Fun on the Funiculaire

The past two days have been low key for me (and Anna, since we do everything together!), but they have passed surprisingly quickly.  Montreal was a whirlwind, so we have enjoyed our two days back in Quebec City!

Class has been going well, since I know you are all so curious about that aspect of this trip.  Monday was a long day because Friday’s class was short due to our test.  The room where we have class every day is also the breakfast nook, and it does not have air conditioning.  That wouldn’t be so bad, except we keep the door closed so there’s no ventilation.  Not a fan. 

No pun intended.

Anyway, today I had to teach a lesson.  I taught the class about “les pronoms complements,” aka pronouns for direct and indirect objects.  It is interesting to study these grammar concepts in French because we take them for granted in English.  I think my teaching went well, but I admit I was nervous to talk in French in front of the class.  In a hot room with no ventilation.

After lunch on fait du shopping!  In English… we went shopping!  Anna, Holly, and I tore up H&M and Old Navy today.  Yes, yes, we have those stores in America.  But who can pass up $5 dresses and $8 shoes??  That’s what I thought. 

I have also done well with souvenir shopping.  So well, in fact, that I will probably come back flat broke.  C’est la vie.

Tonight we had our small group dinner with Drew, our professor.  Anna, Katie, and I went to L’Echaude in la basse ville.  Ohmygoodness.  It was so good.  So SO good.  I would have taken pictures, but we didn’t want to draw attention to ourselves.  I got lobster risotto as an appetizer and a chicken dish as my entrée, and a cherry/maple cake with crème and raspberries/blueberries.

I know, I know, my mouth is watering just thinking about it.  And the good part about the whole deal is that we had to walk up a huge hill to get back to the hotel, so I burned off one a few of the calories I ate!

I skipped yesterday – we shopped around the part of the city near our hotel.  Mostly touristy stuff, but we did see some cute things!  We ate at “Le Cochon Dinge” – “The Crazy Pig.”  It is a Quebecois restaurant that specializes in – you guessed it – pork!  They serve barbeque, but we each got a croque-madame with pesto chicken and goat cheese.  And it came with fries and coleslaw.  I’ll have seconds, please!!

They eat mayonnaise with their fries here.  The coleslaw was wonderful!

Perhaps the most exciting part of our day yesterday was the funiculaire.  What is a funiculaire?  Why, I am glad you asked.  It is basically an elevator.  In English it means "incline railway."  This city is probably more hilly than freakin San Francisco, and to get from la basse ville to our hotel you have to climb a HUGE hill.  So, Anna and I paid $2 to ride the elevator type thing up to the top of the hill and it was amazing.  Not necessarily because it was like an elevator, but because it took us straight to the top of the hill without having to put forth any effort.  That’s my kind of funiculaire. 

Don’t worry, we took lots of pictures.  We will ride it again probably every day.

Starting out

Realizing we both looked semi-cute so we should probably document the occasion.

Getting higher!

And higher!

Woah! All that for only $2!

Ta da! The top!

Et c’est tout pour aujourd’hui.  Thanks to all of you who have been keeping up with my blog.  It is so nice to be able to document my trip like this!

HRC

Bienvenue a Montreal!

Bienvenue a Montreal!

I always try to think of a creative way to start off each blog… but that is harder to do than one might think.  So, I’ll just dive right in.

Saturday night we went to the Festival d’Ete again.  The act? Metallica.  Y’all.  I just thought I had seen a ton of people when we went to Elton John.  But I promise you there were more people there last night.  And most of them looked like they had teleported to the concert straight from 1980.  Apparently things got a little messy this week…

Yuck.

That was on our way to eat.  We figured we wouldn’t be able to get in because there were already massive amounts of people inside the gates, and we were right.  So, after dinner (yummy chicken Caesar salad!) we sat on the wall behind the concert with the rest of our group.  I didn’t take any pictures worth posting because we were so far away. 

So, that’s the end of the festival for us!  The last night was tonight, but seeing as we were in Montreal all day…

Oh, Montreal!  I guess I’ll tell you about that, too.

Anna and I woke up at the crack of dawn (no one else wanted to go with us!) and walked to the bus station.  Our bus left right on time and it had wi-fi and outlets.  For a three-hour bus ride I was pretty appreciative!  Of course I slept most of the way, because something about a charter bus just makes me sleepy. 

