Cabane à Sucre (Sugar Shack) & Grand Tour de Lévis

Yesterday I did a paid activity with the school and that was a trip to Cabane à Pierre, which is also known as the Cabane à Sucre.  It's located about an hour from campus and is about half way to the boarder of Maine.  It is known as a sugar shack because they make maple syrup here.  

When we first arrived, we had a tour around the place and we learned how syrup is made.  I learned that it takes about 40 liters of sap from the trees to make 1 liter of syrup. 

Entrance for the Cabane à Sucre

Basins for making syrup

Wood pile

Our meal consisted of ham, sausage, potatoes, omelette, and a beef pie, and a pancake for dessert

The store/bar area

My selfie for the most unique selfie contest

 I had a great time listening to the music and doing lots of dancing! 

Dancing with live band

Panorama of the whole inside

Today I did another paid activity that was titled the Grand Tour de Lévis.  Lévis is a city across the river from Québec City. It was a dreary day, with overcast for most of the day and some showers throughout my time out.   

Our first stop on our trip today was Fort Lévis.  This fort is called Fort Number One.  It was built by the British between 1865 and 1872 in order to protect Québec from an American invasion following the American Civil War.  This was an invasion that never happened.  I felt cool inside of the fort because I am an American who entered the fort.  

Painting of the Fort

 

Small Cannon inside the Fort

View of the inside of the Fort

View across the St. Lawrence

Another view across the River from the hill in the fort

The next part of our trip was stopping to eat lunch overlooking the St. Lawrence.  Even though there was overcast and it was a little windy, the sight was still beautiful while we were eating lunch.  
 

Château Frontenac across the river

Across the River

Panorama of the River because I feel only one picture does not do justice

Stop number 3 on our trip was a stop at Chocolat Favoris.  Here their main attraction is ice cream but they also have chocolate candy.  There were lots of ice cream options to choose from because they had about 5 flavors of soft-serve ice cream and then there were 12 different flavors of dips to choose from.  I ordered chocolate ice cream dipped in dark chocolate.  It was very delicious.  

Me & my ice cream

Some of their candy

The trip only gets better and better, especially with our last stop.  We went to a waterfall!  They are located in Parc des Chutes-de-la-Chaudière.  I don't think that I have ever been to a waterfall so this was really cool.  First my group walked across a really high suspended bridge that goes across the river at the bottom of the waterfall.  It was really scary because as all of us were walking, the bridge was moving from side to side.  Eventually I made it across and then we went back again to go walk down near the waterfall.  That was really fun too because it was a bit like hiking because of all of the rocks that we had to jump over and climb through.  
 

The suspended bridge.

Today I received 2 green cards because I was meeting a bunch of people and I got "caught" speaking French.  Now I have a total of 10 for the week.  Enough French has come back to me so that I can have complete conversations.  I think that I am in a good level for my classes, even though I have learned the grammar briefly, now I get to work with it more in depth.  I cannot wait to see how much my French improves within the next  month.  One week down, four more to go.