Our second last excursion before the end of the program was a trip to Montreal . On the first night we went to Varennes, staying at Évelyne’s parents house, who were amazing to us the whole weekend. It was pretty late by the time we got there, we went out with a few of Éve’s friends and went to sleep.

The next day we went to the biosphere…

That is the group, and josh doing handstands as usual.. we spent some time inside, playing with water:

..and checking out the other exhibits.

After that, we explored the park a bit.. the biosphere is in Parc Jean-Drapeau, which is huuuuge and very nice, and made me miss my bike a lot because it was full of other people riding their own beautiful bicycles. No worries though, Benoit (my bike) and I have been reunited at long last…

Mandatory group shot #374691, in the park.

Checked out the biodome after this, which was a step up from a regular zoo, but I still don’t exactly agree with keeping certain animals like that. However, I did really enjoy watching the penguins play around.. they were pretty funny. Wish their enclosure was bigger.

We had a free night, I met up with a friend who was in Montreal, had a lovely dinner at Le Commensal, and spend the rest of the evening with Éve & her family.

After a big brunch & some time in old Varennes by the river, we headed back out to montreal. We were on our way to the tam tam festival when we ran into some people with free hugs signs.. an offer we could not refuse. They asked us if we wanted to make some signs of our own & help them out, so we spent some time outside the subway station with them:

Eventually, we made our way to the park for the tamtam, bringing our free hugs with us. As a group, we ended up doing this for a good 5 hours.. though of course not everyone stayed there at any one time, we wanted to wander around. It reminded me a lot of the winnipeg folk festival…. lots of drum circles, lots of dancing.

There were also somewhat bizarre “battles” further back in the park.. fun to watch.. people all dressed up and fighting with cardboard/duct tape/foam weaponry. It was pretty impressive, in a nerdy sort of way (and I am nerdy, after all..)

We spent most of the day here, just relaxing and enjoying the beautiful weather. I wish there was something like this every week in Winnipeg… but I guess I will just have to settle for the one weekend a year we’ve got folk fest instead.

canot-camping

On our last weekend in Quebec, we went on a canoe trip on the Jacques-Cartier river. It was only two days but it was really beautiful..

Unfortunately, it rained almost the whole two days, but we managed. It was my first time canoeing through lots of rapids (mostly RIIs, but ranging from RI-RIIIs) and it was awesome. Of course, I was at the back of the canoe, typically not getting splashed.

That’s Evelyne and I, approaching another set.

The whole group, at the beginning in our wetsuits. Sooo glad we got to wear those in the end, we would have frozen without them.

Karine, where we took a break for lunch on the second day. The scenery was beautiful..

Kallie didn’t take a lot of pictures of it, though. She was in charge of the camera in the canoe, being the third person in the middle meant being photographer.

Scoping out the rapids for a good route, before heading through.

Karine and Ashley, at a precarious angle. We had beautiful canoes, too, thanks to Canots Légaré who were super awesome to us. There were knee pads in the boat and we strapped ourselves in, so you could pull your weight (or push) from the bottom of the boat as needed to keep balance in the rapids. Definitely handy.

And finally, the katimavik van with canoes strapped to the top. Karine was really proud of this, as I think we are the only katimavik group, at least in the Québec region, to ever go on a canoe trip. It’s a fairly big accomplishment to get something like this approved (believe me, I did the paperwork) so I was especially pleased with myself that we got to go. Even if it was cold, rainy, and I was hurting by the end, I’d absolutely do it again.

Soooo… I am at home now. It’s really weird. I think I’m going to keep this going for a bit, because I still have a lot of pictures that I’d like to share.

Leaving everyone at the airport yesterday morning was really hard. Katimavik gives you a lot of practice at goodbyes – sometimes it seems that just as you start to get used to something, you leave. Work placements. Project leaders. Houses and communities. Billeting families. By the third time you have to leave these, it’s almost routine… even if you don’t WANT to leave the people and places, which I typically did not, it almost becomes easy to do so by the end.

