Categories
life

10,000 Days Old

Today I’m 10,000 days old. I figured it out using this date calculation tool.

10,000 days can also be converted to one of these units:

  • 864 000 000 seconds
  • 14 400 000 minutes
  • 240 000 hours
  • 1428 weeks (rounded down)

Happy 10,000th day to me! Here’s to another 10,000.

Categories
life

Counting

When I first arrived in Quebec I decided to count all my laps in the pool in French. I’ve gotten pretty good at counting by 25’s but I still make the occasional mistake.

While counting them today, after mixing up how far I had gone, this thought occured to me and made me smile.

There are three kinds of people in this world: Those that can count, and those that can’t.

Bon journey!

Categories
life travel

Week 4 is Almost Over

There’s only a week and a day left in my short journey to Quebec. I knew the days were going to go quickly here, but seriously I can’t believe it’s so close to being over.

For the most part everything has been fantastic. The written exam didn’t go nearly as well as the oral, or phonetics but there will be more tests which will give me ample opportunity to improve. I think my major problem was that since I speak a little more fluently than the others in my class, I felt like I could get by with less studying (well I got by, but it was ugly).

Last night I tried to hook up with some friends, but somehow I forgot where I put the number and I was expecting them to call me anyway. I found out this morning that there WAS a message for me last night – but “we must not have heard the phone ring because we were talking to loudly at dinner”. Ok? That doesn’t seem just a little odd? Anyway it was no big deal, but I did check out the Salsa dancing place, Chez Morrice, just in case. Lot’s of dancing, little (or rather “no”) people that I knew.

Tonight I will be hooking up with the friends though. We are going for a picnic at the Plains of Abraham followed by a FREE jazz concert. Certainly Quebec is more fun than any place I have ever lived before. The festivals just keep coming one after the other!

Categories
life travel

Learning French

Each day I’m notice myself becoming better and better at French. At school we are supposed to only speak French and while I’m no where near 100% fluent, I am becoming quite good at basic conversations.

Last night they held a “Casino Soirée” at the University. On my way over there a little old lady on the Street asked me for directions. I explained that I only spoke a little French but nonetheless she asked again, more slowly this time, if I could give her some directions. Amazingly enough, I not only knew the area well enough to explain it to her, I even did it completely in French. I must have gotten some good karma from it, because just moments later the bus arrived and I didn’t have to walk to the other bus stop as per my plan.

Black Jack

The Casino was such a blast! Even though we weren’t playing for money, I had a fantastic time. They had lots of Black Jack tables a roulette wheel and some other games of chance. I found it a little hard going at first, but then I discovered one of the dealers was giving out 20,000$ chips for only 10,000$ (She thought the blue ones were only worth $10,000). One sneaky exchange with her got me back into the game enough that I could feel comfortable that I wouldn’t end up losing all my chips early in the night, but she figured it out almost immediately after I made the change. One lucky guy had been cashing into blue chips all night before he or she knew of the error.

However, the real luck came when I discovered one of the tables where the dealer had NO CLUE WHATSOEVER how to play Black Jack. There was one time that she had 20 points and took another card. I guess she was hoping for an ace. It was pretty much the case that so long as never busted I won every hand. After awhile someone explained to her that as the dealer she only draws more cards until she has 16 or more—still it was fun while it lasted.

We ended the night with a little dancing and partying even though I should have been home a few hours earlier working on my homework. Learning French can be fun but doing activities in French is way more fun!

I can’t say enough how awesome the My Explore bursary program has been. If you are a Canadian student (within the last year) with even the remotest interest in learning French, I highly recommend the program.

Categories
culture life travel

Excursion au soleil

Last week I went on a tour of Le Soleil newspaper headquarters here in Québec city. At the end of the tour, our guide asked us to write a little bit about what we are doing in Québec and to send a photo for their online version of the paper. I sent the following (I hope people can understand it because some of it I had help with and some I did not!):

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Je m’appelle Jeff Milner. Je viens de Lethbridge, Alberta. Je viens juste de terminer mon bac à l’Université de Lethbridge en Nouvelle Media en avril.

Je suis venu ici pour apprendre le français, parce que je trouve la culture et histoire québecoise intéressante. J’ai reçu une bourse du gouvernement du Canada. Je suis en le cours Français “Elémentaire A”.

J’aime Québec beaucoup. Mes lieux preferés à Québec sont Vieux-Québec et les Plaines d’Abraham.

J’ai hate de revenir.

The photo was taken at the Plains of Abraham after a demonstration of historic battle formations and musket firing.

Update: Les photos publiées!! (Click on the smaller photos to the right to see our individual photos and paragraphs).

Categories
life

Frogs and Snails: Watch out!

Specifically it’s snails that need to watch out because that’s what was on the menu for supper on Friday night.
Escargot
I’ve never had escargo before, but it wasn’t as bad as I imagined (nor was it as good as many people like to pretend). I think the biggest problem is the “ewww” factor. Even though they taste alright, there is no getting around the idea that you are, in fact, eating snails. It was worth it though, if only to expand my horizons a little.

Categories
life

Hot Hot Heat Tonight

Last Friday I saw “Live” at the Festival d’été de Québec and tonight I’m going out to see Hot Hot Heat (official site|myspace). I’ve never heard of Hot Hot Heat, but listening to their music on the net, it appears I’m in for a great show tonight.