We arrived at the Montreal bus station and walked outside… to the Latin Quarter.  Probably not the best place for two lonely little girls to be walking, but I suppose we had no choice.  We did a pretty good job of orienting ourselves with everything and were soon in the shopping district on Rue St. Catherine. 

To make a long story short, we shopped for several hours!  Above ground, below ground, you name it, we did it.  Montreal is known for its “underground city” of sorts, and although we discovered a bit of it, we know we did not see nearly all of it!  Also, we have been waiting to shop this entire time, and today was the day we finally gave in!  Look forward to shopping adventures this week, haha!

We walked up town (or down town, I have no idea which direction) to “La Musee des Beaux-Arts,” or The Museum of Fine Art.  We saw Monet and Picasso, and they had a very neat exhibit about Napoleon.  I really enjoyed it!  We made a slight detour on the way there and dropped some serious cash at this place…

Just kidding.  I doubt I could even afford a floor tile in that store.  Maybe one day!

Anyway, here are pictures of the art museum.

Monet

Renoir

Matisse

Picasso

Picasso

The Napoleon Exhibit

By that point we were hungry.  So we took a taxi to “La Vieux-Porte,” very similar to the port in Quebec City, near where we are staying.  It has the same old river city type feel.  First we went inside a cathedral modeled after Notre Dame.  It was so beautiful!  Pictures don't do it justice.  Then we ate at a great little restaurant (what else is new?) and enjoyed time off of our feet.

Inside the cathedral

The chapel in the back of the cathedral.  Supposedly it is booked two years in advance for weddings!

We planned on taking the 8:00 train, but just so happened to make it in time for the 6:00 train, so we were back in time for me to blog!  We enjoyed Montreal but it does feel really nice to be back in familiar territory.  There is just nothing like Quebec City!

A plus tard,

HRC

Today's adventures: maple butter and a waterfall!

Today has been one of the most interesting days on the trip so far, in terms of sight seeing.  This morning at 9am we loaded a bus with Marcel, a tour guide, who showed us some of the prettiest countryside I have ever seen.  We took a guided tour of Quebec!

Our first stop was “le Chute de Montmorency,” a waterfall area not far outside the city.  It was absolutely beautiful!  I have never seen a waterfall like that before, I don’t think, so I enjoyed it.  Now I want to see Niagara Falls!  We took a cable car to the top and got great shots from the top of the falls.

On the cable car on the way to the top of the waterfall

At the top!

On our way down from the top

Anna and I at the top of the mountain.

Our next stop was “l’Ile d’Orleans,” the island right off shore from Quebec City.  It is a small island with a population of about 7,000 people in the summer time, and much less than that in the winter.  Many people own summer homes there.  A couple of decades ago construction boomed as more people wanted to move onto the island.  In the 80s the government said No More of that, they would run out of water eventually since they use artesian wells.  So, no more new houses could be built on l’Ile d’Orleans!  As you can imagine, the houses are now worth about twice what they would be worth in the city.  We drove past a very modest house that would sell for around $500,000!  The island is so clean, quiet, and quaint.  They are all self-sufficient and can grow or buy everything they need on the island without having to leave!  That doesn’t mean they won’t drive into the city or something, but for the most part they have everything they need right there nearby.

Our first stop on the island was this chocolatier.  It was so hard, but I resisted the temptation to buy anything!  I have tried several times to bring chocolate back as a souvenir, and it just doesn’t work.  So, I took lots of mental pictures and imagined how great everything would taste.

They had ice cream cones that put Dairy Queen to shame!

There are six communities on the island, and one of them is very agricultural.  Our bus driver was kind enough to stop at a strawberry farm and brought us back these to try!

Home grown raspberries and strawberries!

After the island we stopped at a copper museum.  It was part museum and part store, I guess, because this family hand crafts everything in the museum/store.  It was very neat!  Once again, I resisted the temptation to buy anything because I thought I could find more Quebecois souvenirs instead of copper things.  It was a very neat place, though!

"Copper Art," the Grilles family

Odd picture of her, but she is the granddaughter of the man who started this copper place.  She demonstrated how to shape a piece of copper.

By this point it was lunch time, so to “tide us over” until we got back to our hotel, we stopped at a place called “Chez Marie.”  They make their own maple butter and other products.  We all got a slice of bread with maple butter on it.  Um, YUM.  I finished mine before I remembered to take a picture, so this is Anna’s piece.  I did buy a small jar of maple butter here for my mom!  I’m going to buy some other maple products at a store here in town.

