day 12

Fireworks were amazing last night!  There’s an international competition going on and Italy was competing last night.  Apparently it was the best one so far.  The pre-show Beaver Tail was delicious (a pastry with toppings; I chose chocolate, reeses pieces and peanut butter).  Yumsies!

This morning’s class starts out with the rest of the student presentations, so we learn about Equador, Brazil, D.C. and Windsor, ON.  Everyone stays to their time limit, thank the gods.  Next our prof does a multimedia presentation about the history of Quebec and the French in Canada, and it’s actually pretty interesting.  She plays some songs with different French accents and some trailers for a couple popular French movies.  Still haven’t seen Polytechnique but I will definitely check it out when I get home.  Yay, no grammar lesson today.  We have another quiz tomorrow though, boooo.

The afternoon conversation workshop is better than usual, though still not terribly helpful.  We’re given a couple words and have to come up with a story that includes them and then the other students try to guess what our words were.  It goes well, though some people come up with stories that are much more elaborate than necessary.  It’s still hard to understand French with a Spanish accent. They actually speak better than I do but I’m really not accustomed to the Spanish language.  Just when I think I’m doing well with my French another language starts playing with my head!

I was talking with one of my classmates and he has the most amazing job I’ve ever heard of.  He’s a rich guy’s assistant and he gets to travel around the world to look after the amazing properties (and gets to stay for weeks at a time).  The rich guy is an interior designer from Montreal.  He showed us pictures of one of the properties in Mexico and it looks like it’s straight out of a magazine; beachfront, infinity pool, impeccable design (naturally).  Unbelievable!

I’m off to do a bit of shopping; a group from school is going to a fancy nightclub tomorrow night so I must buy some appropriate shoes.

day 10 & 11

I fell a bit behind in my posting yesterday!  So very sorry.  But my room was not somewhere to hang out in 35 degree weather.  So now it’s a double dose, but don’t get too excited because I haven’t taken any pictures for this entry.

Day 10

Typical morning grammar lesson.  We move from pronoms relatifs simple to pronoms relatifs composes (lequel, auquel, duquel, etc.)  Lots of fun exercises.  I’ve learned some of this before, but it’s something that takes a while to sink in.

A guided tour of Plateau Mont Royal is planned for the afternoon instead of a conversation workshop.  This is the chic quartier of Montreal where all the wealthy people live.  I didn’t bring my camera so I’ll have to go back and take a few pictures.  A lot of townhouses and outdoor staircases.  That’s about all I get from the guided tour since all I can concentrate on is the oppressive heat.  Whose idea was this anyway.  I meet a few new people from another class, one from Australia and one from San Francisco.  Apparently it’s hippie-chic to travel the world and learn French.  Where do they live, no where right now; what are their plans, travel and see where it leads them.  Ok.  I’m one of the only people in this program with a full-time job.

Karaoke night!  We meet up with the other students and head over to La Boite de Karaoke for some fun times.  This place serves huge pitchers of beer, a necessity for timid singers.  Well, it turns out that they aren’t that timid after all.  A few other patrons of the establishment warm up the crowd, and then one of ours starts things off with a rousing rendition of Single Ladies (complete with dance moves).  Things get crazier from then on, with the likes of Oasis, Backstreet Boys, Barry White, Shakira, Kid Rock, and so many more.  By the end of the night, there’s a dance party on the Karaoke stage and everyone is singing along to the songs.

On our way back to residence, we stop at BK for a little snack.  While there, we strike up a conversation with another couple of revelers.  One is an Olympian (or something olymp-ish), the other takes care of his 95 year old grandmother and wants us to join his Settlers of Catan board game team.  Bai!

Day 11

Didn’t get a lot of sleep last night, so class is a bit rough.  We tackle another verb tense, conditionnel passe, which I still haven’t really processed so I’ll have to explain another time.  More fun exercises in the notebook.

At lunch I walk over the the Grande Bibliotheque to take a look.  It’s huge!  5 floors of library awesomeness.  It’s a bit surprising to me that everything is in French.  I guess that’s how she rolls here in the QC.

Afternoon conversation workshop is another useless activity of the students trying to come up with common sayings, terms or phrases for common situations.  TEACHER how is this helpful?  These classes make me appreciate the Alliance Francais classes much more!

Tonight we’re going to a fireworks show and to eat some beaver tails.

day 09

It’s getting a bit hard to keep track of which day I’m on…almost up to the double digits!  Today’s class consists of two hours of my classmates presenting something about their hometown or country.  The time limit is supposed to be between 5 and 10 minutes.  But man, Spanish-speaking people love to talk!  Let’s do the math: there are 15 people in class; that means each person can take up to 8 minutes for their presentation.  We start at 9h30.  By 10h30, 4 people have presented.  By 12h00, 10 people have presented.  Figure that out.

My presentation was on New Brunswick, of course.  I have some visuals and supplemented them with dialogue.  It’s available at http://prezi.com/8jc8iagexc-x/n-b/ if you’re interested.  You can make up your own French narration.

The afternoon conversation workshop doesn’t really involve any conversation.  It’s getting a bit frustrating;  I wish that there was more talking and less teaching.  We learn the names of some traditional French cuisine (next time you eat a cinnamon bun, remember that the French name for it is “pet de soeur,” literally “sister fart”).  We also learn some Quebecois sayings.  “Etre sur son 36″ means to have a chic outfit; “C’est quetaine” means something is ugly.  OK!

