Week four was a very eventful week for me. I love how there's so much to do here and that the program keeps us very busy.
Sunday I decided to go to some historical places.
First I went to Château Saint-Louis. These are ruins of the first homes to governors of the area of Québec. I took a guided tour of the ruins to find out more about them. It was cool how the foundations are still there and archeologists know which rooms were which.
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| Ice House |
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| Models of what they looked like |
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| The progression of the château |
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| Kitchen |
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| This man said it right! |
After doing the tour I went to a crêperie and had a ham and cheese crêpe for lunch.
After lunch I went to the Citadel of Québec which is still an active military base but they also give tours and have a really neat military museum. First I went into the museum for a little bit before my tour and I thought it was really neat because they had stuff in there from almost every major war.
The base is home to the only francophone regiment in the country of Canada. It was formed because during wars, the people from Québec did not know English and it was hard for them to follow orders and such, or they just did not go into the military at all.
The construction of the Citadel started in 1673 with the construction of a protective wall that was built by the French in order to protect the city. After the British took control of Québec after the French & Indian War, they added to it in order to protect the city from the Americans during the American Revolution. And then during the War of 1812 the Citadel came in handy again. There was never a battle that took place at the Citadel so therefore the protection has worked.
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| Gate into the Citadel guarded by guards |
"Je me souviens" is the motto of Québec, which means that they are to remember who they are and where they come from, but for this regiment it means something else. For them it means that they are to remember their fallen comrades.
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| Regiment flag |
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| Cannon the regiment captured from Germany in the First World War |
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| Time ball that used to be used for sailors in the St. Lawrance |
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| Building formerly used as hospital |
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| Cannon overlooking the St. Lawrance that can shoot across the river into the city of Lévis |
Monday I went to class and then had my dance workshop in the afternoon. After that I spent the afternoon doing some chores and homework.
Monday night I had the "Ghost Tour" of Québec. We met in a classroom and went over some vocabulary before we left for the tour.
Throughout the tour we walked around the city of Old Québec and our tour guide would stop every once in a while and tell us a story. The stories are all true stories and have been researched. Now I know how really haunted the city is.
Tuesday I had another opportunity to take another free excursion with the school. This time it was to the Musée National des Beaux-Arts. We had a guided tour in the building with the contemporary art pieces. This building just had a grand opening about a month ago. I am putting some pictures on here of my favorite art works.
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| Main entrance building to the museum |
The building that houses the modern art was once a prison. There really weren't any art pieces that caught my attention but the fact that they still have some prison cells on display is really cool. They are extremely small.
The museum was getting close to closing time so I browsed the building with the historic art fairly quickly.
This sculpture is outside of the museum and I thought this view was so beautiful.
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| Museum building that was once a prison |
Wednesday was an interesting day because one of the activities that was highly recommended was "24h en français" or 24 hours in French. This means that we were not allowed to do anything outside of the French language; complete immersion for 24 hours. That means no Facebook, no listening to music other than French, and no talking to family or friends in English. The event went from 8am Wednesday until 8am Thursday. For me it wasn't too too hard compared to some other people's experiences. I had class from 8:30-12 and then I got lunch and was really tired so I took a nap. That nap turned into the whole afternoon so I passed those hours well. I'm not sure if I had a dream in French because I had my window open and someone had the news on or something so I kept hearing some French. That night in order to communicate with a friend from home I used Skype to play charades. I also bought a book in French a while ago so I had that to read for entertainment too. Another thing that I did was change my phone language to French and surprisingly enough, the names of the characters in Pokemon GO also changed to their French equivalent, which I did not know existed.
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| Lanyard I had to wear for the day |
Thursday I took another tour and it only costed $5. This was a trip to an Indian reservation called Wendake. There we learned about the Native American culture and about how they lived.
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| Explanation of how canoes and snow shoes were made |
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| Inside of a longhouse for 6 families |
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| Outside of the longhouse |
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| Totem pole in the gift shop |
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| Small totem pole |
After we saw the inside of the typical Native American village we walked to water falls that are also on the reservation.
Friday was a pretty normal day until the evening when I had another event. This was called "Soirée Chic/Gala." It was a dance that the school was hosting for us as sort of a going away type party. There was a wide range of music played and lots of dancing. It was a good night.
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| The tall crew |
Saturday I did a paid excursion to Île d'Oréans, which is an island in the St. Lawrence River off the east coast of Québec. On the agenda first was going to a cidrerie where we got to learn how they make different types of ciders and then we got to sample some of them.
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| Apple juice fermentation |
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| Cute tasting room |
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| Ciders we sampled |
They also have a few animals outside.
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| We all have that one friend... |
Their orchards were also very beautiful.
After the cidrerie we went to a boulangerie where I ordered a pizza with tomato sauce, regular cheese, and goat cheese. It was pretty good.
After eating we got to go across the street to a beach on the river for a few minutes.
What's the best thing to eat after lunch? Ice cream of course!! Especially on such a nice day. We stopped at a chocolaterie and the ice cream tasted amazing! I had vanilla dipped in milk chocolate.
And just when you think that I'm eating good ice cream, I got to eat it outside. This is the view. you can see Old Québec across the river with the large buildings.
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| Old Québec |
Right now you must be thinking how great that was and how good of a time I was having. Can't get any better, right? WRONG!
The next and final destination on our trip was the Chutes Montmorency. They are located in Beauport, which is across the river from the island, not too far from Old Québec. They were spectacular!
This week is now my final week and I have two full days left. I have already taken two finals and I have three more. I'm almost at the end of the program and I'll be coming home shortly.
