Last days in Quebec

Well guys, it's the end of my studies here in Quebec. I had a blast and did a lot of cool stuff.

Tuesday Night we went out to the Pub Nelligan's for some Irish music and cold beer. We had a blast talking and listening to some great music. Wednesday I had my last Cuban cigar in Canada, it was a Romeo y Julieta Romeo #2, it was DELISH and I really like that cigar bar. Wednesday night I went to the Quebec Capitales baseball game (pictured above), and we got seats for $6 and sat behind home plate. It was a good game and Quebec beat the crap out of Sussex. Most of the guys are from Quebec or Latin America on the Capitales team, but they all can hit pretty well. The only bad thing is their defense, all of them throw like girls, but oh well it is Canadian baseball.

Thursday I ate Putine for the first time, which is French fries with a gravy like sauce and curded cheese on top, and I also added grilled chicken. It was OK, it wasn't the best thing I've ever eaten, the cheese tasted really weird, but wasn't bad either. Then Thursday night I went to 5 a 7 to hang out with people from school, which was pretty fun. Afterwards we went to the Grands Allée and because they were having a huge party on the street. It was pretty cool, lots of music and booze and Canadians all in one place. After about an hour we went to Pub Turf and drank copious amounts of Labatt's Blue, because it's cheap on Thursday nights, and we played foosball like it was going out of style. I lost only 2 games of foosball the whole night, maybe it's my true calling....Anyways, my last class was great this morning. We watched a movie on Maurice Richard, the most famous Montreal Canadiens player, and went to the Observatory which overlooks the whole city. Pretty cool, and it was very sad saying bye to everyone. Hopefully I can stay in touch with Jason and Bret, they were really cool guys that I'm glad I got to meet.

Overall this was a great experience, it took me out of my element and put me into a place where I knew no one, spoke the language terribly, and had to adapt to another culture, and I think i handled it very well. Sure it got lonely here at times, but I met some great people, saw some amazing things, and I will always be able to say I lived in Quebec for 3 weeks and had a blast! Thanks for following my travels, and I'll probably post one more little blurb for my return to the greatest country on earth, AMERICA!!!!

A bientot America! Au Revoir Quebec!! Je me souviens!!!

La Citadelle

Well, I spent my last tuesday afternoon touring La Citadelle du Quebec, which is the largest Citadelle in North America. It's a huge fort made of earthworks and stone walls that the Brits built back in the mid 1800s after us Americans invaded Canada for the 2nd time in 1812. It was pretty darn cool, and there is still a regiment that lives in the fort, it's the Royal 22nd Regiment, and they are the only completely French speaking unit in Canada. They were doing drills while I was there, and it was pretty damn cool. The fort is on the highest point in Quebec, so I had amazing views of the area, and our tour guide was very cool. I walked around up there for about 2 hours then went to the cafe and did my home work.

Tonight I'm heading to Pub Nelligan's for live Irish music and cold beer with some people from school. All I got for today, but enjoy my pics! A Bientot!

OMAHA BABY!!!!

Well just thought I'd point out that Clemson is going to the COLLEGE WORLD SERIES!!!!

So I walked the 6 miles to class this morning down by the river on the promenade...WORST IDEA EVER!!!!! I was sooooo damn tired afterwards, but at least my calves are looking beastly, and I probably burned about 600 calories. But yeah, I had the gamecast up for the Clemson game pretty much the whole last part of class, she already caught me checking the score on my iPod a million times, so finally I just put my laptop out in front of me and watch the end. All I know is our relief pitching better freaking grow some balls before Arizona State....I don't know how you give up 5 runs on freaking TWO OUTS IN THE BOTTOM OF THE NINTH!!!!

Ok, calming down now. Well I'm glad I'll be back in time to watch the start of the College World Series, and hopefully my Tigers can keep on rollin!!! GO TIGERS!!

Four more days in Quebec, and I'll be damn glad to be back in the USofA. A Bientot!!!

Montréal in 24 Hours

Well guys, here it is...My 24 hours in Montreal...

