Carnaval de Quebec

Tony and I dashed away to Quebec City to catch the infamous Carnaval de Quebec! It was a much needed escape and, though tiring, proved to be an excellent time! :) The place was packed. Everyone was ready for a fun and festive weekend! :) With only a $12 effigy (little Bonhomme figurine) each, we had full access to the park and all the fun it had to offer! :)

We arrived in the city ready for all kinds of fun and games. There were night activities including... 

A dance party at Bonnehomme's ice palace!

Live music (french), complete with fireworkds and all kinds of entertainment activities at the main stage

A glittering Ferris wheel :)

 A Night Parade with all kinds of wacky floats. 

There were icy-snowy activities:)

We went tubing down the ice shoot in a tornado (spinny tube)

Naturally, we went skating on the Planes of Abraham! :) Tony is improving greatly! :) 

Soon he'll be playing pond hockey with the best of them! :) 

  

It was all very pretty and enjoyable :)

We checked out a plethora of ice and snow sculptures

First they built some in a 24 hour snow scupturing frenzy

But some were already made and also very cool! :)

 There was ice games (games made out of ice), but no touching! :)

 And of course, there were kids games. It was hilarious to watch the kids at Carnaval. They were everything from hopped up on too much sugar to totally exhausted and passed out in sleds as their parents dragged them homewards :) I imagine they also enjoyed Carnaval :)

And fun for adults: liquors in icy mugs from an outdoor ice bar. The red one is Cariboo, a traditional French Canadian liquor (sort of like a chilled mulled wine) and the creamy one is a personal favourite Amurulla. 

Both fun and tricky to consume :)

Don't worry, with all that snow and ice, we made sure to stay warm. There were fires around which we could loiter, not to mention copious amounts of hot chocolate! :)

There were some quirky events...

Such as ski joring. I had never seen such an event. A skier is pulled behind a horse with the task of retrieving a couple of dangling rings amidst an obstacle course! 

And here's a short video. Ah Canadiens! :)

We ate maple syrup off the snow! :) Tony did the honours of rolling it onto the stick. It seemed to be completely foreign to him,but quite the novelty as well! :)

Yum! :)

And pond hockey. This was the celebrities games. We theorised that some of the old Nordiques were out in this game, but neither Tony nor I are authorities on the subject, so don't quote us! :)

We saw some dog sledding! :) Look at the puppies! :)

Of course, we took a spin about the old town, which was very pretty and festive!

All in all, we had a blast! Quebec City was super friendly and a local even complimented my French (mind she was laughing whilst complimenting, nonetheless we had good fun!) :)