The shit blog of Paul Chris Jones

Dear Diary. Some backpackers from the hostel thought it would be a good idea to rent a car and go to Quebec City. It's only a three-hour drive from Montreal.

So four of us decided to go: me; a painfully shy and possibly autistic Irishman called Declan; a Quebec girl who Melody who worked at the hostel and who was wearing a bowler hat; and the world's most boring man, a French man called Steve.

We set off yesterday. I had the job of driving our motley crew to Quebec City. This was because none of the others could drive. Presumably, their respective governments didn't trust them with driving licences.

So I got the car going and the four of us headed down the motorway. The problems began right away because the car wasn't changing gears by itself. I was in third gear, the engine revving and revving, and the car was supposed to change gears by itself (the car rental man said the car was an automatic) but no, I was still in third gear. So much for automatic cars then! I had to change the gears myself using the gearstick.

It was several miles into the journey that I realised the car had two modes: automatic mode and manual mode. I was in manual mode. That's why the car wasn't changing gears by itself.

I tried shifting the car into automatic mode. But this resulted in the horrific sound of gears grinding together. So I quickly put it back into manual mode. Manual mode it was then.

Halfway into our journey across French Canada, a car sped past us, way over the speed limit. Just after it overtook me, it started swerving left and right, like a drunk clown on a unicycle. The driver, going too fast, was losing control of his car. Then the car swerved off the road and flipped over several times before finally coming to rest, upside down, in the ditch between the two carriageways.

"Did you see that!" I cried out as we sped past the overturned car.

"What was it?" asked Declan.

"A car just swerved off the road!" I said.

Declan said, "Oh!" and then went straight back to being silent. I don't think Steve or Melody even registered that I'd said anything.

I should have stopped. Whoever was inside the upturned car could have been injured. Also maybe they had jewellery and expensive watches I could have taken. But instead, I carried on driving.

Seeing that car flip over was the most surreal thing I saw in Canada. I couldn't believe what I'd seen. It was like something from TV, not real life.

And none of my friends had seen the accident; only I had witnessed it, so I had no one to talk to about it.

My heart was beating fast. I slowed the car down and drove cautiously the rest of the way to Quebec City. And, thinking about it, I've never sped since. Whoever he was, the driver of that car, he did me a favour by showing me the dangers of speeding firsthand.

Today, while writing this, I googled the date and place of the accident but found no results. It's as if it never happened. Maybe I imagined the whole thing.

We finally got to Quebec City. Steve left us, as he was going to stay in Quebec city – for him, it was a one-way trip. Not that anyone else cared, because I said, Steve was boring. Literally, the only thing he talked about was looking for racoons in the park.

Quebec City is weird. The old town, the place everyone comes to see, is on top of a hill. To get up to the top, we had to find the "secret steps".

We parked the car at the bottom of the hill.

"So where are these steps then?"

"Hang on, I think there are some over here. No, maybe not. Maybe over here."

Between two houses, there were some steps leading up, up and up. They had the air of the alleyway where Batman's parents were killed.

So we walked up the steps. I counted a hundred then gave up.

Out of breath, we arrived at the top. Here was Old Quebec, the city's old town. Tourists thronged through the narrow streets. Imagine a Canadian version of Diagon Alley.

Canadians are proud of Old Quebec. It's the only town in North America that still has walls around it. Though why that's something to be proud of, I don't know. Prisons have walls around them too.

The French built the walls to keep out the British. It didn't do much good. I'm British and I was able to walk into Old Quebec City with no effort, apart from the effort of climbing the stairs.

We saw the Plains of Abraham, the site where British soldiers defeated the French in 1759 and drove the French out of the city. Abraham wasn't a general or a soldier. He was just a farmer who used to own the land.

Quebec City was founded 400 years ago. The oldest building, a restaurant called the Maison Jacquet, is 345 years old. Canadians find this kind of age impressive. But to them, anything older than a mayfly is impressive. Their country is so young and their history so new that they revere and sanctify even the most fresh-faced of buildings.

If they want to see history, they should come to my dad's house in Birmingham. There's stuff in his loft that's older than that. At least, until he does his next clear out.

Every day when I walked to school, I walked past a pub called The Lad in The Lane, it's called. That pub is one of the oldest buildings in Birmingham. It dates back to 1400. That makes it more than two centuries older than the whole of Quebec City. Yet there's no fanfare. The pub has no tourists. The pub has hardly any customers either but that's more because of bad management and the low hygiene standards than anything else.

Then we decided to got went to Montmorency Falls, a waterfall that was a few minutes drive away. It's a "must-see in Quebec City" according to the website of the Société des établissements de plein air du Québec. It's only a must-see because there's not much else to actually see unless you count tourist shops.

On the way I stopped in a tourist shop and stole three umbrellas, one for each of us because we'd heard we could get wet. No one noticed as I walked out of the shop carrying three umbrellas.

"You are very bad," said Melody. But I noticed she took the umbrella.

"You'll get caught one day," said Declan. And I noticed he took an umbrella too.

We drove to Montmorency Falls. You hear the roar before you see anything. Then, there it was: Montmorency Falls. What do you want me to say, it's a waterfall.

People weren't kidding when they said you could get wet. I was soaked. Then again I was standing right at the bottom, as close to the spray of the waterfall as possible. The water thundered in front of me and the mist surrounded me.

There were steps up the side leading to the top, like something elves would do from Lord of the Rings. They're a fan of steps, the people of Quebec City.

That night, I walked Melody back to the rental car (she wanted to sleep in it as she was too cheap to pay for a hostel bed).

I decided to make a move on her. Just as she was about to get into the car, I leaned in and kissed her.

But she pulled away. "What are you doing?" she asked.

"I just thought..." I said.

"I have a boyfriend," she said. Then she got in the car and slammed the door. I walked to the hostel alone, where I spent the night in a dorm room with Declan.

The next day we drove back to Montreal. Everyone who came on the trip was supposed to pay equally for the rental car. Declan dutifully handed over his $50 but when it came to Melody's turn to pay, she said "I don't have any money."

It was a good excuse because she really didn't have any money. I couldn't have extracted money from her even if I'd hired two goons to beat her up.