Explore Day 22: The Awesomeness of Brooke, the Sweet Sarcasm of Grace, the Cunning of Julia, and Why Ellen should Die in a Hole.

More than a little windswept- but made it to the
top of Cap Tourmente!

Apologies for the post title. My friends wanted to be internet famous, so I’m trying to do my best to accommodate. :)

Day 22. I arrived exactly three weeks ago, and will be leaving in exactly two. Everyone’s started to realize that our time’s almost up, and that five weeks—which seemed so long when we first got here—is really not enough time to do everything we wanted.

St. Anne de Beaupre

It’s kind of depressing how just as I start really enjoying myself, just as classes start seeming manageable and I find a great group of friends, I start realizing just how short five weeks really is. I’ve only been to Old Quebec four times, and haven’t done some of the big touristy things, like visiting the citadel. I’m going to have to make a list of everything I still need to do, to make the most of my last two weeks.

Enough moping—time to mention some of the fun stuff I’ve been doing. Today has been pretty lazy, as I decided, for once, to sleep in, or to “fais la grasse matinée” as the Quebecois call it. I was supposed to go hiking today, but it’s raining, and I really needed a rest day, so I traded my place to someone in my class. Instead, I’ve been doing laundry, and my room is now covered with wet clothes hanging almost literally everywhere. I’m hoping they dry, considering the humidity has been ridiculously high recently.

The picture doesn't even come close.

The end of this week has been extremely hot (28 degrees Celsius, but feeling like 35 with humidity), but last week was a polar opposite. I went hiking (randonée) at Cap Tourmente, which I’m sure is a beautiful spot, but it was so cold that we had snow and hail, and the wind was so strong that we only spent about a minute at the top before heading back down into the shelter of the trees. We also visited the basilica St. Anne de Beaupre on our way back, which was absolutely gorgeous. Unfortunately, there was a wedding in the church that day, so we could only stand awkwardly in the back for a few minutes before running off to enjoy the many tacky tourist traps around it.

I had a ton of tests this week, which cut down on the fun stuff significantly, but I did have time to run down to Old Quebec for supper on Wednesday, which I mentioned in a previous blog post. Yesterday, my friends and I headed down to Old Quebec to do some window shopping and have dinner. It was sort of a post-midterm stress-reliever, and somehow I managed to eat a plate of mussels that was bigger than I was, and still get rather buzzed after just one cocktail. Whoops…

Omnomnomnom mussels. :)

At this point, it’s early afternoon, and I have to head off to a 25^th anniversary party at the church around supper, so I should probably stop treating today as a lazy Saturday and get to work on some of my devoir. I also have to do some editing for Divine Debutantes magazine (did I mention that I’m not just a columnist anymore; I’m also an editorial intern???) and should maybe consider cleaning my room.

Au revoir, peeps. 

Explore Day 18

(NOTE: I wrote this post yesterday, but I couldn't get it up until now due to technical issues with the photos)

I'm blogging this from an adorable little cafe in Old Quebec. A friend recommended it to me, and it took me awhile to find since I didn't have a proper map, but now I'm here, and I'm just waiting on food. Not sure if the waitress knows I'm Anglophone yet... If she doesn't, then she will soon enough, but that's okay. She hasn't started talking to me in English yet, so that's a good sign. Normally most of my conversations with Francophones involve me giving them a blank stare relatively early on, following which they start talking in English.

The cafe I'm in is called Chez Temporel, and it's tiny. By tiny, I mean there are eight small tables and a few stools. It's probably about the size of my living room back home. According to the google reviews, it's frequented by artiste figures... which is why I decided to blog here. If I'm gonna be here all by myself, I should do something remotely artsy, right?

It's a little weird exploring the city all by myself.  I was with a friend earlier, but she had to go back to her host family for supper, and since my bus transfer ticket lasted for another two hours I thought I might as well explore and search for this restaurant.

(The waitress now knows I'm not French, because I asked her what 'doggy bag' was, since I wanted to take my pizza back with me, but she's still speaking French to me, which means that my French is good enough so she doesn't feel the need to speak English, which I know she can, because I heard her talking to some other customers in English earlier.)

As I was saying, it's weird being here all alone, because I constantly have to be on my guard. Even in broad daylight, it might not be a good idea to go down a back street. It sucks being a female traveller, not so much even because it's unsafe, but because I've been told it's unsafe so many times that I've started to believe it. If I see a man smoking pot on a bench, or riffling through the garbage can for empty beer bottles, I automatically classify him as a danger.

I don't like having to be so careful. It's hard to fully enjoy a place, to sort of 'give myself' to it, if you will, when I'm constantly feeling threatened. And I shouldn't even feel threatened! Quebec isn't a dangerous city, especially in the touristy part in broad daylight. I'm not going to get hurt. I shouldn't be thinking that way. But because I'm a female, in a city I'm not familiar with, I am, just a little bit, afraid.

I suppose I should have a point to this blog post, like arguing how cities should become even safer, so that no woman ever gets assaulted or raped. Or maybe I should protest the gender stereotypes that make me believe that, as a female, I am weak.

I'm not going to say anything of the sort. I think Canada does a pretty good job of keeping its cities safe. And I know that 'weak female' isn't just a gender stereotype when it comes to a fight between 5’3", 95lb me and a 6'2" 220lb male.

This isn't a blog post about social change; it's a call for me to change. I don't need to be stronger, or for cities to be safer. I just need to realize that something doesn’t have to be 100% safe for me to enjoy it. I don’t need to be in a secure little bubble all the time. As a control freak, I need to learn to let go a little and relax. Yes, I need to be careful. But I don’t let the remote chance of danger spoil this beautiful city.