First visit to Quebec City :)

Two weekends ago, we all crammed into our not-so-beloved car Dyxie (so called due to the license plate ending in DYX, probably should have been a sign) and made the journey up to Quebec City for the weekend. The journey there takes about an hour, a little longer when your car is somewhat engine-ally challenged. However, we made it, which is of course the main thing! We were helped along the way by our own amazing sense of direction and preparedness in finding out where we had to go.. (LOL)

Apologies to Jen for stealing this pic! As I drove, I didn't take any in-car... note only Katy's smiling face, Eilidh looks like she's about to kick the car in Glasgow-style

Most of us had managed to find somewhere to stay in the city for free, what with having previously met some other assistants based there, who were very acommodating in letting people stay who they had met previously only once or twice. However the stays were exchanged with a promise that, if they ever felt like it, they would always be welcome with us in Saint-Georges. (More on this later, as this coming weekend some of them have decided to take advantage of such an offer!)

After arriving on the Friday night, we decided to grab a bite to eat at our hosts' and head into town to see what the nightlife was like. Having successfully met up with most of the other assistants, (excepting a certain group of massive lamers) we started off in this really cosy bar playing incredible 50s/60s music, and ended the night dancing in some bar that we couldn't quite figure out was gay or not.. in any case, it was fun, and great to get to know some other assistants better. On a related note, there are actually a few parallel programmes to ours here - one with Germans, one with Mexicans and one with English-speaking Canadians. This means I've met people from all over, which has always been something that's interested me, I love hearing about life in other places :) also it means you can go and stay in said other places further down the line, and get shown around by a the best tour guide : a local! Safe to say, whenever I've met a German I've literally grabbed them to get in as much Deutsch practice as possible, I don't quite have the feeling I've lost everything just yet, but it's something I'm constantly in fear of...

Saturday, we awoke bright and early (we actually did as well, go team) and took advantage of the amazingly placed Free Bus Day (where all the public transport was, you guessed it, free) in order to explore the city a little bit. It was perfect wandering about weather, sunny and clear but not too hot, and me and one of the other assistants from St-G had a lovely relaxed time pottering about the Old Town (especially by the castle/boardwalk and in the Quartier Petit-Champlain) with our lovely Canadian hosts. Here are various pics of nice things :

 Chateau Frontenac

Chateau Boardwalk.. the view down was amazing, wish I had a good pic!

View down over the Rue du Petit-Champlain (really cute lttle shops and boutiques)

In the afternoon, we met up with various other assistants who were dotted around the centre as well, grouped mainly by where they had been staying the night before. They had basically been doing exactly the same thing as us the whole morning, however we'd all been far too disorganised to meet up earlier. In any case, it was lovely to see everyone, especially loser no-shows from the night before ;)! We quickly all arranged to go for dinner at a highly recommended burger bar. (Verdict: tasty, but would have been better without loads of stinky French mustard :( ...sad face)

As we had gone a bit mad the night before and certain people (me) are old, we decided to have a quiet one on the Saturday in order to prepare us for Maximum Sightseeing Sunday. That is apart from the loser group who scored a few points back by staying out late and meeting some strange note-writing friends! Our plan the next day pretty much went, well.. to plan, having decided to meet at 10am and take the bus out to the Chutes Montmorency, about 45 minutes out of the city. Unfortunately, it wasn't Free Bus Day anymore, but any journey anywhere in Quebec City only costs $3, and I must say to get out to see this beautiful park and falls, I would have paid a whole lot more :)

Taller than Niagara Falls.. just thinner ;)

<3

From the other side.. so loud!

And that about concludes our (first) Quebec trip! After much traipsing around, it was time for the St-Georges girls to make their pilgrimage back to St-Georges. I had done my driving service on the journey up, and so was glad one of the other girls was driving, mainly due to being absolutely knackered after a full weekend. I am 73 after all! Obviously, this translated into promptly passing out very attractively in the back seat ;) mmmmmmmmmhotn'snorey

Until next time........................................... (can't believe I'm writing in this semi-regularly)

xo

School!

