Week 2: Quebec City and first day at school

Week 2 has been another busy week! In my last blog post, I wrote that I was going to see the school on Wednesday morning for the first time and indeed, I went with my mentor and met some of the English teachers that I'm working with. As I'm writing this, I've already presented to 6 classes! So yes, it's been a journey...

Chateau Fortenac in Quebec City

MacDonald's poutine!

After seeing the school, I came back home and with my housemate I went to try the local cuisine and by that I mean I visited the Quebecois McDonald's for the first time. It was definitely a thoroughly cultural experience because you can in fact upgrade your fries to poutine for a couple extra dollars...I must say apart from the poutine, I thought the rest of the food was pretty disappointing but who isn't always disappointed by maccies, unless you're super hungry after a night out! To make up for this, dinner was a lot better! My housemate made us Maple syrup glazed salmon which was incredible!

You can add maple syrup to anything! 

Thursday was a big day out. My housemate took me to see Quebec City and we visited his grandparents. I loved Quebec City; it's so pretty. The architecture is very interesting with some of it reminding me very much of towns and cities that I've visited in Europe.

On Friday night, I went to meet up with the other two language assistants in Riviere-du-Loup which is a 50 minute drive away from La Pocatiere. I got a lift after school with one of the English teachers who lives there and commutes. When I met up with the girls, we went to a microbrewery. There are so many microbreweries in Quebec! It was good fun and very busy. The next day, we came back to mine and we were going to go to a bread festival and to watch an American football game but decided against this because it was very cold! I really need to get a good jacket soon!

On Sunday and Monday, I spent time preparing my presentation for the English classes. I made it into a game where the kids could guess the answer to my questions and get points for correct guesses. For example, if they guessed correctly where I was from etc. Yesterday and today I presented it to 6 different classes already and they seem to have enjoyed it! Some of them have a lot of questions about England. They found the fact that we don't get much snow in England shocking and the fact that schools close because we get about 15cm of it hilarious. They couldn't believe we didn't have to change our tyres to winter tyres!

Traditional Quebecois dish: Tourtiere

Today, I also went to a club which runs for residents of La Pocatiere. It is for people who want to keep fit by walking and doing various strength exercises. It was me and about 20 OAPs but it was very good fun! Especially doing jumping jacks in the car park of the Ice Rink...

Tomorrow I'm going in to teach one more lesson and I think I might be going for a hike in the mountains! Should be good to experience some Canadian nature; maybe I'll see a bear or moose...

Side note: the myth about Canadians being super nice and baking cookies for each other must be true because my housemate always comes home with cookies that his colleagues have baked for him!