We left Quebec city at 6:30 PM Friday evening, and we used this service called Allostop, which is a carpooling service where you can ride with other people going to Montreal for only $19. So you just find a time that works for you on the schedule of drivers going and sign up to ride with them. We signed up to ride with Juan, who turned out to be a really latino guy with a piece of crap Toyota Corolla....Yeah, just our luck. All the other drivers we saw had like nice cars and stuff, but we got ole Juan! He was nice and got us there safely, even if it wasn't the most comfortable ride. But after 2 1/2 hours we arrived in Montreal! He dropped us off at a Metro station, and we took the train to a stop near our Hostel. Needless to say our first glimpse of Montreal was cool, we were in St. Victoria square, and it was very pretty at night. But then we got kind of lost on our way to the Hostel, that wasn't fun at all...But we eventually got there and checked in, and we got two beds in the top dorm, which was five bunk beds in an open room. We met some kids from San Francisco, and they didn't know french, so we just spoke to them in English. They quickly made fun of my southern accent, bastards...Oh well, at least I'm not a rich kid art student from San Fran....Anyways, we went out Friday night and found a cool sports bar to drink at on Rue St. Catherine. We had some beer and talked to a couple of Montreal guys who were very nice.

They told us about a cool blues bar a couple blocks up, and we walked up there, turns out it was a $10 cover, so we said screw that and went to another place. The bars in Montreal weren't really that fun, unless you wanted to go to a dance club. But since we are two southern white boys with no rhythm we decided against that...So around like 1 AM we decided to take the Metro back to our Hostel...Only problem is the Metro was CLOSED. Yes, that's right, we were stuck in downtown Montreal at 1 AM with no idea how to get back to our Hostel besides the Metro, and I only had 10 bux cash, UGH. We asked some cops how to get back, they said the bus runs all night, but we barely miss the next bus. By this point we said screw it and grabbed a cab, which was great b/c it only cost us 7 bux! So then we went to "sleep" back at the Hostel, which means we both got 3 hours of sleep, due to all the noise and rudeness that comes with staying in a room with 8 other people.

Saturday: We got going from the Hostel at about 10 am and went looking around. We went down to Cresent street to see the Formula 1 activities, since the Formula 1 race was in Montreal that day. It was kinda cool, soooo many people, but I got a free Gillette razor out of it, so guess I cannot complain! we walked around for awhile, saw the Bell Centre where the Montreal Canadiens play. There was a huge line outside with people, and by people I mean parents and their young daughters, buying Justin Beiber tickets! hahaha! But it was pretty cool, and then around 2 PM we found this Irish bar called Hurley's on Cresent St. that was showing the USA vs. England world cup game. We watched the game there and had a couple of cold beers. There were a ton of people wearing England gear and cheering for them... Apparently 80% of Canada was cheering for the Brits, b/c of their "colonial roots"...Really? england? No wonder no one can take you serious Canada...But luckily we tied and the Brit fans couldn't taunt us.

After that we made reservations to ride back to Quebec city, since we didn't have a place to stay Saturday night and we were too tired, broke, and fed up with Montreal to stay another night. Bret broke his camera and had many problems while we were there that I won't begin to go into. Needless to say he was over Montreal. We rode back with a guy named Dali in a Ford Winstar, much better ride than we had with Juan. We made it back safely to Quebec city and I've never been so happy to see Quebec.

Well, hope you enjoyed reading about my 24 hours in Montreal, it was cool, but most deff not as fun as I thought it'd be. Maybe I'll go back again when I have the kind of money to do more stuff there, it's a very expensive town. But anywho, 5 more days left in Quebec after today!!!! I miss the USA, and being in Montreal made me really see how much I love the States. I'm going to watch the Germany vs. Australia game today at Pub Turf with Bret, Jason, Kristan (who is from Germany), Dean (a Brit who works for the BBC), and maybe some others. So yeah, a regular International affair!!

Miss you all and cannot wait to set foot back in the USofA in 5 days!!! A Bientot!!!

Thursday and Friday

Sorry for not updating more often this past week, but I tried to stay busy and all that, so haven't really had the time to type away on the ole Blog.

