Windy Sunday and Cheese Curds

My apologies for abandoning my blog for an entire week! It has felt like a busy week, with most evenings spent at the university for various activities. Yeah, I did a lot this week: went hiking, watched a movie in French (The Great Seduction of Dr. Lewis - I believe that is the English title), had another dance lesson (modern), went swimming, learned some more Quebecois dances and songs, visited the puperie in Chicoutimi, watched students do improvisation theater, went to a costume party with a circus theme. All this in just five days, and all this was organized by the program at the university! Oh yeah, and I have also been attending French class every morning and wrote an exam on Friday.

And, in the midst of all that, I realized that more than half my time in Quebec is already over and gone. Wow, I don t know how that happened! Time is wizzing by. So, how is the french, you are asking? Well, I have definately learned a lot already, but boy there is a lot more to learn... I can now speak in sentences if I have enough time to think about it. But only in the present tense. :) And I prefer the sentences starting with Je (I) because conjugating verbs is really complicated and I have to stop and think about them every time I want to use them! But it is exciting to discover that I can understand a word that my Quebecois mom used, because I learned it in class that day. Or when I can impress her with words like habitullement (ususally).

Today, Pauline (my Quebecois mom), Najat (her friend from Morocco who is living here for the summer) and I drove up to a look-out from which we could see all of Chicoutimi. As you can see from this photo, it was rather windy!

Before going home, we drove to the local cheese factory, since the region is famous for its cheece. Now, I visited some cheese factories a few years ago when my family and I were in Oregon. So I expected something similiar - you walk in, get a little tour of the big machines and the whole process of cheese making, and then you buy some sample cheese. But, with my very limited French, I didnt really know what was going on (something which I am starting to get used to). What really ended up happening is that we drove through gorgeous farm country with rolling hills covered in dandilions to a cheese factory (fromagerie) in the middle of nowhere. We waited in line for about 15 minutes to buy a little bag of cheese curds which we consumed outside the store in the lovely sunshine. And then we drove the 20 minutes back home! That was it - but the pretty drive was definately worth it and it was fun to do a little cultural thing (the place was really busy because its weekend). Here is what my cheese curds looked like - their cheese here is very white.

They were quite salty and - they squeaked when you chewed them! Yeah, pretty fun cheese.

Yesterday afternoon we went on a little cruise down the river. Here is my Quebecois host Pauline (in the red) and her friend Najat. Both are really neat people and I have enjoyed spending time with them this weekend.