La Ville de Quebec!

After a few weeks of waiting, we finally went and just came back from an exciting and fun weekend in Quebec City. It was about 3 hours by bus, and unfortunately we had to take school buses. We also stayed in dorms on the Laval University campus in single rooms (2 people a room) which brought back memories of dorming at UB…good and bad memories of course…but at any rate, we got our bus tickets and took the bus into downtown Quebec which only took about 15 minutes. On Friday night, we mostly explored the new city, which has so many diverse/interesting restaurants. We settled on this place called Blu which was kind of like a TGI Friday’s, but a bit nicer. I got the salmon fettucini, w/ 2 kinds of salmon, smoked and cooked which was pretty good. I tried a glass of white wine with it from France and that was good also. We did some typical tourist shopping in the new part of the city and came upon a free concert (Quebecois music). We then ventured into the old city to do yet again more shopping and explore. The next day it was raining like crazy in the morning and so we had to find some ponchos…for lunch we settled on an Irish bar called St Patrick’s in the old city and I had some fish and chips and some white house beer that tasted like Blue Moon which was pretty tasty…we walked around yet some more and took some awesome pictures of Charlevoix right by the St Lawrence River. Later on, we were so exhausted we sat down at a bar on the Grand Allee (by another gov’t building) and I tried a red beer (like Killian’s) that was a bit sweeter than I’m used to. I could have seen Sting and Kiss at an outdoor concert, but we were too busy exploring etc…It would have been amazing I’m sure, and if we were there longer than a week I would have made the time to go…Overall my second experience 11 years later in Quebec City was pretty awesome…but I wish I stayed in a hotel than student dorms at Laval :o( Anyway, I only have a week more to go of classes which is nice. I do like it here, but I’m also looking forward to seeing everyone!

Here Comes the Sun...

Finally, after 3 days of horrible and cold weather, it’s finally sunny and warm, mostly in the 70’s-80’s. Everytime I ride my bike anywhere, it’s great because the weather has been good and I get some exercise anywhere I travel….which is good because I feel like I’m eating a lot with 3 huge meals a day. The one thing I’m not used to is how structured the program is. I’m used to going off and exploring a bit and doing whatever whenever outside of work, school, etc. and I think the program is targeted towards students who are younger and less experienced in a foreign culture. Also, I know it’s important to get all the students together for an event to converse with each other and better their French, but with the class I’m in I just feel like I have so much work to do and no time to do it. I love the class and the discussions but I think that two 2 page papers, a 10 page research paper, a presentation on said paper and a final exam is a bit rough. We keep telling the professor we’re only here for 3 weeks but it seems like it’s not a big deal. Either way, I feel like I’ll do pretty well in the class despite all the work that needs to get done.
Already I feel as though my speaking is becoming more fluid and with better pronunciation with my words, and it is because of speaking, reading, listening pretty much 95% of the time here. When I speak with the other people in the program or even natives, it excites me that the words I speak in French are understood by someone who speaks the language. It makes me happy that I can get along in French or Quebecois society without a problem..that’s the main goal for myself and for my future students. Speaking of future students, I’ve already taken a ton of pictures of different signs and stocked up on brochures with French on it…I even bought a book of Garfield cartoons in French and another book to use for a class someday. This is the time as a future teacher to take advantage of all this authentic cultural items!
On another note, I feel like I’m missing so much like the coverage on Michael Jackson…I mean I bought a magazine about it just for the history of it, but it’s not the same as being home and watching it on TV in English. Regardless… I feel like I’ve been doing so much…the school has various activities at night after dinner, like movies, a corn roast the other night which had a great sunset, and a Traditional song and dance which sold good beer which was nice. The music was pretty cool because it reminded me of Irish music and I did some research and realized that in fact there are a lot of Irish/Celtic influences on Quebecois music. Today, we went on an Excursion to the Ile-Aux- Basques, which is an Isle in the center of the St Lawrence that is a 10 minute boat ride from where I am…It was interesting but wayyyy too many mosquitoes and it was driving me crazy. They’re bigger here for some reason and apparently angrier than American ones because they’ll even bite you on your face lol…..
And no, I haven’t had any poutine yet, but I plan on getting some maybe next week just to try it. Anyway, I’ll try to write as much as I can in the next two weeks…

Les premieres jours- The First Days

Well, we finally arrived in TP after a train ride of approx 9 hours, an overnight stay in Montreal and a 6 hour bus ride the next day. What I was most surprised about is how long all the traveling took and how far out TP actually was. When we arrived by bus, the host, Veronique Dumont and the Messeur met us at the bus and asked my name to make sure I was in fact the person who was supposed to stay with them. They drove us around town to make sure we knew where certain things were, like the school and the place to rent bikes. I found out quickly that their vocabulary for breakfast, lunch and dinner is much different than in France. Dejeuner, Diner, et Souper for “dinner” is a hard concept to grasp when you’re used to something completely different. The “souper” was nice because everyone’s speaking (the other students) were pretty much on the same level as Emily and I and that made for good conversation and helping each other with various words/phrases we didn’t know. Janine is the woman who makes us lunch and dinner and she is extremely easy to understand and converses a lot with our group. I commented to Emily that our “dinner group” is awesome to practice random conversation. We also found out at dinner that there was a performance called “Echofête” which was a mix of different musical groups at “Le Forge” which looked like an old barn. They had 4 different kinds of beer there which was awesome, as well as a form of sex on the beach and non alcoholic of course. We didn’t stay long because we were exhausted from traveling, but it was a fun experience nonetheless.
The next day, we went running at 7:30am just to see where everything was. It’s been raining/miserable non-stop so it wasn’t too motivating, but I felt like I needed to get a workout in. There isn’t much to the town…there’s a church, the school, a couple stores and restaurants, an internet café and a park for recreation, etc. The one thing I realized also when I’m here is that I’m definitely not going to starve that’s for sure…For breakfast and lunch, they fed us sooo much food and I felt bad not finishing everything, but it was pretty substantial. The registration was also today (Sunday) and I found out my placement test score was a 59 which apparently is very good, “un bon note” according to the Director who gave me my class assignment. We get to do one “class” and one “activity”, so it’s like one formal French learning experience and one informal experience which is nice. The class I chose is called intensive French and Quebecois culture and the activity is called learning about Quebecois culture. I know they are pretty much the same thing, but I need as much as I can for the classroom and for the paper I have to write. And paired with the group dinners and outings, I’ll get plenty of French conversation in which I’m happy about. Tonight, we’re going to finally rent our bikes, go to dinner, then go to the “opening ceremonies” at the school. Then the classes start tomorrow…I’m actually pretty excited for everything. A la prochaine fois!