The only thing that stays constant is the other participants. Well, even some of those leave. But by the end of this program, those of us that were left were really close, truly like family. I freakin’ bawled at the airport yesterday, cursed our gigantic country for spreading us so far apart, and of course promised to visit. Of all the fantastic things I’ve got from this program, nothing is better than the people I have met.

So.. though I’m glad to be home, it’s also with a bit of sadness. I plan to go back in probably a couple weeks, and will see quite a few people then anyway, but it’s not the same as living together, of course. Ah, well.. it’s been a pretty crazy and amazing ride, and I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

I find it pretty hilarious that I already have a farmer’s tan, and the snow isn’t even gone yet. I spend much of my time at work outside… which I love.

Yesterday we volunteered at a Héma-Québec blood collection. I was the person that cleaned your arm, put on a bandaid, and made sure you weren’t going to pass out. It was an interesting experience… a good chance to practice my french too.. though several people couldn’t understand me very well. That’s okay. It’s hard enough to describe Katimavik in english, let alone a second language. I couldn’t donate blood myself (recent piercing) but most of our group did, at least everyone that was eligible. Overall it was a neat experience.. even including the awkward moments where I didn’t know what to say.

And now, I am off for the weekend. Have a good one : )

Sooo, I have been totally neglecting this lately.. I’m well aware of that.. the reasons being, not surprisingly, that we have been incredibly busy (and will continue to be so until the end of the program – there are actually zero free slots on the calendar left from here on out, and most weekends we are going to be gone altogether). As well, I was billeting, which was a really unique experience (as always). But, I had no internet there. The third reason is that the LCD on my laptop has crapped out on me.. Still under warranty but I haven’t had time to bring it anywhere, and don’t know if I’ll get it back before I leave now, anyway. So. No pictures, though rest assured I’m still taking them.

We went to Montréal this past weekend.. it was excellent. I am now especially looking forward to returning this summer.  And I met about a hundred excellent people during billeting. And… I have another hundred other things to do so those stories will have to wait. This weekend: Baie St. Paul from friday to saturday, with 110 other katimavik participants.. all staying in one house. A big house, but one house nonetheless. From there, we are heading to a monstery for a Retraite du Silence from saturday to sunday. A drastic change from 110 housemates, to be sure. Then Matt comes to visit for a few days… so it should be a good time all around. I hope I have time to let you know how it goes at some point, haha.

Ok, so after my last ranty post about snow, it’s been more or less melting!! We had another snowstorm this past weekend but otherwise it’s been disappearing pretty quickly. So nice. I’ve actually seen a few blades of grass that don’t look completely dead, maybe spring is coming after all.

We also hosted a kinball tournament this weekend. Four katimavik groups showed up, as well as a bunch of people from the community, and it was a good time. For those of you not familiar with kinball, this is sort of what it looks like:

The goal is to keep the ball from touching the ground. So three people have to crouch down and hold it, while the fourth person yells “omnikin” followed by the colour of another team (eg, omnikin rouge). Then the red team has to catch the ball.. and repeat the process. You gain points when you serve the ball and the team called doesn’t catch it. It’s actually a lot of fun, though I am still sore & covered in bruises. But, my team won the tournament, so it’s okay ; )

Josh and I were house manager this week, and we made a gigantic brunch beforehand for us & the Baie St-Paul group, who slept over:

It is rare to have a meal like that in Katimavik.. crepes, tons of fruit, bacon, eggs. Vegan sausage and crepes too, of course. It was also a lot of work to make something like that for 20 people but totally worth it.

This is a terrible picture and I will probably regret posting this in the future but, I still think it’s funny, and very “katimavik” so… this is what I look like, making bread at 7:30 in the morning:

Note the one piece pjs, the coffee that clearly hadn’t been touched yet, my squinty eyes and the unimpressed look, despite the fact I am smiling. But I have bread.

Since this post is all over the place already, I might as well keep going. Every week we have some sort of theme dinner.. I am not sure exactly what is going on in this picture, though, other than togas. Flowery togas.

also, the Chute Montmorency.. brilliantly, I forgot my camera in the van when we went up, so this is as good a picture as I got, but it was fairly impressive. Taller than Niagara Falls, apparently.