Well, Thursday was a good day! I went to class, and then afterwards I went to mass with Jason at the Basilique de Notre Dame which is right next to our school. It was very interesting, and he gave me a little book with all the prayers and sayings in it so I could follow along. After mass, we went down to a Monastery for the St. Augustine Monks, and it was pretty cool, I didn't take any pictures inside, because I didn't want to offend anyone. After that we went to a small Jesuit church near the Port de St Louis, and that too was very cool. It was kind of hidden away on the street, and there was a cool tour guide who showed us around and told us the history of the church. It was built in the 1600's, and it has a baller organ. The tour guide is also the organ player, and he showed us how the organ works, so cool.

Thursday night I went to 5 à 7 to speak some french with my professors and other students, it was cool, we went to an Irish bar called Pub Galway. I had fish and chips, which wasn't very good...Honestly I haven't eaten anything here that was that phenomenal so far since I've been in Quebec, I really miss American food...Anyways, we had some fun at Galway, and then we all went to this bar called the Sacrilege, where we stayed the rest of the night. It was pretty cool too, and I met some nice people I hadn't met yet at the school.

Friday: My teacher took us over to Lévy friday morning, the place I wrote about last week where they have the cool chocolate shop. And we walked around the small town, and my teacher grew up there, so she told us alot about it. We also toured the house of Dejardins, who had a major influence on the development of Credit Unions in North America. After seeing the town we went to the chocolate shop and all had ice cream. I had a vanilla cone dipped in dark chocolate. mmmmmmm It was amazing! I also bought some chocolate to bring back to some special people.

Friday afternoon I packed my stuff and did my final preparations to go to Montreal. I met up with Bret at the school around 4:30 pm, and from there our adventure began! I will dedicate a whole new post to Montreal, so hold on to your seats blog followers!!!

Irish Music and A Waterfall

Well loyal followers, sorry I haven't updated in a few days, I've been busy trying to get to Montreal, and just lazy...

So yeah, Monday was uneventful to talk about, but TUESDAY!!! I went to this Irish bar called Pub le Nelligan's. And it was freaking awesome. It was a little small, but had that intimate feel, and they even had candles everywhere. They have live Irish music every tuesday night, and by live I mean a bunch of musicians just show up and played Irish music together. They jammed out, and it was pretty badass. I went with Bret and Jason, and we sat at a little table, which we were lucky to get. By about 9pm it was packed and getting rowdy. We all had a couple pints of Harp, and then Jason bought a pitcher of Harp. So our idea of having a couple of beers and just chillin became lets get drunk...Oh well, we drank like champs and had a great time. Jason is a really cool guy, he is studying to become a Catholic priest, which you wouldn't realize if you talk to the guy for awhile, he's just so laid back and cool.

We met this French girl who is from Alsace, France and she teaches English in a Quebec high school. She kept listening in on our conversations, since yes we were speaking English, so sue me....But we kept catching her staring at us, so finally we talked to her, and her and her friends were really cool. They were playing this weird dice game, which I still don't get. After that I took the bus home, and like a champ went to class this morning. Albeit a lil tired.

Today I went with Daniel, the FSU kid, to the waterfall outside of town. It took us like 45 minutes each way to get there by bus, but it was soooo worth it. It was already a gorgeous day, and seeing something like that really made me see how much of a miracle the world is. We walked around a good bit, including about a million god awful stairs....UGH But it was awesome, and we had a blast. Hope you like the pictures above of it. BUt yeah, and Bret and I booked our ride to Montreal this evening, so I'll keep y'all posted on that little excursion.

Hope you enjoyed my new post, miss you all, and je t'aime!

Friday Night and Rainy Saturday Afternoon

Well I guess I should update y'all on my weekend, my loyal followers...

Friday: Friday night was fun, I went out with Breton and Leah to this bar called Les Vautes de Napoleon (Napoleon's Vaults), and it was badass!!! It's kind of hidden down some stairs on this street with bars and restaurants on it, and it took us a little while to actually find the damn place. I asked these three big Canadian guys, and luckily their advice helped. We actually got a table there and ordered two pitchers of "White" beer, and let me tell you, it was the most disgusting thing I've ever drank in my life...And we freaking had two of them! Oh well, we were champs and drank 'em, because even in Canada I don't let good beer go to waste. Also, there were these two guys playing acoustic guitar and singing songs in French and English. They were really good, and everyone was singing along. I knew all of the English songs, such as "Save Tonight" "Ring of Fire" "I'm Yours" etc. But yeah, for some reason people here love Johnny Cash and Elvis, which is cool, but they are like in love with them! But yeah, had fun at that bar, and I left around 12:30 am to catch the 1am bus. Needless to say I was a bit tipsy walking down the streets of Quebec.

