Into Quebec ..

Michael writes ..

It's French Jim, but not as we know it. Quebec speaks a French patois. Our level of schoolboy Francais does not quite cut it, they can understand us but the reply is trop diferent je pense. Surprisingly few people speak English at a good level. Culturally interesting, but it cannot help progress when they are at sea in an ocean of English. The road surface here seems to reflect this opinion, it ain't good.
Saturday was rain, on and off all day. 200 or so miles took us past Quebec and on the way to Montreal. Showers followed dry spells and about mid afternoon I (MPS) discovered that my inexpensive Waterproof boots, weren't. Two soggy feet and the ignomy of hearing Andrew repeat the words Gore Tex over and over and.....

Just past Quebec City, a brew stop.

The other issue du jour was the Go Sim, or in Andrews case the No Go SIM.
Post purchase we discovered that they are Jersey Telecom, so our calculations of call costs, based on their promise of calling via a "British" mobile number, were useless.
About double that to call a "UK" mobile.
The idea was that folks can call us for around 6p a minute and in Canada/USA/Mexico we would receive the calls free.
Surprise then when my 75 quid was gone after 4 days in Canada. Call to the help desk confirmed my mistake of not re entering my PIN with a "2" in front. Call to the help desk cost US$37 for 15 minutes on the number that they publish as toll free on their website.
"Yes sir but it's only toll free when calling from a landline, you should have dialled 154." ( an Easy Dial number, not necessarily a toll free number)
Yes mate, if I had a landline I would not need your service.
So why, in the days when we are bombarded with text from phone companies welcoming us into their revenue stream, do they not simply send us a text reminding us to re enter the PIN?
Revenue grabbing?
Well, the experience cost us around 170 quid and a lesson not to load up too much credit in future.
We are off to the SIM shop in short order and as soon as we have used up the remainder credit it will be sayonara Go Sim.
For those interested:1. Get a local SIM. 2. Get folks to call the mobile using a cheap landline option or something like Lebara.
Nuff said.

Where's the traffic ?