Yep, those little black specks at the bottom are people. We went over that bridge, too, which was terrifying, because the bridge was swaying but did not seem to be the type that’s SUPPOSED to be swinging..

And to finish things off here, if there is one thing I miss (that is not a person) it’s my bike. I am practically drooling when I see other people biking around town here… I think I need to find a garage-sale bike, or something, because I am aching to get out there & our house bike (which spent the winter in a snowbank under our stairs) looks like this..

Big ol’ pile of rust. Not something I would trust if I were to bike to work, for example, which requires going on the highway. Any better ideas?

Since I’ve been here, I haven’t posted much about my work.. actually, I haven’t posted anything.

I work at CPE Jardin D’Oseille, just outside of Lévis in Beaumont.  CPE (Centre de la Petite Enfance) meaning daycare, I work with kids from 0-5 years old. From the morning until naptime, after lunch, I am in the classes with the kids (the age group changes every day) and in the afternoon I usually do some kind of maintenance, cleaning or office work for the centre. I am really enjoying it.. this is definitely my favourite placement so far.

The language thing is not easy, of course, but it’s getting a lot better. Of course, none of the kids know any english.. a couple of the staff know a bit, but most speak only french. I myself have determined that I have the conversational skills of a 2-year-old francophone.. the 2-year-olds understand more, though. I came home with a massive headache every day of my first week there, but it’s gotten muuuuch better since then. I am learning, slowly. I usually understand what is being said to me, as long as it’s not spoken too fast. We have french lessons, but the real way I am learning is through my little notebook, which goes everywhere with me – and when I think of something I want to say, or hear something I don’t know, it goes in the book. This is pretty much saving my life right now.

Anyway, what is a post here without pictures. This is my main source of frustration here lately:

The snow.. never stops. That is what our snowbanks look like.. and this picture was taken a month ago, we have had a lot more since then. Granted, it also melts a bit in between, but so far not enough to make a big difference. It went up to 5 degrees here the other day, definitely the warmest since I’ve arrived, and it was the highlight of my week. Then.. it snowed again. I am usually anxious for spring, but especially now, because I don’t want spend all my time here in a snowbank. It looks like it’s supposed to be above 0 this week though, so I hope that makes a big difference.

Totally random, but that is the ferry from Québec to Lévis. I am always amazed when it makes it through all the ice on the river.
anyway, it is bed time. more pictures will have to come another time.

drrragons

I have been totally neglecting this lately.. just been incredibly busy. and now I am sick, actually. Probably due to exhaustion.

We went to the the Musée de la Civilisation on saturday, which was awesome. My favourite exhibits were the Urbanopolis, Lacor Hospital and Dragons exhibits. You can see many of the photos if you follow the Lacor Hospital link.. amazing stuff, though most of the images that I found the most moving are not on the site. Urbanopolis had some really neat ideas presented about future urban planning.. found it extremely interesting. Dragons was just fun, and I took some pictures there but was told I wasn’t allowed to as soon as I pulled out my camera in the Urbanopolis exhibit… which is too bad, I would have preferred pictures of that.

A big red dragon inthe dragon art section..

A giant “dragon skull” on display..

A spinning globe, with different society’s versions of dragons throughout history mapped on it..

Just a dragon-carved bench, but I loved the way the entire place was decorated and I thought this was a good example..

I thought you would probably like this, Erin.. I know I would totally hang this in MY living room, anyway.

Anyway, I had a really good time. This was probably the best museum I have ever been too.. everything was really well presented and thought out.. I would definitely go back (though most of these exhibits will be gone in a couple weeks). But yeah, good stuff.

tour of the house

I keep telling people our house is huge.. especially compared to Falher, so here are some pictures of it. We live on the second & third floors (there are 2-3 apartments on the floor under us) in old Lévis. The house is over 100 years old, all stone masonry.. I like it.

We usually come in through the back door/balcony, which leads into the living room..

..which is still decorated for Lyndon’s birthday. The “brick wall” is our group contract, and our calendars are busy, as you can see.

Go through the door on the right and you are facing the office:

To the left of here is the PL’s bedroom, the doorway on the right is the phone room, and this is also attached to the dining room:

And if I talk to you on the phone, this is where I am sitting, haha.

