Ok, I have escaped the Labrador region and I am still alive (even though the itchy mosquito twitches provide me with a long-term memory). The landscape along the St. Lorenz River is beautiful and after some 300km I reached Quebec  quite relaxed.

You like the French culture? Well, then go to Quebec. It’s really French. Oh la la! More than anything I have seen in France. The city is truly beautiful, but I could not get rid of the feeling that I was in a sort of Disney-Land. It was simply too perfect. However, Disney-Land has cool hotels and this is true for Quebec, too. Le Chateau de Frontenac. Magnifique. Have a look at it; it looks like the Sleeping Beauty’s castle (www.fairmont.com/frontenac).

The evening I went out to see Quebec’s summer festival with Cat and Mia, two English world-travellers. But time passes by quickly and on the next day I found myself on the way to Montreal and back to my fabulous couch-surfing friends Julie, Marie-Eve and Marlene. Right after my arrival we went to the Couch-Surfing collective. Collective? Yes, me too, I wondered what this might be.

Basically it is a flat, where the couch-surfing founder and the most active couch-surfing promoters and programmers live and work. Situated in the middle of Montreal. To be honest, this is a really a cool thing. About 10 surfers live in a living- and working community and are visited by couch-surfers like me who just come by. Loads of parties. A great atmosphere! They are supported by many local CS members who bring in food and beer, dishes and furniture.

The next day I found a car-body repair shop and with some heavy duty tools we managed to make the passenger door operational again. Once again, I was surprised about the friendliness and generosity of people in Canada: the mechanic was very enthusiastic about my world-trip and the repair was for free! Great! In order to celebrate my now again opening door I decided to give her (the car) a hand-wash. At the washing centre I met Toni, the owner of an Italian restaurant with an original pizza-oven imported from Italy. He was surprised that the Land-Cruiser can drive through up to 1.5m high waters (provided you don’t care about wet feet) and invited me for a free pizza.

Together with Marie-Eve and Julie we went to test his restaurant. Instead of the pizza we got the drinks for free, which was really nice indeed. And, let me make some commercial: “A La Vieille Cheminée” is really an excellent restaurant if you wanna enjoy Italian food in Montreal! Well, the night was young and so we joint a Couch-Surfing party. Eventually we ended up in the middle of the night with – what do you guess – watching another Simpsons episode.