Although Quebec is still a Canadian province, I noticed and found out so many different things about it. There are so many quirks and funny things that I am not used to but am slowly accepting and appreciating. As this is only the halfway point I`m sure that I will come up with more as the weeks progress. I will make another installation, but here is what I have so far. Some maybe obvious and maybe you might not care, but here they are:
1. The airport in Montreal is named after Pierre Trudeau, the 15th Prime Minister of Canada who was born in Montreal. He was successful in creating a bilingual Canadian government.
2. The YMCA group that I am with from Surrey lives in a place called Terrebonne; however, I am living in a little town called Crabtree. By car, the trip takes about 40 minutes in good traffic conditions.
3. It is interesting to note that the 7 of us from Surrey all live in different towns that are quite small and spread apart from each other. Most towns are named after saints' names, such as St. Jacques, St. Paul, etc. as well as religious events such as L'Assomption and L'Epiphanie.
4. In each of these towns, there is always a church, and sometimes a school attached to it. This is why there are so many churches present in the area. Depending on how big a town is, there maybe supermarket, depanneurs (corner stores), public parks, and usually there are small community centres or arenas.
5. Many families have smaller houses and very large backyards that have swimming pools for the hot summer months. It seems to me that pools are a must here!
6. After being in a grocery store here in Quebec, it is nice to know that they do sell regular milk here that are in cartons, but most families opt to by ``bagged milk`` which is exactly what it sounds like: milk in a plastic bag.
7. As I write this on a public library computer, I noticed that the keyboard is a tad on the difficult side to use: usually to get certain symbols such as the @ sign on a regular keyboard, you would press shift and then 2, but now I have to got ctrl+alt+2 .... c'est tellement difficile!
8. I currently work as an animatrice (camp monitor) at a day camp in Crabtree. After doing things like these for four years back home, there really isn't much difference between BC and here except for the fact that our real names are not used, and we have `camp names`. The reason for this is still a mystery to me, but I do have some speculation. My name is Dragon here at the camp, and ssshh, no one knows my real name!
9. Every day at camp the kids go swimming in the pool that is right smack in the arena. All children are required to wear a swimming cap (something I haven't worn in such a long time!) or else they are sidelined for 5 minutes before they can go in. Why this is, I`m not too sure...
10. A lot of the Quebec langauge is slang and Anglophone terms as well as the fact that it's very different from what I learned in school! They even turned the English word ``texting`` into a a French verb. It is conjugated like a regular -ER verb in the French language, which I found tres tres drole.
11. Listening to music on the radio here has been very fun. While there are a handful of Quebecois radio stations, there are some stations that play Top40 hits (in English!) and the DJs all speak French. They even have the Virgin Radio station here!
12. There seems to be a lag in trends and fads here in terms of pop culture. Some of the movies that we have already seen and may already own on DVD come out later here, although there are some major releases that come out the same time as back home. Music wise, everyone here is hooked onto Gangnam Style!
That`s all that I have observed so far.. I will put up another post continuing where I left off.
The other day I heard a song at the Super Aqua Club that Spencer had introduced me to... this one`s for you, buddy :) ``Cruise`` by Florida Georgia Line
Rachel
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