Saturday: I didn't want to sit around and do nothing, so I got out and went down to the Bas Ville (lower city) which took me about 10 minutes to walk down there, and I walked down this street called St. Joseph for awhile just looking in the shops and stuff, I took some good pictures and some some cool stuff, including the huge library, which I really need to visit at some point. After that I went to the Museum called le Musée de la Civilization. It was pretty damn cool, and was mostly about Quebec. But they had a cool exhibition on the Human Mind and how studying the human mind has changed over history. They also had an amazing exhibition called "Riff" which showed the impact of African Americans on modern music. It was so cool, because if you have an ipod touch or iphone you automatically have access to the audio guides for all of the exhibits. So I could listen to everything for free in English or French. The Riff exhibit was awesome, mostly because you could listen to so much good music, such as Ray Charles, Chuck Berry, and stuff like that. The museum is really interactive and there's so much to see and do.

After the museum I went to a cigar bar called "Société Cigare" and had myself a fat Cuban cigar!! It was pretty expensive *cough cough* but worth it! I sat there and smoked in a big leather chair while watching Tennis. It was AMAZING. So yeah, that was my Saturday in a nutshell...I pretty much just chilled out last night, I didn't feel like going out, but I finally got to sleep some.

Right now I'm sitting in a cafe and just watching the rain and people on Rue St. Jean, it's pretty cool. Tomorrow it's spose to rain again, but the rest of the week is hopefully sunny. I really want to go to the park and hang out in the sunshine...

5 à 7 and Friday

I’ve had a wonderful Friday. I went on a scavenger hunt with my class through the old part of town. We had a sheet with 18 questions on it, and we had to find the answers, so has what’s the name of the church on the corner of Rue St. Jean, and stuff like that. It was pretty fun, and my teammate Jason and I found everything, but we got lost a couple of times. Luckily people here are nice and helped us out a lot.

After class I went to this little place called Couche Tard (Sleep Late) and got a sandwich with Leah, whom I met last night at 5 à 7, which is something the school does every Thursday from 5pm to 7pm at a bar or restaurant, and all of the professors attend and they encourage everyone to go so we can practice our French. We went to an Indian place, and I had chicken cooked in butter, and it wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t the greatest thing that I’ve ever eaten. But I met a guy from Tennessee named Breton, and we went around the corner and bought a couple of beers, yes I bought PBR!!! B/c the Indian place allows you to bring your own Beer and Wine, so that was pretty damn awesome. I had two PBRs for a dollar each!

After 5 à 7, Leah, Breton, Jason, Christina and myself went to the Pub Turf, where I watched hockey the other night, and we had a couple pitchers of Labatt’s Blue while we kinda got to know each other. They are all pretty cool people, too bad Leah and Christina leave tomorrow. At around 11 pm the place turns into a dance club pretty much, and they were playing a ton of hip hop and pop from America, it was hilarious to watch them try to dance and sing all of the words in English.

But back to lunch today…Leah and I grabbed a sandwhich and ate in this little park, which was very pretty today, the sun is shining and it’s very very nice out. After lunch I decided to take a little walk and wander a bit. I ended up walking probably 2 miles, but it’s cool I got to see a lot of the town. When I wrote this post I was sitting at a little café called “Picardie” drinking a strong ass cup of coffee, and it’s got nothing on Starbucks…

Tonight I’m meeting up with Leah and Bret to go to a club, like a real live club, because it’s Leah’s last night here and she hasn’t been to one yet. Hopefully I can fist pump like a champ and show em how we do in Clemson. We’ll see where this night takes me…Even if it’s just to my bed.

Well until tomorrow, À bientot!!!

