STILL STUCK IN A FOREIGN COUNTRY!! (January 2022)

It took us about 2hrs & 45min to drive from Montreal to Quebec.  On the way, we stopped @ Walmart for food & this was the 1st Walmart ever that we’d ever seen workers asking for vaccination cards @ the door.  So if you weren’t vaxx, you couldn’t get in to shop!  It seemed as if all of the locals had their ‘cards’ electronically stored on their phone, whereas ours were just on the actual vaxx cards that we’d had filled-out.  The US was behind the times in this aspect!  Naturally we held up the Walmart entry line as they had to carefully look @ these cards they’d apparently never seen before.   
Canadian Walmart shenanigans!
    Accommodations –  We had a very unique stay @ Les Lofts de la Gare which I found on Expedia.  They were lofts that were actually in the VIA Rail Train Station!  It was a super cute & trendy stay, but the train station was EMPTY as everything was still mostly closed!    
Heck yeah we stayed @ the train station!
    At this point, our 5 days of ‘vacation’ were over.  Thank goodness Floyd had brought his work laptop with him because he can literally work from anywhere & he did so that he wouldn’t burn-up any more PTO!     I ventured out on my own, just to walk the streets & see what Quebec had to offer, but it was quite dismal.  Of course it was so dang cold, too!  I knew it was bitterly cold when my eyeglasses frosted & just about completely froze over!     Of course we grocery shopped again & made some good meals.  We found good wines, soups, cheese, breakfast sausage & Maple Butter that we’d never find @ home.  It was all so delish!     Just ‘put a little
burn on it’, lol! My sister called them ‘rabbit balls’…!
We ventured out together one afternoon & found the super cute Place Royale, & Château Frontenac.  Some of the shops were open, but not all.  The next day was Saturday & we were told that more of the shops would be open for a few hours.   After 3 days, it was time for us to head back to Montreal as my ‘quarantine’ was coming to an end.  So we got up bright & early on that Saturday morning to head up the hill to the cute shops of Quebec & that was all that I needed!  A lot of shops were starting to open back up as the ‘Canadian Shut-Down’ was coming to an end in 2 days!  I had so much fun shopping & window shopping.  Floyd was such a good sport & happily shopped with me, lol! Back to Montreal – In the meantime, we’d been wondering & stressing where we would go to get our Covid tests done for our return home by air.  AND we were praying that they would both be negative!    
Covid Test Drive-Thru
Negative Baby!!
We found a spot for testing @ $75 each & both of our tests were negative!  Thank goodness!  We were so close to getting back home!!   Of course I found another ‘sassy’ place to stay back in MTL!  It was a sweet little 3 bedroom, 2 bath ‘penthouse off of VRBO for about $65/ night!  Floyd worked & I dilly dallied around the ‘penthouse’ for 3 more days…  We cooked & I had more thoughts of starting a website. Restaurant – & not plural!  We finally did have just ONE meal out!  My quarantine was completely over, we were going home the next day & Canada had reopened!  (Naturally on the day before we were leaving!)  We dined @ Maggie Oakes (thanks for the suggestion Jenn K.!)- it came highly recommended by a friend & it was really good! On our last day in MTL, we walked a block down from the ‘penthouse’ & found the best little bakery ever!!  Pâtisserie Polonaise, all of the food in there looked absolutely bomb!  The pastries & sandwich that we bought were so very delicious!   
If someone could tell me what this deliciousness is…??!!
 
We made it home safe & sound!  5 days off had turned into TWELVE!  Our youngest son did text the family group chat while we were flying back to say that he’d tested + for Covid that afternoon.  He was supposed to pick us up from the airport, but I called my mom instead.  Y’all my mama don’t play!  She made me mask all the way up in her car!!  I was Covid NEGATIVE by then tho!!  Lol, but she still does NOT play!!    
Riding double masked in the backseat of my mother’s car… LmaOFF! She knew I was ‘in the clear’!
    Some asked ‘Wouldn’t you rather be stuck somewhere tropical?’  Absolutely not, because the way we do our vacations, we would NOT have been able to afford a 10+ day quarantine on a tropical island or somewhere sassy & fancy!!   #realTalk     That is the end of our ‘STUCK in a foreign country, Covid Shenanigans’!! SMH  
Thank goodness we didn’t look like what we’d been through!
All the Best & thanks for reading! 

Ms Sassy Travels