These are the stragglers:

The costume ball




Me, Adrienne, and Jessica, all from ASU






Alysha and I. She's in SCA and makes her own "renaissance" clothes. She usually dresses as a Mongol, but I guess it was all too heavy to bring. Would have been nice though ;p





This is the Star Cafe, a 24 hour coffee shop/restaurant with free high speed internet, great coffee and great food. I spent a decent amount of time there.

I finally had a nice visit to old Quebec the day before I left!! I really hadn't had time before that, but I couldn't live with myself if I didn't explore and take lots of pictures. So here they are:













Some bagpipe players at the Festival de la Nouvelle France. "New France" is what they called the Quebec region when the french settlers moved in during the 1600's. The native tribes then called the french that "Canadiens" before the brits invaded. Canada means "small village". Quebec wasn't named as such until Canada finally decided they would "allow" the original colonists, the french, stay there and be a province of the nation of Canada. At the time of the british invasion, the french settlers, who at that time didn't identify with France anymore, had most of what's Canada today. The quebecois' mistake was that they were too spread out, while the brits were more condenced, less agricultural, more militaristic, so that's why the brits got their way. After 400 years of living in Canada, the french are still a minority and still have problems with having a say in their daily lives. There have been some compromises, but many still want to be autonomous and seperate from Canada. It's understandable why the rest of Canada doesn't want this, since Quebec has ma large amount of natural resources. Either way, they've had the short end of the stick: genocide/ethnic cleansing (really!), economic hardships, identity theft (it was illegal for a while to speak french or practice catholicism), and a lot of subtle problems. All in all, it's surprising how friendly and happy the Quebecois are. I think they really appreciate what they have, which is a lot when you consider how beautiful it is up there, and how they appreciate the "little" beauties of life, such as nature and people/friendships, and family...the simple life. Anyway, they do have a lot of pride in their roots (I'm jealous!!), so they have a festival to celebrate the agricultural bliss that they had when they first moved up there (incidently, the native tribes and the Quebecois got along for the most part...I'm starting to think that the brits were just plain evil during the 17th century...they just didn't like anyone who was not brit - french, natives, Scots...blah!)










Street drummers during the festival. Lots of drums=Alex very happy!!! I weaseled my way up to the front ;p








Some kids reenacting a laundry cleaning session as it would have been in the 17th Century. There were a lot of such exhibits during the festival. I learned how they used to make felt, from some guy who was pretending to be a "coureur du bois" (a wood runner), trappers. There were also a lot of geneology booths. I recognized a lot of quebecois names of people I'd met. Really neat. Makes me so jealous that I don't have a way to connect to my roots.




One of the many murals in the old town. I really love Quebec!!! ;p



ANother one






This ia an object of much interest for tourists. Yes, it's a canonball from the 17th C when the brits invaded. A tree grew around it. Neat, huh? :)




The entrance to the citadel, shaped like an "S" to deter canonballs from crashing the gate.




The guards at the citadel, which is still used by a regiment of the Canadian military




The changing of the guards














Some kind of mammal/rodent. I tried to figure out what it could be on the net, but couldn't find it. It was sitting on some stairs I needed to go down, looking at me out of the corner of its eye. I finally decided to move toward it slowly, both because I didn't want it to bite me, and because I wanted to get a closer look at it. It darted off into the bushes though.




Some of the many street performers in old Quebec.




There were stones on this one street which showed where the river bank was from century to century. The distance from 1600 to today is around 500 feet. They filled in the banks to make more space for buildings. The river is still very very wide today though, and Quebec is at its most narrow point. (Quebec means "where the river shortens")












One of the many pretty statues in town




Me in front of one of the doorways to the old city










Some more performers. I bought their cd because it was just great folky quebec songs! :)










Some original docs from the founded of the "Caisse Populaire" of Quebec (I forget his name). This guy was a great leader for the common quebecois because he basically founded his "people's bank" to give farmers, and other poor people a chance to save money, rather than pay very high fees, etc. He did some other things for social change, giving people more health benefits and other necessities. Basically, before this guy came around, Quebec was more or less still a feudal system.








The poster at the entrance to the Quebec exhibit at the cultural museum (also where I saw the autopsy and light exhibits, and the one that is supposedly haunted...see previous post about the ghost tour)




This guy did caricatures on the street (Italian guy - apparently there are a lot of Italians in Quebec). Can you tell he was into the girl I was hanging out with ;p






Another sculpture on the street. This one reminds me of the carnivalesque characteristic of Quebec (ie: Cirque du Soleil, etc)

The ASU group bought 2 cakes for the animateurs as a "thank you"

Here's a pic of my Oral Expressions class. The girl in the green shirt was one of the girls I did my presentation with. She was in all 3 of my classes. She's from Alberta and teaches french in primary school (grade school). Since French is an official language in Canada, they start them early...if only!!!

