Teachers Take Control

It can be quite interesting, traveling with a group of 20 teachers. It seems that we are all used to having the control. We have our classrooms the way we want them and we don,t have many people telling us what to do. Today has been quite the spectacle, as we traveled from Quebec City to Montreal in these three Ford vans. Some of us wanted to leave the hotel early while others insisted on leaving later to give time for exercise or to piddle around; all of us had our maps of Quebec out and were trying to navigate which ended up stressing out the drivers. It became a bit comical as everyone got upset during this long drive. Luckily we made it safely to our hotel for the next two nights and found it is very nice with a pool and a computer with internet for anyone to use. Hooray!!

It has been fun speaking French 100% of the time. I have learned lots of new vocabulary words as I have had to use them. Some of these people are university professors and all speak really well. Today we stopped for lunch at a small restaurant. I ordered a nid croustillant which means a crusty nest. It was kind of a surprise menu item. It reminded me of when I used to play Restaurant with my cousins. We invented all types of food on a fake menu and the customer had to order the item to see what it was. Anyway, this crusty nest turned out to be an open potato with all sorts of vegetables and bacon piled on top. It looked similar to Skillet from Dennys. Pretty cool, but greasy. The other young teacher, Jessica, ordered a Quebecois crepe. This turned out to be a crepe filled with cheese, apples and topped with maple syrup. Kinda weird. We usually dont mix sugary and salty items in the U.S., but they do here in Quebec. They are very proud of their maple syrup and put it on everything. I was happy I ordered something different, though it was a bit greasy.

Our destination today was a beautiful historic mansion that was used during the time of the French colonization of Quebec. As I said before, the French mainly came for commercial reasons while the English came to the New World to colonize. When Montreal began, there were over 200 men for 30 girls. They knew the French could not have a permanent settlement in these conditions. They had to ship some orphan girls (called Filles du Roi) over here so that they could get married and start having families in New France. This was one of the houses they used. It was beautiful inside, kind of reminded me of the Lion House, but bigger and more distanced from the city. The gardens were amazing!! So many beautiful flowers and herbs. The orange sage and pineapple sage were my favorites. I got to rub my hand on them and then smell like pineapple or orange. Mmmmmm!!! The beds inside the bedrooms were really small and had three pillows. They were for three people each. The colonists slepped in a sitting down position and not stretched out flat as we do. They believed that after eating a heavy meal of meat and vegetables, it was better to digest in a sitting position than lounged out flat. They also believed that if they were sprawled out flat, the destroying angel, who took many colonists during those cold winters, might grab and extra soul as it passed, thinking they were on the virge of dying when they were really just leaving. I cannot imagine sleeping sitting up all the time.