After class it’s raining, so the sun isn’t glaring down but it’s still muggy as hell and 30 degrees.  My classmates are taking the Metro back to the residence (which to me seems like a waste of time since it takes just as long as walking, but they have Metro cards so they can use it as often as they like).  We decide to go see a French movie tonight.  Should be fun!

day 08

Tam-Tam Sunday!  For those of you who don’t know what a tam-tam is, I guess it’s a person who goes to a park to play drums with other drummers.  I’m pretty sure this only happens in Montreal, at the Park surrounding the Sir George-Etienne Cartier Monument (which is now my favourite monument–spectacular).  An amazing experience!

The variety of people alone keeps me people watching for a couple hours.  There are people playing music on drums, guitars (acoustic and electric), saxophones, and flutes (*side-note, Oxford comma 4 eva).  There are people throwing footballs, catching frisbees, kicking sacky-sacks (mom’s terminology), playing CROQUET, performing martial arts, dancing, walking tightropes, playing RISK, and even fighting with swords.  There are hipsters and hippies, tokers and smokers, homeless and braless, and everything in between.  It’s great!  Oh yeah, and there are a bunch of vendors selling jewellery, clothing, crafts, and more.  I buy a couple pairs of earrings and some cards.  I seem to buy cards whenever I go on vacation.  I just love the artistic medium of the greeting card I guess.

I still feel like I have a lot to see in Montreal even though I’ve already been here for a week.  The further I walk, the more there is to see!  On my way home from the park I see a SAQ sign (in Quebec this means liquor store).  I buy a couple beer to help me finish my homework.  We’ll see if it works!

(Last two pictures – one is for matthew, the other is because I smelt burnt toast)

day 07

Saturday, the day to sleep in.  Or, the day to wake up at the same time and not being able to fall back asleep but not wanting to get out of bed so watching online tv too long and getting a headache day.  Yep.  Started out as a lazy day.  Around 2pm I kick it into high-er gear and decide to go for another walk to Vieux Montreal since I was only there once at night.  It’s packed!  There are swarms of people out enjoying the sunshine.  I enjoy it at first too.  I stroll around and snap a few pics.

There’s a trapeze show going on that I stop and watch.  Nothing too crazy but it’s entertaining.  The heat starts getting to me and I look for some shade.  I’ve seen Indiana Jones exhibition posters around and, hey, there’s the Montreal Science Centre.  I pretty much have no choice but to head in and check it out.  No pictures are allowed unfortunately.  But I get to see Indy’s outfits, the whip AND THE HOLY GRAIL!  I have chosen wisely (to attend this exhibition).  Also, everyone’s given a little touchscreen device with earphones that plays video and sound clips to accompany the exhibits.  Very cool.  I’ve never been to this type of exhibition before so it was almost worth the $23 price of admission.

That stuff takes quite a while and I’m tired out so I head back to residence.  Now that I kind of know the quickest route, it only takes around 15 minutes to walk back.  Probably won’t do much else today since it’s tough meeting up with people when you don’t have a phone.  How did people ever find each other back in the pre-texting days?

day 06

Just a brief update today, lots to do this evening.  Last night I went out to La Distillerie bar with a group of classmates.  Apparently it’s hip.  It’s a bar that sells mixed drinks in either small or massive mason jars.  I thought it was packed when we got there, but when we left there was a lineup to get in!  Just to drink!  Currazy.

In class we have a test, not too tough.  But then comes a new grammar lesson, the dreaded que/qui/dont/ou.  I’ve learned these before but it’s over my head how one decides when to use each one.  I’ll have to go over the rules in English to see if that helps at all–something to do with subject verb agreement and complement of the direct object vs. complement of the indirect object.  Fun stuff.  A lot of this complicated stuff isn’t even used in spoken French.

Friday is the Talkin’ with your mouth full session, which is a picnic lunch with our professor.  Chit chat in French for 1.5 hours.  And afterwards a French movie: La grande seduction.  It’s about a small French village in Gaspesie that tries to get a doctor to come live in their village so that they can open a factory.  It’s actually very amusing and I understand most of the dialogue.

Now I’m off to get some groceries for the weekend and coming week!

day 05

Biodome day!

But first, I should go through all the grammar lessons we went over today.  I have a quiz tomorrow, AND we had our first homework assignment.  We’re only human…

Actually today’s grammar lesson isn’t bad.  I’ve never learned the futur anterior verb tense before.  It’s one of the easier ones.  In English, we say “We will go to the beach once you have completed your homework.”  So it’s a future action once removed.  Two actions occurring in the future, one before the other.  It’s really hard to explain French grammar.

Next is reading a French poem and analyzing its literary themes.  The Spanish kids go off on a tangent about rhythm and syllables in Spanish vs. French.  Our assignment is to write our own poem based on another poem we’re given.  Should be interesting hearing what everyone came up with tomorrow morning!

I take a walk during the lunch break, looking for a cafe and a park.  I eventually find a decent looking park without any sketchy people laying on the benches.  I’m not having much luck finding places to eat that serve more than wraps.  I can only eat so many tuna wraps, as good as they are.

At 1:30pm we meet up for our trip to the Biodome.  Another trip on the Metro!  I love the Metro here.  My classmate from Toronto says it’s much cleaner and safer than Toronto’s.  It only takes us 5 minutes to get across the city to the Biodome.  There are 5 ecosystems inside, and–oh goody–first up is the tropical rainforest.  It was already hot enough outside, but walking into the rainforest is like walking into a huge sauna.  Insta-sweat.  It’s pretty neat, but it’s hard to concentrate on anything but getting to the next room.  Laurentian Maple Forest, Gulf of St. Laurence, Labrador Coast, Sub-antarctic Islands.  Each has some interesting sights.  My favorites: tidal pools full of sea anemones and sea urchins, penguins, and the PUFFINS!  Yes, after the long puffin quest of ’10 here I am in front of lots of the little critters running about and trying to make nests.  Unfortunately they’re behind glass and I can’t pet one.

Do you think the animals think they’re out in the wild?