There were 3 "talent shows". You basically auditioned and got to play if they had space. Some of the "animateurs" (kind of like camp counselors) would do little skits in between the individual performances to introduce people. Unfortunately, when I played the song I wrote up there, there seemed to be some confusion and I didn't get introduced, and they didn't seem to know when to put me on, so I just walked on and introduced myself. Luckily, though I was nervous, I just let go, didn't care, and played pretty well because of that. A lot of people, some I knew and others I didn't, came up to me afterwards and said they liked it. Felt good. That was the first time I ever played in front of so many people (around 600). I really got a taste of what bands and soloists feel when they have stagefright, but then just let go when it's time to get it done. That's the key really. When you're afraid to mess up, you can be tense the whole time and not have any fun at all, and most often do mess up. But if you just don't care, and act like you meant to screw up, then it usually turns out pretty well. That also leaved room for musicality...putting emotion into the performance. Without that, the song can be played perfectly but something will be missing. If you mess up, but put some passion into the performance, then people will relate to that, and will appreciate it. Also, that's the only way, for me anyway, to enjoy it. It's more like I'm playing it for no one but myself. Amazingly, I had several people tell me that I didn't look nervous at all. They should have seen me drinking a ton of water and pacing backstage...haha. Anyway, here are the pictures:



The animateurs dacing like robots




I was in the choir for the last show. I never get nervous in choirs just because I'm not by myself. I couple girls were. The director was really great. Top quality!!! He was definitely on the same level as the better directors I've had in regional and all-state choirs, which says a lot!!




There were some classes that performed songs as a group. It was really cute! :)




This is Clara again. She has a beautiful voice! I don't know why she isn't doing musical theater! She sang "vivre" from the Hunchback of Notre Dame.





She got Drew to play with her. Drew is a high school french teacher, and was in my grammar and oral expressions classes. He's a really nice guy and plays the piano beautifully! His style reminds me of my grandma's playing style. Swanky!! ;p





This girl was being a board.




This was part of a long skit performed by the theater workshop kids. Alysha and Daniel were both in that workshop. The skit was hilarious, and had lots of inside jokes, some of them french jokes, like in this picture (I'd have to remember all they said to tell you about it, sorry:





Alysha chugging french syrum. Magically, she spoke french fluently after that ;p




This guy was awesome!!! He played a Snoop Dogg song folk style hehe. It was really funny.




Robert Petit, talking to Snoop Dogg. ;p






One of the animateurs being all quebecois and stuff :)




Frederique. He's an animateur who is studying translation. He also sings/plays guitar. He and a couple other animateurs did a weekly workshop for quebecois music. Very good guitarist and singer. Jovan, the guy who played with him plays lead very well too!!




Robert Petit again. The guy who plays him isn't a nerd at all. He's actually a quebecois rapper hehe ;p I've heard some of his rapping at the quebecois music workshop, and he's really great. His lyrics are very poetic, and he talks about a lot of social issues, specifically dealing with quebecois issues, non-violence, hunger in the world....and women haha. He definitely was a "skirt chaser", and was in paradise with all these young girls around (there were probably 2 girls to every 1 guy there). But he was pretty cool anyway ;p I wonder if he's written a rap about what's going on in Lousiana. He's pretty vocal about the greediness of americans. And, cajuns=acadians=originally from Quebec.





All of the animateurs.




The program made a huge cake for all of the students with the Laval crest on it. Was pretty :)



And this is me singing




We also watched a video that one of the animateurs made as a souvenir. I bought one. It was really well done!!! This guy, Herve, is really creative and I wouldn't be surprised if we see his name at an independent film festival, or at one of those theaters that shows the interesting/weird films (Camelview, etc) pretty soon. He really had an eye and an ear for artistic film.

Nost of the entire program in Quebec went on a short cruise on the St. Laurent river. It lasted about 4 hours. They had DJs and drinks, so you can imagine the craziness when you get a bunch of college in that environment. It was pretty fun. Since it was at night, it was very pretty to see the city lights. We also passed under the Pond de Quebec, and the waterfall (I've talked about both in the past). Here they are:



this is Clara. She's also a french major at ASU and is graduating this winter.




This is Alysha. She's a music major (composition) at ASU and is staying in Quebec for a year while her partner studies linguistics at Laval. He also went to Quebec twice, I think for the summer studies program. They have a cute son who is two years old, named Alex. :)
















Barbara and Paula. Barbara is getting 2 masters at ASU in French literature, and ESL, and is the assistant program director for the summer studies program in Quebec. She is also a TA and teaches French at ASU. She also sings and plays guitar :)




The Pont de Quebec




Barbara and Daniel (from Ohio), one of her housemates, cutting a rug ;p Daniel was also in choir with me














The Pont de Quebec at night. I love industrial structures :) :)










Kind of strange, but we didn't have a ride back home at 1am, even though they gave us a ride there. We had to take the bus or a taxi, but I got to see these neat murals on an underpass in the city while I was waiting for the bus.

The ASU group went to an Auberge (Inn) that's in the oldest part town in Quebec (400 years old). The food was amazing!! On the way to the Auberge, we stopped at a bee museum, and at the Saint-Anne de Beaupre basilique. Here are some pics:


This is the group















A lady from the bee museum telling us about, and letting us taste honey wine.

























These are some tiles on the floor of the basilique that had various symbolic pictures, such as the treasure chest, meaning greed, etc. I thought they were pretty, and interesting, and I wondered how many people looked down to see them.

I've actually been home for a while now, but I haven't had a chance to update.  I still have a few things I wanted to post, as well as a bunch of pictures.

fireworks at the Chutes Montmorency