Thought you lovely people might be interested in the school I am working at! Here is the website... and if you can't be bothered to click that, a couple of pictures :)

Ecole d'Youville

Ecole Lambert

The school is split into two sites (d'Youville and Lambert, if you'd not guessed) about a five-minute walk away from each other in the town of Saint-Joseph-de-Beauce, which in turn is about half an hour away from where I live. A fun fact about this journey is that me and another assistant from St-G are on the Special Bus hahaha.. but only on the way there! So I'm a special kid only half the time.. the other half I am that massive loser nobody wants to talk to on the normal (massive, yellow, summer camp-y) school bus. Obviously I do a lot for my image on said bus by knitting, reading (I'm literally a reading machine at the moment, it's AWESOME, more on this another time) and writing postcards to those I miss.. if you didn't get a card yet I either didn't get round to you yet or secretly hate you! Whichever works best for you ;)

Anyway, I am working at both schools - mainly due to my mentor only working part time, I'm not quite ready to be left to my own devices just yet! The school timetable throughout the whole of Beauce is a 9-day rotation not including weekends, of which I always have Day 8 as an extra day off. This could harbour great roadtrip potential if any of the other assistants also had day 8 off, but unfortunately ours don't co-ordinate at all! This means that on days 1, 3, 5 and half of 7 I'm at d'Youville (years 1-3) and days 2, 4, 6, the other half of 7 and 9 I'm at Lambert (years 4-6). It has taken a bit of getting used to with all this changing and age-range variety, but if there is something I've learnt throughout my time in work, mixing things up a little bit is the best tool to keep my interest anyway ;) also, due to much pre-Christmas luck on my part, from now until the start of 2013 I have about four four-day weekends to fill which is awesome! Let's just hope the snow holds off a little so I can get out to where I plan to visit safely and easily... (Ottawa/Gatineau, somewhere on the Gaspesie (probably Rimouski) and Montreal again if you're interested to know!)

Saint-Joseph

This brings me to initiation, something which is very common here, and therefore perhaps something subsequent assistants might like to be somewhat prepared for ;) - out of the five assistants based in Saint-Georges I think three had to do some kind of silly task or presentation, as a way of initiating themselves into the school. After spending the last two years being amongst the incredibly genuine but rather staid Germans, having to dress up on a whim was somewhat more of a surprise to me! However the theme was certainly to my taste (see Beard Night 1 and 2 in Previous Life Activities), in that we had to wear a moustache all day to honour the principal's, which is like nothing you've ever seen! Never thought I would be completing Beard Night 3 in the daytime, at some school in eastern Canada, but there you go! On a related note, various sneaky principal moustache pics to be uploaded throughout the year due to its' majesty...

Fitting in wi't'locals

After wearing my moustache all day (as well as a T-shirt letting the whole world know that I'm new.. luckily there were lots of other new people too so I didn't feel too weird!) myself and the other newbies/older staff met promptly after the bell at 3pm, in order to drink beers, eat nachos and present ourselves to one another. As the idea of standing up and talking French in front of a large group was utterly terrifying, I adapted an English slideshow I'd made for the students about my life in the UK/Germany, using Powerpoint. That meant I could get it all corrected beforehand, and say exactly what I wanted to day without getting tongue-tied ;) woohoo!

Powerpoint Wanker 2012

Something worth mentioning here would be the French, which I am finding rather difficult - the Beauce accent is... interesting, to say the least! I am completely lacking the easy start I encountered in Germany, and often have this feeling that my brain is actually expanding, which is hard to explain. I guess I am being quickly and fully immersed in a little corner of Canada, where more people don't speak English than do, so it's absolutely going to feel strange and maybe even a bit stressful at points. There is this pre-conception (thought also, until quite recently, by myself to some degree) that all people in Quebec are completely bi-lingual.. but I can honestly say in Beauce this is absolutely NOT THE CASE as it would be in bigger cities. Luckily, I am also simultaneously aware that it will be worth it in the end, I'm just interested to see the direction my pretty elementary French will take ;) will I come back with a Beauce accent?!

Think that's it for now... thanks for reading :)

xo

Ps. Goodness me, five million !!!!s.. if you're worrying that Canada somehow made me eager about life, don't despair, I still hate everything, I was just trying to get this done whilst I still had the motivation (therefore with very limited editing time).. saying that it would probably have taken less time to edit them out than type this, live and learn...