Chez Marie is on the oldest street in Quebec!

Maple butter on fresh, homemade bread!

Chez Marie! I'm pretty sure this house was built several hundred years ago, with the same stones they used to build the old wall of Quebec!

Our last stop on our lovely tour was “l’Eglise de Sante-Anne-de-Beaupre,” a cathedral originally built in the 1600s that is said to have healing powers.  This building was constructed in the 1970s; our bus driver explained what happened to all of the other buildings, but suffice it to say this is like the fourth or fifth one.  The first was wood and burned down, etc. etc.  People would travel from far away to this church and pray to Sainte Anne (Jesus’s grandmother, I think?), and those who entered in wheelchairs and on crutches would leave them behind as they walked out of the church healed!  It is a beautiful building, but I must admit I have a greater appreciation for the cathedrals I have seen in France and England.  They are just so historic and majestic!

A great view of the front of the church

The canes people would leave at the church after they're healed.

The inside of the church

Our tour was fabulous, and a great way to explore Quebec.  Anna and I are putting together our game plan for our trip to Montreal tomorrow, so that we can see everything we want to see in one day!  Tonight we are going to the festival one last time, this time to see Metallica.  No, I am not a Metallica fan, but I paid enough for my wristband to want to get a good use out of it!  So, we’re just going to check it out and take a few pictures, just to say we went.  It is also Candace’s birthday (a girl on the trip with us), so we are going to celebrate with her tonight, too!

By the time I post again Anna and I will have allowed ourselves to shop, because we have been holding off until this next week.  Yay!

Salut!
HRC

One week in!

I can’t believe I have been in Quebec City for an entire week!  Though I am blogging on Friday, I have to catch up on a few days of events.

There are two words to describe yesterday:

Harry Potter.

Thursday we decided it was time to do laundry.  I packed plenty, but we both had towels we wanted to wash.  I know that is just almost too exciting to absorb, but anyway, I studied while at the lavoir, since I knew we wouldn’t have time to study that night.  We also knew we’d be out of touch with things on Sunday since we’re going to Montreal, so we wanted to make sure we had everything good to go.

Ok enough of the boring stuff.  Let’s just cut to the chase.  Dinner last night wasn’t fantastic, but we didn’t really mind.  We made it to the theater without a hitch!  One bus transfer and a little bit of waiting and bam, there we were!  

Aren't we cute?

We arrived at the Cineplex around 9 so that we would have plenty of time in case something happened on the way there.  I really wanted to go check out the dollar store and the Wal Mart, but this is what we saw when we arrived.

Needless to say, we got in line.  And waited.  For two hours.  The groups in front of and behind us were entertaining, at least, so we listened to a lot of French in those two hours!  At 11:30 they let us into the theater, and the two hours and fifteen minutes of Harry Potter in English was absolutely fantastic!  It is just so neat to me that this series has truly been a part of my childhood.  Anna and I reminisced about all of the midnight premiers and humungo amounts of Accelerated Readers points we earned by reading the books in elementary school.  I will never forget sitting in Mrs. Sholar’s fourth grade class reading my Harry Potter books!  And there we were about to watch the final installment of the movies.  It was just superb.  I mean yeah they left out lots of stuff, but I didn’t care to sit there for 4 hours anyway! 

The movie seemed to go by so quickly, and there was a taxi waiting for us right outside when we left!  This was a huge blessing; I was not fired up about standing around at 2:30AM waiting for a taxi in a French speaking country.  So far Quebec has seemed very safe, but still.  You know me and taking risks.  The taxi driver didn’t speak too much English, so that was another opportunity for me to practice my skills!  We made it back to the hotel and quickly called it a night.

We had a test this morning, which wasn’t too bad.  The lack of sleep made things a bit more uncomfortable, but it was all totally worth it.  We napped and didn’t even feel like eating lunch.  This afternoon we rode the ferry across the river to get a great view of Le Chateau Frontenac.  We got cute group pictures and enjoyed a different view of the city.  Here are some snapshots!

This is our whole group minus our teacher and Max (who took the picture!).

Then Anna and I went to the bus station to make sure we could get tickets to go to Montreal on Sunday.  We are so excited!  The tickets were not terribly expensive, and we plan to make a whole day out of it, since it’s a 3-hour bus ride.  But I mean, when in Rome, right?

