A Little sejour in St Anne de Beaupré

My Dear Reader Chum,

That may have been taken from the Miranda Biography, but never fear, this blog entry shall be as original, witty and just generally spiffing (to quote that awkward time in Assembly when Miss Coe described our play as the aforementioned word). P.S. Major Katy points for getting in the word “aforementioned”!
For this blog, imagine yourself being transported back to the end of October, 2012.

I took the coach up to Quebec to spend a weekend with Miss Anika Heale, another language assistant out here. Annie kindly picked me up from Palais du Gare on the Friday evening and we went to her apartment via a Halloween store. There were some costumes in there that I had never considered. One was an M (as in M&Ms), a Cancan dancer and the others I can’t remember, but the children’s costumes looked far more appealing than the adult ones…and some were really rather adult!
We went back to hers and had dinner. We then went to the local film rental place and one of Annie’s student's parents was working there. We had a lovely chat with her and she said I had a Parisian accent! Yes! In the end we ended up watching that vampire film with Johnny Depp.

The next day we went hiking down a trail opposite Mont Sainte Anne. This was no ordinary trail. Well perhaps for Super Athlete Annie it was the norm but let’s just say my legs were aching for a week after! Instead of a casual stroll as one does around Wilverley Plain in Hampshire, this started off with jumping from rock to rock as water ran down the trail. Then there were about a million wooden and slippery steps to be tackled. Then we reached an incredible waterfall and some trees in autumn colours.

We walked/scaled our way down using tree roots for foot holds and followed the river along for a while. When we reached the bottom of the descent, the track took us up hill to get back to the car park and we found some little chipmunks! So cute and speedy!

I don’t think my legs have ever shaken that much, but it was lots of fun and ultimately what I had come to Canada to experience!

   

That evening, Annie and I went round to Quin and Rebecca’s flat and played a card game and had some wine. They weren't expecting us, but James had told us that they were having a party…even though they weren’t! Awkward reaction when they found us on the door step wielding wine, but they invited us in anyway!

The next day, Annie had entered herself in a cross country run under the recommendation of one of the teachers at her school. The teacher’s son, Christophe, and his friend Etienne picked us up in the morning. We headed off to the track with them and making friends was made easier by the fact that they spoke English. They both were/are on the Quebec cross country ski team so they were saying they speak English because they have to speak to people in teams across Canada. One of their friends from the Quebec team skis for Canada and I think Etienne was going to Alaska to ski for their team. They were telling us lots of stories about skiing and skiing very quickly away from moose they come across in the forest.

There were even more guys from the same ski team as the guys at the cross country race. All the entrants were wearing sports gear that was sponsored by various companies. There was a kiddies race going on just before the adults race. There was a 16 year old girl who was competing in Annie’s race who is known in the area for being an amazing runner and beating everyone continuously. Apparently she had the choice to take up Cross Country Skiing or running to a high level and she chose skiing, which she is apparently very good at too! She did indeed beat all the women in the race.

It was raining really hard by the time the race commenced but they were all pretty speedy, so I didn’t have to stand and cheer them on in the rain for too long! 

Afterwards everyone had healthy food with them like almonds and V8 vegetable drink, except Etienne who chowed down on a massive pizza he had made the night before! He came first out of all the boys, so I guess he earned it! The times were ridiculously fast! The boys did 7km in about 25 minutes and Annie did it in 30 minutes.

After the “medal ceremony” (Annie came second out of the women!), the boys came back to Annie’s and we had tea. We weren’t allowed to serve Herbal Tea though as according to Annie it’s Lesbian Tea…?!

After a very busy but enjoyable weekend, I hopped back on the coach to St Georges for another week at work.