Saturday morning we had class to make up for the day that we missed last week. After classes I went grocery shopping and found bagged milk and 10$ cheese sticks... seriously.
Bags of milk- hard to pour no?
I headed downtown with two other girls to go to mass at the Notre-Dame Basilica Cathedral. It was very beautiful and quite cool to listen to (and understand!) mass in French. The ceiling of the church was either painted with clouds or enchanted to look like the sky outside... :) The had a large organ in the back of the church but maybe I'm spoiled with the Cathedral's organ at home because I didn't find it as impressive- is it bad to say that about a church organ?!
Gilded fixtures decorating the sanctuary.
After mass, we exited the Basilica and found ourselves in perfect position to watch a street performance- we didn't stay long though as we were meeting the rest of our group for dinner. As we made our way back up the streets, we found ourselves in the midst of another street act. A group of performers on stilts were disguised as birds and walked among the crowds- playing tricks on some of the shop owners along the way. Crowds of people would stop to watch them for a bit and separate as they made there way through the streets. We had almost reached our friends when we came across another act. (I hope it doesn't sound like I'm making this up... there really were performances everywhere!) This performance consisted of a group of four men that were dressed in leather costumes and controlled a sort of horse machine. I'm not the biggest horse fan to begin with but this was pretty cool. One guy played the drums and added horse sound effects while the others trotted around the street. Hahaha, it was really bizarre but cool at the same time.
Bird creatures being tricky
Man controlling an over sized horse puppet
We left the horse stampede and went up to one of the free stages to listen to an American band- Soul Rebels- for a bit. They were good and used a lot of saxophones and brass instruments. They were cool. We met our friends for dinner at a burger place nearby and finally got to sample the 'poutine'. Poutine is a traditional Quebecois dish made with fries and gravy (and our version included cheese curds). Honestly, I wasn't crazy about these. I wanted to try it but now that I have I think I will be happy with fries and ketchup from now on.
The hamburger buns were really skinny- I don't know if they dropped the package mine was in or if they're always served like that. I'll keep you posted on my findings... And the poutine in all its glory is to the right.
After dinner we went to watch a few of the free shows away from the music stages. We walked back towards the Basilica to the Seminaire de Quebec which was the old Laval University and now houses a high school. We watched a silent film that was projected onto the courtyard wall and was accompanied by a live group of musicians. The movie was a comedy- like those of Charlie Chaplin and so one of the musicians played the drums and did a number of other sound effects into a microphone. The other men played the violin (shoutout to my siblings- this could be you someday), a cello and a keyboard. It was a great performance and unlike anything I had ever experienced before!
Musical illustration of a silent film
As we left our seats to exit the courtyard, we saw a number of people coming up the stairs on stilts and wearing what appeared to be large garbage bags. I was naturally perplexed and stayed to watch and see what was about to happen. The bag people walked around for awhile and usually clustered around the large lights for the stages. Then after a few minutes of that they crossed the courtyard to an open area and began to spin on their stilts. Their bags/costumes began to inflate and they ended up forming an inflatable costume that lit up at different intervals. They did a show with dancing and at the end they threw really large balloons to the crowd and we hit those those around for awhile. One of my friends got hit in the face by an unruly child that had left the watchful eye of his parents. Luckily it was just by a balloon though so all was well.
You can see the person if you look closely at the middle of the figure body. These guys were cool.
Our last artistic venture was to listen to Deltron 3030 back at the free stage. He's an American rapper- I wasn't crazy about most of his songs but he uses a large assortment of instruments so it was cool to listen to that combination. After the concert we looked for one of the bars that our tour guide suggested the other day and found a table to sit for awhile. Our server was very nice and patient with our French which was great. I've found that almost everyone here appreciates the effort that you make with speaking French even if it takes longer to understand what you are trying to communicate. We took the bus back to campus and ended a very full day!
I woke up early Sunday morning because I had signed up for a hiking trip at Jacques-Cartier National Park. The park was about an hour away from campus and once we arrived we split into a few groups so that we wouldn't take up the entire trail with our large group. I was in the last group and couldn't help but notice the attire of some of my fellow hikers. Something about bejeweled flats and full eye-makeup made me realize that some people must not have understand 'randonnee' (hiking) when they read it in the activity book. Either that or we have two very different ideas of appropriate hiking gear.
I loved the hike. It was absolutely beautiful in the park and well worth the early wake-up time. We had lunch at one of the observation points and the view was incredible:
Coming back down the mountain I stopped at a few places to take pictures and admire the scenery. I also found a small frog- I know I know, such an explorer. My group made it back to the bottom first so we went down to the beach by the river and hung out for awhile. I chatted with some of the leaders about rowing and canoeing which was awesome. They had a lot of questions for me and I think I explained everything well but some of the specifics may have been lost in translation. Talking to them about rowing made me miss it a lot but taking another look at the river made me happy to not have to do it there...
Lots of rocks and rapids would definitely complicate a row...
We took a few pictures by the river and then made our way back to the buses. It was a great day spent in the park!
A sample of my river photoshoot. Trying to look adventurous...
Upon returning to campus I made some dinner, finished up a little homework and then spent some quality time on Skype. I am absolutely loving it here but it was great to talk to my family and friends and see their faces and it made me a little homesick. It's reassuring to know that those I love are just a video chat away if I need them. Okay, that was sappy but it's true haha!
It was a great weekend in Quebec and I'm pumped to see what the week will bring me!
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