My Journey to Lévy and Pub Turf

Well, yesterday was a pretty fun day overall! After class I went across the river to this little town called Lévy, and it's at the top of a huge hill, so we took the boat over there for $6 and had to climb up a ton of stairs to get to the town. But at the top it was really pretty, and I had an amazing view of Quebec. We ate at a small cafe called Aux P'tits Oignons and it was AMAZING. I had this tomato cream soup, pasta with mozzarella and tomatoes on it, and a sweet bread pudding that was very very good and an espresso for only $9. Apparently most cafes have a lunch menu where you can have three courses like that for less than $10. Afterwards we went into the chocolate shop across the street, and while I didn't buy anything, the smell was absolutely seductive.

After all the amazing food we returned to Quebec city and I came back to my host mom's house to finish my homework and eat dinner. I made plans to meet up with Daniel, the kid from FSU at a bar called le Turf Pub, and we met up at 8pm to watch hockey and drink. We had this shot called a "stinger" and it was whiskey and mint, and I nearly threw up in my mouth after taking it...ugh But the beer wasn't too expensive and I drank Bud Light and multiple Lebatt Blues. Daniel challenged some Canadian guys to some foosball, so we played two games with them. We won the first game and they won the second. They were super nice and told us the real rules for foosball, and afterwards we talked and drank for about an hour. They gave me a ton of tips on things to do in Quebec and Montreal, and told me about a cheap way to travel to Montreal called AlloStop. I'm going to look into it for next weekend. I took a bus home, which is good b/c even if I'd had a car I couldn't drive home by that point, and quickly passed out. But the pub was pretty fun, and everyone was cheering for the Blackhawks because the Flyers eliminated the Canadiens...Oy vey. But overall it was a great experience and I hope I can find some fun things to do tonight that'll be just as epic!

Day 2 aka $9 Beer Day

Well guys, day #2 in Quebec was a great success! It rained all night and all this morning, so I had a rainy bus ride to school this morning. I got to class on time and class was a blasty blast. We worked on the past tense and played the game Taboo in French! My word was Baril (Barrel) and it was tuff describing it in French.

But overall a great class, afterwards I went to subway, and I ordered a 6 inch turkey sub in the worst French possible, but the lady was very nice and helped me with everything. At least she could tell I was trying, but now I know how to order it in French next time. I ate my French subway in the student lounge and did my homework, and while this was happening the Swiss girl I met yesterday came in and asked if I wanted to walk around after her class and grab a cold beer, so of course I did. We walked for about an hour and saw some cool stuff then ate at Pub St. Patrick, that Irish pub I talked about earlier. It was delish, I had a burger made form Buffalo meat, so good, and a Magners, which is an Irish cider kinda like Woodchuck. I paid $9.50 Canadian for it though, all of the beer is sooooo expensive in the tourist district.

But I saw some amazing things in the old city, and I saw some cool stuff in the newer parts of town. There's alot of Graffiti everywhere, and the picture above is the coolest graffiti I saw today. It's not like gang stuff, b/c it's very artsy.

Hopefully I can rest up tonight, my new Swiss friend and I are gonna watch the hockey game tomorrow night at the Pub Turf, which is a sports bar downtown, and hopefully I can recruit some other people to go also and enjoy Canada's past-time. Well until tomorrow my loyal followers aka people with nothing else to do but follow my stupid blog...au revoir!!! Je t'aime!!

First Day

Well guys, I have completed my first day in Quebec! It is a gorgeous city with tons of cool places to see and it's very clean and easy to navigate. It took me 25 minutes to get form the house I'm staying out to my bus stop, but it's not a terrible ride. I met some cool people this morning. I met a girl from Switzerland and a girl from Germany, but neither of them are in my class. I also met a guy from Florida State named Daniel. He seems like a pretty cool dude and maybe we can hang out while we're here.

I didn't have class until 1:00 pm so I walked around all morning trying to find cool places. I saw alot of touristy places and cool cafes, and I ate at a cafe near my school. My waiter was super cool and he told me about some cool bars to hang out at. My only problem was that people kept speaking english to me as soon as I spoke French to them, which was frustrating. Made me feel like my French sucked. BUt either way I didn't do terrible. I talked to two nice ladies on the bus this morning and they got me to my stop so I wouldn't get lost.

My teacher's name is Julie, and she seems pretty baller. There are 4 others in my class, two of them American, one Canadian, and one Chilean. We had a good class today and I'm totally looking forward to tomorrow. I have homework, but it's easy.

