Panoramas

I haven't had time to write a blog post for a while, and I don't know when I will, so for now I will leave you with some panoramas I have taken while here in Quebec.

Summer festival in Vieux-Quebec

On the ferry on the way to Levis

In Levis

On the way back to Vieux-Quebec

View of the bridges from the Aquarium 

L'autobus

The bus is my main mode of transportation here, except when I miss it then I hope my host-mom is able to give me a ride. For the first half of the week I took the bus to and from my home-stay with at least one of my roommates. Then the time came when I had to take it...alone.

Classes and Jumah

I'm taking 3 classes here, one about French grammar, oral expression and phonetics. All my teachers are humorous and encouraging to their students to improve our French. My grammar class is mostly doing exercises and going over them in class. Also if you arrive to class late you have to sing in front of the class. I was the first one to be late because I had to go to the clinic in the morning, but luckily she let it go that time. Oral expression is mostly discussion based and for the final we have to participate in a debate. Phonetics, my favorite class, is about the 'musique' of the the language. I'm learning so much about why words are pronounced the way they are and about the rhythmic nature of speaking French. If French phonetics is this cool Arabic phonetics must be awesome.

Books for my classes

Le pique-nique au Fleuve St. Laurent

There's a river called Le Fleuve St. Laurent or St. Lawrence River about 5-10 minutes away from my home-stay and we had a picnic on the riverbank. 

Roomie birthday

My host mom is so sweet. For my roommate's birthday she put a poster with "Joyeux Anniversaire" (Happy Birthday) on it and balloons on her door the night before. For dinner we had homemade pizza and for dessert this awesome chocolate cupcake mountain thing, which by the way is even better because the frosting was my two favorite colors!

My residence

The house I'm staying at is very pretty and quaint, like many of the houses in Québec. There is a beautiful garden in the back which has many different kinds of plants, bird feeders and birdbaths. I've seen really cool yellow birds and red birds chilling back there sometimes. We usually eat dinner on the patio table which makes for a great atmosphere, except for the voracious mosquitoes who seem to like my blood more than the others.

First day in Québec

In my home-stay breakfast is served around 7am everyday. For the first day I ate some crepes with Nutella, some fruit, and some water. Every morning I have to keep an eye on the time because the bus which takes us to university only comes every hour. I'm really glad the other 3 girls and I left together because I wouldn't know which bus to take or where to go once I arrived at the school.

Laval campus- Pavillon Louis-Jacques-Casault

Québec, le debut

As I was waiting at the gate for my flight during my 3 hour connection on the way to Québec, I was creeping on people that were coming to the sitting area, trying to see if they were Canadian or not. I had my eye on this one family for a while that looked like Québecois but when I got closer to them I realized they were Germans. I lost hope. But then a little later I saw more people coming and lo and behold they were speaking French! More and more French speakers were arriving as the time to board approached and I was getting really excited.

To Chicago