Now, if you went back to the living room, and straight through the door on the left instead, you would end up in the kitchen:

Yes! We have a real kitchen! With a table, a microwave and a funtioning stove! That is more than could be said for both of our other katimavik kitchens..

The closed door is the downstairs bathroom, the open doorway leads back to the living room/stairs. I took the kitchen picture from the doorway of the main girl’s bedroom:

So.. going up the stairs to get to my bedroom..

The stairs get mention because I almost fall down them every. single. day. That turn is deadly.

The upstairs bathroom/laundry room is boring but I love the walls:

Upstairs is also where the boy’s bedroom, the guest bedroom and another small hang-out room is, plus our room & a storage room.

Jasmine & I have the smallest room but it’s nice. I prefer it at night though:

…because I love seeing the lights from Quebec City across the river. So, now you know part of why I am already a lot happier here than in Alberta. I think having big windows & lots of daylight helps… even though it is still winter here (and consistently colder than Falher – what is up with that??)

A few last pictures from falher, since I posted almost nothing from that project, partly because I missed a lot of it. Also because we didn’t do much. So here’s some random crap.

Falher’s REAL main attraction is the slide, not the giant bee. It is five storeys tall and awesome:

boot marks from shooting down..

One of the few things I liked about Falher.

And .. again totally random but this is how I spent my last week at work:

Drawing big dinosaurs for the library! It was great.  I think I made four altogether..  then cut them out & made some other decorations. I love projects like this.

Ok, from here on in it’s all Lévis. woohoo.

pictures from jasper

I am in Lévis, Québec now.. it is fantastic. But this post is about Jasper.

I have a backlog of pictures from Falher still.. here I have internet and so can post them. Or some of them. On our second last weekend we went to Jasper.. neither my words nor images can accurately depict how beautiful it was, but here I go.

This is us, following the other katimavik group through the mountains. I took this through an extremely cracked & dirty windshield, so it’s not the best, but whatever.

What’s left of our group in the town of Jasper, hangin’ out on the ram statue.

The Columbia Icefield.  Looks small, doesn’t it? That’s misleading. We had quite a hike up to the glacier.

A big chunk of blue glacial ice popping out from under the snow.

Josh showing off in his favourite way.

Sunwapta falls.. I love half frozen waterfalls. We also went to the Maligne Canyon (which I think was my favourite… but I didn’t get any pictures that did the canyon even a fraction of justice, so I’m not posting it at all) and.. some other place, between the two, whose name I don’t know.  A picture from there, though:

All in all, a really great weekend. Even if it meant spending a good 18 hours in the van.  I want to go back when it’s summer.. not this summer, which is already full of other plans, but some day. Yeah, I have a lot of plans like this now, thanks to Katimavik…

Oook.. I have been gone a while. Due to a long string of complications I haven’t been able to use my laptop since I returned, which meant no pictures.. and I also had no internet, which together meant no posts.

I’m in a Jasper hostel right now, equipped with wireless, so I’m taking advantage of the situation.

Not much has been going on since I got back.. life as usual. Which, honestly, is going pretty badly right now -for myself, as a part of the group, and in my own personal life. I don’t really feel like going into it all on a public blog.. but I’m hanging in there.

So instead, I’ll put up pictures from Carnaval de St-Isidore – a french winter festival that a few people from our group, myself included, volunteered at. This is me as Hibou, the carnaval’s mascot:

Since that was most of our job, it’s also most of my pictures. It primarily involved group hugs and high fives…

It also occasionally involved understanding what the kids were saying to me excitedly in french, which I was not so good at. (I can typically catch on when it’s not spoken fast, or from all directions at once, but that was not the case here. Quebec is going to be interesting…)

That is Josh .. er, Hibou.. going down the hill on a saucer. The objective was to gain speed and knock down as many of these cardboard tubes at the bottom as possible, like a human bowling ball..

Hibou fell off before that point, however.

Horses pulling a sleigh:

Maple taffy in the snow. I am a sucker for this.

Mostly just walked around and entertained the school kids that were there, alongside Hibou. It was a decent time.