I was surprised though today how safe it feels here and how nice everything is, but everything in the stores and cafes is pretty expensive. I paid $10 for a salad and soup at that cafe, but it was delish and totally worth it. I was going to go watch the hockey game at a bar downtown called Pub Turf, but I decided not to, I'm too tired to move! Hopefully on Wednesday I can make it down there and watch Hockey with Canadians. They are hockey crazy here, there's hockey stuff EVERYWHERE.

But that's pretty much it for today, not exciting I know, but hopefully the craziness with begin soon!

Bienvenue au Quebec!!!

Well guys, I finally made it! I'm in Quebec City, Canada. My flight experience wasn't too bad today, but I'm pretty damn tired from all the traveling. I arrived at Charlotte airport at 7ish this morning, my first flight to Newark was ahead of schedule so we left at 9:15am and arrived in Newark at 11:00am, so not bad. I hung out in Newark for about 3 hours, which was kind of boring. Thank you to all of my amazing friends who'd text with me so I wouldn't claw my eyes out.

The second flight from Newark to Quebec was a pretty decent flight also, but it got delayed for 20 minutes because of a flat tire....I told them we shoulda called AAA. But flying into Quebec was cool, even though it's really smokey here, because of a forest fire raging to the north.

My host mom seems so cool, she cooked spaghetti tonight, and there are two high school girls from Nashville staying here also, and a girl from Venezuela whom I haven't met yet. But Madame Dorothy showed us to the bus stop and told us some important survival info, and I feel really good now about tomorrow!

Hopefully I can find a cool sports bar to watch the stanley cup at, because apparently that's the cool thing to do here. And of course I'll be cheering for the Flyers because of my buds D-Dub and Jordan!!!

Well guys, hopefully the shenanigans will start soon and I can start posting some fun stuff, but for now I'm gonna get ready for my first day in Quebec tomorrow and rest up. A bientot!!!


PS...They have Esso here!!!

Got me some Canadian Dolla Dolla Bills

And yes I know that "got me some" is not correct grammar, but I only did it to get under someone's skin...you know who you are...

But anywho, I decided that the exchange rate was enough in my favor so I ordered $300 Canadian Dollars today, and it only cost me $292 American dollars. HEY OH! I just hope the American dollar can keep kicking ass on the market so I can save more money in Canada. It's already going to cost me a 3% fee every time I use my debit card up there, so hopefully I can use as much cash as possible.


Also, I hit up target and got some necessities; shampoo, shaving cream, deodorant, magazines, etc. Got some new Under Armor socks, because I love my feet that much, and under garments, b/c I see ya girls lookin' at my trunks. Now I just need new flippy floppies, but moms is going to buy those for me. So yeah, boring post I know, but it also mens I'm that much closer to going up to the Great White North! Tomorrow I'll start getting my clothes together and all that good mess.

So until next time, you stay classy blog readers...

Host Mom and Plane Ticket

My host mom e-mailed me back today. I had sent her an e-mail on Monday to tell her when I was going to arrive in Quebec and all that good mess. She seems pretty nice. She told me to let her know if I needed anything and gave me some tips about Quebec. Apparently she has wireless internet, so I'll be able to keep up with all of this which is AWESOME! I can't wait to get there and meet her, and hopefully have some good times. Also, I booked my flight on Monday, I leave Charlotte on May 30th at 9:15 am. I have a freaking 4 hour lay over in Newark, NJ. What the hell am I gong to do in New Jersey for 4 hours?! Oh well, should be a good time.

Registered and Ready to Go

So this is my official blog for my trip to Quebec City, Canada. I will be participating in a French Immersion program at Bouchereau Lingua International en Quebec City. I'm pretty pumped about it, and hopefully I can see some cool stuff and meet cool people while improving my Français. I'm going tomorrow to get some Canadian money and book my flight. I leave May 30th, and hopefully I can have some epic adventures to share with y'all. I'm already pumped about living with a 60 yr. old French-Canadian woman and her dog. Maybe she'll teach me how to knit or something, since that's her favorite hobby. Either way it's going to be LEGEN- wait for it......

DARY!!!!!

PS. I'm am most deff going to that Irish pub while i'm there...