Odyssey Pan-Canadian Training Session, Quebec City

Oh dear, it has been too long since I wrote in this blog. I'll do my best to remember all the fun things I did, and all the cool things I saw while in Quebec City! I am currently still here, and probably will be for another day. Papa and Grayden will fly back to Vancouver in a day or two, and then I will begin to drive to Caraquet, taking two days to get there. According to google maps the drive is about 8 hours but I want to explore along the way.

Before checking in to my hotel for the training session on Thursday, Papa, Grayden and I walked around and explored Quebec City. We got Libyan wraps for lunch and watched some street performers. It was so nice and hot.

There were over 300 language assistants at the Odyssey Pan-Canadian Training Session. We stayed at the Delta Hotel right outside the walls of Vieux Quebec City. It was a really nice hotel, and in an ideal location for exploring the city. My room mate at the hotel is from Alberta, and is going to Shippagan, New Brunswick, less than an hour from Caraquet. She is also teaching in a high school.

That evening I went to an amazing candy store, buying enough candy for a lifetime, but eating it all at once. Then I walked down to meet Vicki at the train station. After taking her to check-in to her hotel we went to Chez Ashton to get some poutine. It wasn't quite as amazing as I remembered it being, but it was still pretty good and had the squeakiest cheese curds ever! I think my top poutine shop is Smoke's Poutine in Toronto, but my top outside of Quebec. We went around in to some little tourist shops. I mainly just bought postcards. Sooo, if anyone wants a postcard send me your mailing address! I'd love to send you one just as long as you write me back in return!

On Friday, training didn't start until lunch time so we woke up early to have breakfast so that we could explore the city some more. All the food we had at the hotel was amazing. They had huge buffet spreads for each meal each day. The number of desserts they put out was crazy. I can probably not eat for like a week after how much I ate this weekend! The opening lunch for the training session was a lot of fun. On the agenda for the opening were "Ice Breakers", and quite honestly I groan when I see that, expecting to have to do something like pass around a balloon saying "My name is Cassandra. Je m'appelle Cassandra. I am from British Columbia. I like horses...". But, it was way better than that! One really fun game they had was putting up photos and we had to yell out what town they were, and also putting up weird town names and we had to yell out what province they were from. 

Over the course of the 3-day training session we met with our provincial coordinators, past language monitors, did workshops on being a language assistant to learn our roles and learn activities, learnt about culture, etc. It was all so very interesting and we got to play a lot of games. I certainly learnt a lot and feel a lot more prepared for my job. 

On Friday night a small group of us went down to watch a free outdoor Cirque du Soleil show "Les Chemins invisibles". It was a really cool setting - they had it below a highway overpass! I had never been to Cirque du Soleil before and I absolutely loved it! I didn't really understand it very well but it was so cool. There were tons of performers with fantastic costumes, and different light and sound effects. They had a trapeze, BMX tricks, the long material ribbons that acrobats do things in, rings, all sorts of neat things! I could definately watch it over and over again! They show was an hour long.

Saturday night we went to an outdoor screening of "The Image Mill". It was a four-part video outlining Quebec's 400+ years of history. It was projected on to grain silos down at the river. The area was equivalent to 35 IMAX screens! They had some really cool effects in it. When there was a fire in the film they had coloured smoke rising making it look like the building was actually going up in flames. They had fireworks which appeared to come out of the buildings and towers, and they shone (sp?) laser lights up into the sky. Before watching the show we loaded up on candy, from a different, but equally awesome candy store. We spent some time down in the Champlain area of Vieux Quebec City, and also completed our mission of finding beavertails. While waiting for "The Image Mill" to start, Vicki and I saw "Poutine glacee" in the snack shop. We thought it was actually going to be poutine ice cream - fries, cheese curds, and gravy on top of ice cream. It sounded sickening but of course we wanted to try it anyways! It turned out it was caramel popcorn, mini marshmallows, chocolate wafer sticks, and caramel sauce on top of gravy. So it turned out to be delicious but sweetly sickening!

Today was the last day of the training session. I was sad to be leaving all my new friends but I'll get to see some of them again soon. After walking down Vicki down to the bus station this afternoon I saw a wedding taking place right next to the finish line for the Quebec Marathon. You could hardly hear the music in the wedding ceremony because everyone was cheering so loudly for the runners! Vicki will only be about 3 hours from me, and Erin will be less than an hour away. In November all the language assistants in the maritime provinces will be meeting in Charlottetown, PEI, for another training session.

Now tonight I am staying in a hotel with Grayden and Papa just outside of Quebec City. I'm not sure what we'll be up to tomorrow, but eventually there should be a post!