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!