec City trip

In the midst of all of the Olympics excitement (USA! USA! Jason Lezak, you're fabulous!), I wanted to take a few minutes and post a little about my recent work trip to Quebec City. Every three(ish) years, the field of glucuronidation holds a meeting to analyze the progress of the field, present and debate unpublished data, and give trainees like me an opportunity to talk with the head honchos in the field. It's a small meeting, as there are only ~20 principal investigators worldwide whose primary work involves the UDP-glucuronosyltransferases, and the meeting was approximately 130 people this year and was held in Quebec City.

With flights being expensive nowadays, my boss Bob was not initially inclined to send me to Quebec. But one of our former post-docs in the lab had submitted an abstract for a talk regarding work related to and including mine, the abstract was selected, and then she left the lab to pursue work in the "real world." So Bob said that if I gave her talk in addition to presenting a poster of all my own data, then I could "have the privilege" of going. Thanks. Whatever, I did it, and I even ended up winning first prize for the talk. So it all turned out well.

Quebec is a lovely city, and we were there during the big celebration of Quebec's 400th anniversary. It's the oldest walled city in North America (might be the only one, for that matter!) and has a very European flavor - and not just because they speak French! The most recognizable landmark of the city is the Chateau Frontenac, located at the highest point in the city walls.



The city borders the St. Lawrence river at the narrowest point (what the native people in the area called "kebec", hence the name Quebec). From river level, it's a steep climb up to the Old city and there are several sets of stairs, the most famous of which is nicknamed the "breakneck stairs" and is nested among tiny restaurants, cafes, and touristy shops. This is taken from the top of the breakneck stairs looking over the restaurant umbrellas and down to the busy street at the base.



The meeting was capped off with a wonderful evening event aboard a dinner cruise that headed out to Montmorency Falls, the site of a spectacular fireworks competition called the Loto Fireworks. Twice a week during the summer, different countries put together a fireworks show timed to music and compete to be voted "the best" by the locals. We saw England's show and I thought it was the best fireworks display I've ever seen. (My coworker Nghia stayed in town long enough to see the USA's show the following Wednesday and he said it blew England's away ... I wish I could have seen that!!) It was raining a bit and the boat was rocking, which made it hard to get good shots, but I captured a few. First is a shot of the falls before they killed the lights and started the show.




A quick note about the England display ... the finale was set to the theme music from the movie Last of the Mohicans, which didn't paint the English in the best light ... so I found the music choice a bit ironic!!

Pulling back in at the end of the evening, we saw the beautiful city all lit up:



The first day after the meeting, my coworkers Mei Fei and Camille (plus her boyfriend Danny) headed out in the rain to find breakfast and start exploring the city. We cobbled together a breakfast from the Old Port Farmer's Market, which was just coming to life with local farmers, bakers, charcuteries, cheese vendors, etc.





Despite the rain, we walked all over the very small Old Quebec and managed to get out at night, too. And shopping - we did some very good shopping! Quebec has this great concentration of artists, and not just painters: there are clothing designers, jewelry designers, handbag, wall sculpture, basically every kind of art you can think of. These shops are everywhere you look! I came away with a few treasures ...

Quebec is a very romantic city, and with Nick having been in London before I left and then knowing that he was home in San Diego while I was away, it was somewhat harder to enjoy the experience. There's not much there to "do" but instead, plenty of walking, admiring the architecture, the squares, fountains, restaurants, shops ... a great strolling city. The city walls are very interesting, and for what I'm sure is tourist purposes, several walls still have canons pointed out toward what's now suburbs. The most fortified part of the walls is the Citadel, an active military base. You can take escorted tours, but we were hot and sweaty and starting to get grumpy, so we did not. But here are some views of the walls:
(note: the industrial building in the distance is the location of a nightly hour-long movie about the history of Quebec. The film is projected against the building and was visually incredible)





Quebec also LOVES its flowers. I suppose when you spend so much of the year in snowy cold, you're very eager for some blooms!
(this was our hotel)







And now that I've shown you a hundred and seventeen pictures, I will leave you with one last shot, and remind you that you can always go to the full photo set (yes, there are even more that what I've shown here!) by going to http://www.flickr.com/photos/sinnokrak and clicking on the "Quebec City" set.