So another little family update: currently I’m still loving life in Québec. My parents have survived some of the most intense tension in Israel recent years and are now headed home. My brother and his wife will be arriving back in Canada later today after spending a year in Australia and my sister is still taking beautiful photos of her (mischievious) kids. I can’t wait to chat with them all about each of our adventures.

Categories
life

A Quick Update

My brother and his wife climbed Mt. Fuji – (photo). My parents left a city in northern Israel that was bombed later that day by militants in Lebanon — more info from my mom:

We were shocked to hear that there were bombs from Lebanon in Safed or Safet :( however you spell it… I’m not sure if that was today or yesterday, but we were there yesterday afternoon about 1 or 2 p.m. and it is only 20 miles from the Lebanon border. Our Tour Guide was talking to all the soldiers and shopkeepers, but we had no idea what he was saying since we only speak English. He spoke to us about how bad the situation was since 7 soldiers had died, but I really didn’t have any idea of the implications.

As for me, I’m loving Quebec. I played Ultimate Frisbee yesterday. Tonight I will see the band, “Live”!

Categories
life

La cabane à sucre or The Sugar Shack

Québec is like a foreign country where they still take your Canadian change.

I have been having the most wonderful time over the past week. My comprehension of French has been growing at an amazing rate and I’m meeting a ton of wonderful new people.

On Tuesday we watched a French film called, L’auberge espagnole. Fantastic story about a guy from France who decides to live in Spain for a while in an effort to improve his Spanish so he can advance in his career. He leaves his girlfriend behind but makes some new friends along the way and has some very interesting problems to overcome. It’s a cute movie and though I didn’t always follow the dialogue completely, I really enjoyed the story. I recommend it.

Wednesday evening, we hit up the Beach volleyball and partook in hotdogs and coleslaw. Though I’m not usually much of a fan of hotdogs, these ones were smothered in fried onions, ketchup, relish and mayonaise — wow! They were extremely good.

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The highlight so far, however, has to have been the trip to La cabane à sucre : la cabane à Pierre. La cabane à  sucre translates to The Sugar Shack. Sugar Shacks are where they make the maple syrup for which Canada is world renowned. It’s made mostly in the winter months, so our tour of la cabane à  sucre didn’t include watching them actually creating maple syrup, but we did see where they did it (and some of those that knew french better than I found out how). I think it’s basically they boil it in big vats until it’s ready (The Wikipedia entry on maple syrup is a lot more clear)

You’ll notice from the photo the odd shape of the building, that’s because the whole roof is actually a kind of chimney for all the gases evoporating from the boiling maple sap.

C'est Pierre!

The dinner provided at la cabane à  Pierre was absolutely fantastic (can you guess what cabane à  Pierre is?) I ate like a French king and loved every minute of it. Potatoes, ham, beans, bread, meat pie, pancakes, and more all drenched in the world’s best syrup (yes Maple!). Pierre himself even showed up and we danced the night away.

For dessert they gave us (I forget the actual name) it’s maple syrup poured over ice and wrapped around a stick like a popsicle. So much fun and so tasty.

I know I just got here, but I already know I’m not going to want to leave in only four more weeks.

Categories
life Photography travel

La vie au Quebec

My red eye flight with Air Canada was, as is no surprise to any of you that have flown with Air Canada, delayed. I missed my connecting flight but caught the very next one (though my bags did not). Anyway, enough complaining about Government funded private ventures that are bound to fail…

Quebec has been more wonderful than I could ever have imagined. My host, Danny, is a fantastic cook and continues to surprise us with delicious recipes at every meal.

July 1st is known in Quebec as the moving day. People take it seriously and actually do move on Canada Day – there is probably some deep symbolism behind their choice of days – but I prefer not to think about it. My host, Danny, is also in the process of moving, so while he worked to get things transferred to his new apartment, I went for a walk in the old city of Quebec.

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The old city or Vieux-Quebec is located beside the St. Lawrence river. The smaller width of the river as it enters the towns of Quebec and Lévis, on the opposite bank, provided the name given to the city, Kebec being the Algonquin word meaning “where the river narrows”. It doesn’t appear very narrow to me, but I guess it’s a relative thing.

Walking through the old city makes me feel like I’ve travelled back in time. Founded almost 400 years ago (1608), the old buildings and French architecture have a magic way of connecting me with my Canadian heritage. I spent the day walking around taking a plethora of photographs of Quebec.

Bang

That evening my new roommate and I walked down to The Plains of Abraham and enjoyed a free concert followed by Canada Day fireworks. As a note of potential interest I learned that the Plains of Abraham is the largest urban park in Canada, and repeating this fact at the Welcome Party last night won me a nice red University of Laval t-shirt.

On Sunday Danny took us to see La Chute Montmorency (Montmorency Falls). They were named in 1613 by Samuel de Champlain in honour of Henri II, duc de Montmorency, viceroy of New France. (That area of Canada used to be called New France).

La Chute Montmorency

It’s been too long since I’ve been around anything so breathtaking. There is a lot of water moving out into the St. Lawrence over the falls and I had a good time watching the hypnotic motion of the water falling so far down. Apparently early explorers were excited to have found such an abundant supply of fresh water so near the St. Lawrence River.

I’ve started my month long French immersion and I’m loving it! Of course I’m just at the elementary level, but I’m thrilled to have actual conversations with people in French. It’s a lot less stressful when you know the other person is just a nervous about their French as you are with yours.

Oh, and one last thing, the University pool is fantastique.