If you’re wondering where I’ve been… the answer is back in Winnipeg. For those of you who haven’t heard, this is why.

On December 22nd, a couple of us went to Grande Prairie to do some christmas grocery shopping. We failed to bring bags with us to superstore, and so the groceries were rolling around the back of the van, and I had the brilliant idea of getting some boxes from the “Real Canadian Liquorstore“. Well, they didn’t want to give us any, so I ran across the street to get some out of a recycling bin.. but I only made it halfway across the street, after slipping on black ice and breaking my ankle.  This made me eligible for a leave of absence, and I came back to Winnipeg on the 25th, intending to return to the program in about two weeks.

Two weeks have passed, and the doctor has other plans.. he wants me to stay here for at least an additional two weeks, for another checkup and some physio. The good news is, my ankle is healing very nicely, and I’ve had a nice chance to see friends & family. The bad news is, I’d really like to be back and doing the fun things we planned like the trip to Jasper this weekend and Edmonton next weekend, but instead I’m stuck inside in Winnipeg.

So.. I guess I’ll continue this whenever it is that I get back.

a brief photo-tour

So. Here’s an update. I’ve been super super super busy with everything going on between work and christmas and so on.. you are probably all doing the same.

This.. is Falher. Okay, there’s more to it than that. I can see this from our house though (it’s how our street ends).

This is our house:

This was taken one of the few and lucky times I’ve seen the sun since I’ve been out here.. I’m at work before it’s actually up and not done until it’s setting. Can you believe we fit 11 people in here? Somehow, we’re making it work, though.

This is our kitchen/dining/living room. Cozy.

And.. the girls’ bedroom:

My bed is the one in the middle of the picture, bottom bunk. I have since turned it into a sort of a cave.. it’s half covered in a sheet, most of the time. There are now only 6 in this room, since Hanh left on Monday.

I work at the elementary school here, Ecole Routhier. It’s pretty decent.. my favourite place is the library:

.. largely because I love books, and enjoy the company of the librarian, but also because the upstairs has some lovely couches and beanbags and is a great quiet place to take my breaks. We don’t get a lot of that at the house, nor in the classrooms (I am most often with the grade ones, who I have yet to experience a quiet moment with). Which is not to say I’m not enjoying the experience.. it’s good to know that I am making a difference in the classroom. I mostly work 1:1 with the kids that the teacher doesn’t want to deal with, and it can be hard but it’s rewarding.

Also, did I mention the couches?

Just kidding.. Today was pajama day and this is Kayla blending in with the couch.. we wore our matching red bumflap pajamas. It was awesome.

oh, falher..

So.. my posting may not be so frequent this time around. And since it wasn’t all that frequent to begin with, that’s not a great sign.

Things in the house have been pretty rough this week. Our new PL arrived, she seemed cool, then she withdrew and laid down a bunch of rules that we didn’t agree with (including no wireless internet allowed, hence my potential lack of posting and/or pictures in the future). Tension grew within the house.. this house is about half the size of our last one, it’s really only a one bedroom (for 11 people). There are 7 girls sleeping in the porch or what would probably be the living room area if we had a living room area.. as it stands we have a kitchen/dining room in one for common space, one bathroom, and then our own cramped rooms. Add the complete lack of privacy and space to the lack of freedom (between strict rules and being placed in a very small, remote community in winter) and people were getting understandably frusterated, taking it out on anyone in their way. I personally felt like I was losing it and considered going home (which I’m not) because three months of that would be unbearable.. we’ve since worked stuff out and life is still considerably more restricted than it was previously but.. there are either ways to get around it or deal with it. Hanh, however, has decided to leave the program, bringing us down to 9 instead of the original 11 in our group. I’m extremely sad to see her go.

So, that all said, I can’t actually post any of my falher pictures yet, until I find a good opportunity to sneak the internet back to my laptop. Unlike Truro, there’s no wireless to be found that I know of, and dragging my laptop around in the snow is not a great idea anyway. There are still pictures from NS though.. after this it’s all falher.

A random building in downtown halifax..

A very neat store called the Black Market, also in Halifax:

More Hali pictures & other stuff behind the cut: