Yesterday was possibly the most interesting day here. I was up for almost 24 hours straight, something that we seem to be experts at accomplishing in this city. In the morning during class, our professor surprised us with an assignment in town. We were each given a quebecois expression and had to go ask a local what the meaning of it was. We went out in our groups, or advanced/intermediate pairs, to accomplish this. James and I finished the task in about 10 minutes, so we spent the rest of our 45 minutes overlooking the river and talking. After class, Fatima, Chloe, Julia and I went to our favorite little local restaurant, Chez Temporel. The food is always delicious but they never have enough people working.
For dinner we went on a nighttime cruise. We got box dinners and the boat traveled up and down the river several times. Once the sun went down, the boat turned into a sort of night club and we spent a couple hours dancing and having a good time. After the cruise, Julia, Fatima, Claire and I went to Chez Dagobert. The four of us were tired and not really expecting anything interesting to happen, clueless about what the universe had in store for us. On our way there, I had stopped to put on some lip gloss. Two guys walked by and one of them said to me in French, something like, "You don't need any lipstick, you're already beautiful." We just kept walking. The men here really are one of a kind. We met up with a friend we met during the first week, Xavier, and three of his friends, Max, Nic and Andres. We went inside and were delighted to be able to listen to some Quebecois white boy rap. Once we had our fill, we continued upstairs to the dance floor. Xavier was nice enough to teach me a Quebecois dance move named "le tabarnak." The word "tabarnak" is a quebecois curse word so it makes for an interesting name of a dance move. While dancing we witnessed several "almost" fights and a small man break dancing. At one point in the night someone came over to us and handed us an unopened, cold bottle of champagne, apparently something that had been happening to unsuspecting groups all night. When in Quebec, do as the Quebecois?
Poutine from Chez Ashton is the best late night snack, so we decided to get some after we left Chez Dagobert. While the 8 of us were sitting and eating something incredibly bizarre happened. A kid around my age walks in the door, beelines to our table, reaches over Fatima while simultaneously putting his armpit in her face and slams his hands down on the table, his face resting mere inches from mine. He proceeded to ask me where the bathrooms were and say something about how he thought I was pretty. Completely taken by surprise, my brain couldn't register the rapid and slurred French. One of the guys answered his question and sent him on his way. There is clearly something about me that attracts the strangest things.
We were standing outside Chez Ashton when a very drunk guy walked over to us and asked for a cigarette. We told him that none of us had any, which he simply could not fathom. I guess he thought we were lying because he stuck around for at least 20 minutes, periodically asking us for a cigarette. Someone saw that he had some blood trickling down from his ear and asked what happened. He simply responded, "Man, Quebec happened." Well then, I guess that settles that. This guy just did not want to leave us alone, so when we convinced him to go ask another stranger for a cigarette, we seized the opportunity and tried to get away without him noticing. We were a good 50 yards away when he started coming after us screaming about cigarettes. We cut across into a small street, trying to get away from him. Parked on this street was a white car with three people in it, a driver and two people in the passenger seat. The driver was essentially passed out with her head half way out the window while her two guests were getting frisky. Naturally, all of us gawked as we walked by, still hurrying as the Cigarette Man continued to follow us. About 20 yards after we had passed the car, the driver gets out and starts to yell at us in French saying, "WHAT THE HELL IS YOUR PROBLEM?!" Max appropriately responds with, "Ta gueule!" which means "Shut up!" They yelled at each other for a good 30 seconds before we hurried Max along in our quest to get away from Cigarette Man.
I guess that Cigarette Man got bored or distracted because he finally left us alone. The eight of us walked back to our hotel where we watched the sun rise. There's a bench just outside our hotel and to the right where there is the most amazing view of the river. We watched the sun rise and talked like we were old friends. The four of them were easily the coolest people that we've met here. To top it off, their English was superb! The entire night I was asking them about English expressions, trying to test their knowledge and modernness. They knew most of them, but I got them with, "pop a squat" and "cool beans," although Fatima quickly told them that no one says "cool beans" anymore (even though I definitely say that all the time). They apparently also thought that "cool beans" was lame and said that they weren't going to use it. Silly Canadians!
For whatever reason, our professor cancelled class today. After getting into our room at 6am, we needed the sleep. In the morning, we all went to a short review session for our final tomorrow before we set out to conquer the day. Fatima, Julia and I went to the little deli and got some lunch. While I was ordering my sandwich, the young kid behind the counter asked if I wanted to speak in English or French. When I responded with French, he sort of laughed at me and went with it. He thought it was funny when I asked him what the word for lettuce was in French. I was just glad that he humored me.
Fatima and I had decided when we first got here that we wanted to go to Lévis, the town across the river that speaks mostly French. Everyone else was busy doing their own thing today so the two of us made our way over there, thankful for the quiet and calm of each other as company. We had no plans in Lévis, aside from going to an ice cream place that several people had recommended to us. After we got off the ferry, we walked up about 150 stairs to get into the city. There's nothing like 150 stairs to start off a two hour walk! In town, we were walking when we heard two very loud farts coming from the man on the bench across the street. I suppose that Canadians and flatulence go hand in hand? We both looked his way and he smiled at us. We tried to contain our laughter and failed miserably. Strange people and strange encounters are never in short supply.
We finally found the ice cream place and I got some soft serve dipped in dark chocolate. I devoured my ice cream, careful to get it all over my face like a small child. Fatima and I had wanted to check out one of the churches. Half way there we got distracted by something else and abandoned our original quest. We ended up finding a sort of green-way on the edge of the city and walked at least a mile and a half back to the ferry. The view of Quebec was absolutely breathtaking, as usual, and we were thankful to be on flat ground for once. On the ride over we had made the comment that we wanted to feel the water to see how cold it was. Upon entering the green-way, we saw a sign that told us that we couldn't touch the water in the area because it was contaminated.... It's funny how these things work. We boarded the ferry back to Quebec about two hours after arriving in Lévis, exhausted and ready to be "home" at our hotel.
On the way back to the hotel we stopped at a local t shirt shop. I was speaking to the salesman and naturally made some mistakes which he kindly corrected. I really do love it when they not only speak in French, but politely correct me. It's embarrassing but truly a good way to learn.
Well, it's getting late and I must get back to my project and studying for the final tomorrow. I leave you with three photos today: one of the sunrise, one of myself with my ice cream and once of myself on the edge of Lévis with Quebec in the background.
A plus!
AH! i got a blog shout out! that's like being on TV! so excited :)
ReplyDeletep.s. if only the customs people at the airport read this... they would understand why you had pepper spray