This is the old train station.  It is right next to the bus station.

On the way back we stopped at this great farmer’s market.  We are definitely going back!  They had all sorts of homemade food, fresh meat and fish, and every kind of maple syrup and jelly you could ever want!

Lots of choices!

Fresh goodies!

Emily's favorite... cheese (miss you!)

"Market of the Old Port" and "Eat strawberries here!" (I wanted some.)

Dinner was yummy (surprise), and now we are at the hotel trying not to fall asleep.  An Oreo McFlurry is just sounding too delicious right now, so we might get over our “Harry Potter Hangover” to go get one!  Tomorrow we take a guided tour of the city, and Sunday is Montreal, so I will try to get another post in before our venture west!

Thanks for reading this and keeping up with my travels; it is fun to be able to share my stories and pictures with everyone!

HRC

Yelle for Harry Potter!

I look forward to blogging every day.  Today’s (tonight’s) post will include two days, because somewhere along the way I have gotten behind.  I am busier than I thought I would be!

Our adventure in Loretteville seems like forever ago.  Maybe that’s because we had another similar adventure today, but I’ll get to that later.  Tuesday was kind of boring.  We had class, which is basically a review of grammar concepts and vocabulary.  I haven’t had grammar and vocab in at least three semesters, maybe more, so I’m kind of struggling with the structure of things.  I’m used to reading and writing.  But that’s ok, I probably need the review.

After lunch Anna and I napped.  Unbeknownst to most, napping on a trip is a big deal for me.  I have this fear about not being able to sleep well when I’m away from home and my family, so I don’t drink caffeine at night and I definitely don’t nap.  Well I’ll be darned if I didn’t sleep for a solid two hours on Tuesday.  So, you know I must be having a good time.  As Mary Clair would say, “I’m just saying.”

After our nap we went with our group to a museum about French-American history, how the Europeans colonized Canada and how the French fought to keep their territories.  It was interesting, though I wish I had more of an appreciation for it!  Maybe we will go back at some point during our trip.

Something to do with Bordeaux - so naturally I took a picture!

Maybe I have French ancestors?

Medicine jars and the explanation for them

A neat-o chair

My birthstone

Guess where??

Our hotel!

Tuesday afternoon Anna and I also found post cards and the post office, so hopefully I’ll get some post cards in the mail soon.  Let me know if you want one!  Anna, Andrew and I ate another great dinner, and then I guess I spent the evening on homework and blogging.

Linguine primavera = delicious

I forgot - we went to le festival again.  We saw Yelle, a Quebecois woman, and we really did enjoy her music!  She reminds me of Lady Gaga.

Yelle. What an awkward awesome jumpsuit.

May I just add that on the way back from the museum that afternoon, Anna and I ran into a bit of wind.

Wednesday, well, it is still Wednesday as I type this.  Today, we had one goal, and we accomplished that goal.

Tomorrow night slash Friday morning, at 12:02 A.M., we will watch Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 at the Cineplex Odeon.  It only took us about three hours to find the place, but WE FOUND IT and WE BOUGHT TICKETS.  I made use of my French skills in asking for directions.  I would say, “nous cherchons pour le Cineplex” and I would get quizzical looks, so I would continue with something like, “movie theater?” Needless to say, these people do not watch movies like we do in America, or else they would definitely know what “le Cineplex” is.  Whatever.

The infamous Cineplex. They had good smelling popcorn so I know it'll be worth it.

While waiting for the bus to go back into the city from le Cineplex, of course an old man who smelled really bad took notice of Anna and me, and he struck up a conversation.  On one hand, I practiced my French, because he didn’t speak much English.  On the other hand, we were stuck talking for like half an hour, he smelled really bad, and I accidentally told him the name of our hotel.  Cardinal rule numero un while talking to foreigners.  Luckily I don’t think he even knew of our hotel, so if you don’t hear from me tomorrow you know to come looking.  JUST KIDDING.

We ate at a Mexican restaurant for dinner.  Yes, Mexican exists here.  I think it’s the only Mexican restaurant in town.  I got a chicken quesadilla and Anna and I split a margarita and both were superb.  We just might have to break our rule (We will not eat at the same restaurant twice!) and go back.

Tonight I have blogged, added pictures to Facebook, and done homework.  It has been uneventful, but I am not complaining.

Next post – HARRY POTTER EN QUEBEC!