A lilting tune violently tore me away from deep slumber. I resentfully opened my eyes to total darkness. The crisp white bed linen wrapped around me and the huge bed that surrounded my body didn’t feel familiar. In the darkness nearby, I heard my daughter, Tammie, say, “Mamma? Wake up. It’s time to get going.” She turned on the bedside light next to her bed and the brightness blinded me. The last twenty-four hours instantly came back to mind. It had been late when we entered this room and now, while it was still the middle of the night, we had to get up and leave.

Despite the two huge, five-acre sized beds in the room, there was only one bathroom. I told Tammie to use it first. While waiting for my turn to use the bathroom, my thoughts drifted back to yesterday morning. I was up before seven A.M. The alarm clock hadn’t even gone off. Instead of feeling relaxed and looking forward to a day spent on the cruise ship, I mentally listed all the things my daughters, granddaughter and I had to do before disembarking in Quebec City, Canada. Our lovely week spent on a cruise ship had come to an end.

I felt uneasy because I didn’t know how the day would work out. Since our flight at the Quebec airport didn’t leave until the afternoon, Tammie said there was time to use a Hop-On-Hop-Off bus to tour the city, but there would not be enough time to get off at any of the stops. I wondered what we would do with our luggage while on the tour bus. I didn’t know where we had to go to get picked up by the bus. I worried about getting to the airport on time.

The cruise terminal agreed to hold our luggage for a small fee while we went sightseeing. A parking lot bus took us to a spot near one of the tour bus stops. Surprised that everything was falling into place, I relaxed and looked forward to seeing a bit of Quebec City. We didn’t know where the tour bus pick-up was, and all the signs in Quebec are in French. None of us could read them, so we walked several blocks before realizing we had walked a long way past the pick-up spot.

Finally, the bus came. I didn’t want to sit in the sun, so I stayed on the lower level, but Niki, Tammie and Claire sat on the top deck where the view was better. The name, Quebec, is an Algonquian word. These were the indigenous people who lived there when Europeans arrived. In their language it meant, “Where the river narrows.” Quebec is also the name of the province where the city is located. When speaking about Quebec, it is necessary to differentiate which one is being mentioned, Quebec City or the province.

The bus followed a highway that had me swiveling my head to see everything. Below and to the left was the Saint Lawrence River; to the right was a steep cliff that towered over the bus. I saw something on the cliff sparkling in the sunshine. The earbud guide said that in 1540 when French explorer Jacques Cartier saw this sparkling cliff, he was convinced he was seeing diamonds. He gathered some of the stones. But when he was back in France, he was told they were just quartz crystals. Despite that disappointment, the place is still called Cape Diamond.

Above Cape Diamond was an unexpected sight: a castle! This was Chateau Frontenac, a hotel built by the Canadian Pacific Railway in the late 19^th century. It towers over Old Quebec City, which is the only fortified (walled) city north of Mexico. Three walls with gates and cannons remain. Tourists love walking along the walls and visiting picturesque shops found in this part of the city.

We saw the impressive parliament building and many other beautiful historic structures. I had never heard of the Plaines of Abraham before this tour. It is a large, green, open space right in the middle of Quebec City where a very decisive battle between the English and the French took place in 1759. The English won the battle and that is why Canada belongs to England, and not France. However, Quebec province and Quebec City are the most francophone of any place outside of France in the western hemisphere, so in my mind, I feel that the French did win a big part of the 1759 battle.

When we got off the tour bus, we retrieved our luggage and found a taxi to get to the airport. Our flight to Montreal was on time and we expected to get on our flight to Minneapolis to quickly return home. Unfortunately, that flight was delayed, and then delayed again. Finally, we were told the flight was canceled until the following day. We were informed that we would be put up for the night at a nearby hotel. Our rooms at the Aloft were lovely, but it was late, so we went straight to bed.

While at the airport, it felt like we had walked many miles. Check-in was far from security, then it was a long distance from there to the gate where we would board. When our flight was canceled, we were told to board a bus that would take us to the hotel. The bus pick-up spot was at least a mile from our gate. We overshot the exit to the bus because we were on the wrong level and had to go back.

I was tired, so when I sank into my king-sized hotel bed with its crisp white linen, I thought I’d drop off to sleep right away, but that didn’t happen. Apparently, my feet felt they needed to complain how much I used them that day. Every few minutes I felt painful Charlie horse cramps in the arches of my feet.  

Tammie startled me fully awake when she told me it was my turn to use the bathroom. Fifteen minutes later we were in the lobby with all the other travelers stranded by the same canceled flight. A bus took us back to the airport. The day ahead filled me with a dread I couldn’t put a name to.

It felt like déjà vu as we repeated all the check-in steps we had done the day before; printing our tickets, leaving the big suitcase, going through security, and customs. I made the machine beep, again. They patted me down for concealed weapons at all the airports. Going through all of this was like I had had a root canal with not enough Novocain and was experiencing the procedure a second time. I said to my daughters, “This is like the movie, ‘Groundhog Day’ starring Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell.”

Unlike the day before, our flight out of Montreal, Canada, took off without any delays. At the airport in Toronto, Canada, we transferred to a plane that once again took off with no delays.  Finally, we landed in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Thankfully, our Groundhog Day at the airport didn’t repeat continuously for an eternity.