June 9th, 2011

Quebec overwhelms. The city is beautiful. I've now been in most cities in Canada from Halifax to Vancouver, and there's nothing that matches the age, the history, the culture. It's like a whole different world.

We found a parking spot, and began filming in the old city first thing in the morning, wandering around to interesting spots and filming inserts of John and Paul exploring the city. I discovered the difficulties of balancing my inexperience with French with informing passerby's that we were filming while trying to be respectful of the fact that we were anglophones invading their city.

Early on we met up with Mathieu, who'd participated in the Love Doc, who helped us out with translation and crowd control issues.

Midway through the day, it was time for Paul, Rob and Bert to plan out the complicated shots we'd be filming the next day, so David and I were able to take some time to explore, looking in old churches, chatting with artists in the alleys, wandering the streets with the oldest buildings in the city, and riding an elevator up the cliff side the city's built on.

Later on, John joined us, and we explored the walled fortifications, running up the hills, skipping along the wall, and engaging in various ninja-like activities as the sun set over the Chateau Frontenac.

The day was a perfect mix of doing things I'd never thought I'd do (filming a movie in Old Quebec) while still whetting my appetite with the sights and sounds, architecture and happenings that we can't experience while focusing on filming. We have to come back, I think we all feel that way, but we also don't feel like we've missed out on experiencing the city.

We ended with dinner at a restaurant recommended by our painter friend. The food was fantastic and reasonably priced, and very Quebecois. I had Cipaille, a meaty dish that's traditionally eaten at Christmas.

We're turning in to bed with feelings of excitement and anticipation. Tomorrow we're filming a complicated chase scene through the streets of the old city. We're getting up at 3:30 in the morning so we can start filming with the sun, before the crowds arrive. It will easily be the biggest test of our skills so far, and could be the hardest day of our whole trip.