Ice Climbing

Today we went to Trois-Rivières where there was supposed to be an ice climbing event. When we first arrived we though we were either at the wrong place, or had severely underestimated the event. There was clearly a place for ice climbing, but no one was there and there were only a few people walking around, or skate skiing (kinda like cross-country but with narrower skis and a more skate like motion). Amelie and Chantal went to check it out and found out that we could go skate skiing while we waited for the ice climbing to start.

Skate skiing was fun, but as most skiing quite challenging. I spent most of the time being too afraid to fall down to get much speed or try out the small hill, since the one time I did fall it was a huge challenge to get back up.

When we were done ice climbing was ready so we put on our harnesses on, and our boots, and attached the spikes to the bottom and went out. It was fun even though it was cold. I was the second last person to go and I didn't make it all the way to the top, yes I was too chicken, but it was also really cold and I did not feel quite safe up there with half frozen hands and feet holding me up. It probably wouldn't have made a difference anyway, but that's my excuse.



PHOTOS: TOP Me climing the ice. Sadly that's as far as I got BOTTOM Our group after we were all done climing under the ice.
NOTE: Photos are from Becky's camera as the battery in mine was dead :(

"Violence is not the way to solve bad grammar"

"Violence is not the way to solve bad grammar" - Le Grammairière

Ok, so this is just a post to celebrate my own genius. For our French class we're currently writing a comic strip. Me and Andy our working together and we decided to make up our own super hero for it. He was initially "Super Grammar Man" although it was never more then a working title and since it also needs to be translated to French we settled on "Le Grammairière". The above is a line (a great line) from the comic strip. Stay tuned for the fully completed comic strip, although unfortunately for most of you it will be in French.

Pizza Party

Last night Shawinigan hosted the clusters first party, a pizza party, which was also surprisingly organized by me. It was a huge success with lots of pizza (and even a little left over), good times and fun games. I enjoyed the most our large game of La Fureur a Quebec game show (that I actually used to watch sometimes back home) which Amelie has a home version of. We also added our own songs to give it more variety. For those who don't know, La Fureur is a karaoke type game show where teams have to sing along with a popular song, and at certain points it will cut out and the team has to keep singing at the right tempo, when the song comes back in if they're at the same spot they get points.

PHOTO: People waiting for the pizza to be ready. I'm there in the background frantically cutting pizzas for the hungry horde ;)

Hockey Game

I went to my first Hockey Game last night. It was the Shawinigan Cataracts (supposedly means Indian something or other in French but I still think it has something to do with the eyes) and some other team the something Miners. The Shawinigan team kicked ass most of the game, but the other team came back in the last period to make it a slightly respectable 9-6 game. I felt kinda bad for the other team because there were clearly only Shawinigan fans, but I guess that's hockey for you. I wanted to cheer for the other team, but I was afraid for my life, so I just cheered quietly on the inside :)

PHOTO: Left to Right: Lesley, Darlene (me), Mélissa and Tamara at the hockey game during a break.

Go To Jail

So I went to jail :) Well just a jail museum in Trois-Rivières, and we went last weekend, so I'm a little slow at updating. It was shut down for sanitary reasons, as in they did not have bathrooms and it had been built for 40 inmates and was currently housing 180. It was attached to a museum of popular culture which was pretty cool too. There was a bicycle exhibit and a sculpture exhibit and a fire fighter exhibit, and my personal favourite the Ogre in the Forest. You put on a cloak and crawl through a tunnel and go into this creepy place. I went by myself first but I ended up going back out and getting Chantal to come with me. I found another cloak on the floor which I thought might just be something else creepy, but turned out to be the cloak that Lesley lost while she was going through.

PHOTOS: Top Left: Me in Jail. Top Right: My mug shot. Bottom: Me in the Ogre Forest with my cloak.

Cabane à Sucre

Yesterday we went to a Cabane à Sucre (Sugur Shack) to volunteer/get a free lunch. We helped them shovel out some of the pipes and a path to some building that has water in it I think. We also helped them tap some trees which was rediculously hard because the snow was super deep. There were a few layers of ice in it so sometimes you could walk on top but a lot of the time I just fell through, waist deep mostly. Half the time I ended up just crawling since that's where I ended up anyway and it took less energy then falling and getting back up every two steps. Thank goodness I was wearing snowpants and my new boots.

Lunch was delicious and huge. Lots of cheese and pickles, and a yummy vegetable soup, home made bread, some kind of meat spread, ham, beans, salty pig something or other (called ears in French, but they're not really ears), and sugar pie for desert, I thought I was going to die. Then we had snow toffy later for a snack.

Who Actually Comes Here?

My hit counter on the sidebar is going up and up, but the only person I know who visits my blog regularily is my mom. If you're reading this leave a comment (hint: click the word "comments" at the bottom of this post) even if it's just to say hi so I have an idea of who's stopping by.

Happy Commenting :)

Everyone Else Is Doing It

Your Birthdate: December 28

You have a Type A personality so big it makes other Type A's shrink away in shame. You never shy away from adversity - and you love to tackle impossible problems. Failure is not an option for you, and more than a few people are put off by your ego. You tend to be controlling, and you hate leaving anything up to chance. Your strength: Your bold approach to life Your weakness: You don't accept help Your power color: Bronze Your power symbol: Pyramid Your power month: October

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?