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I've been in L'Ancienne-Lorette five days. I took a couple of days to adjust to jet lag (five hours is not that hard really, but I like to milk it), during which I walked around the surrounding areas a bit. I saw my old house, it's practically unrecognisable. I also went out for a drink, which is always a good way of keeping yourself up, I think.
Then I had three days holiday with my hosts thanks to thanksgiving (l'action de grâce): Saturday we walked up Mont Wright, Sunday we walked around Québec city, and yesterday we walked in la vallée de la Jacques Cartier. The trees are amazing; the colours are wonderful and the sheer number of them is always breathtaking. Living in the UK, I sometimes forget what a real forest looks like.
Le vieux Québec itself is fantastic; it feels like a European city. I'm finding the amount of space in Québec a little unnerving, despite having grown up here, but the old town feels as familiar as it should. Plus, research shows that any city with cannons, city walls, and a river running through it is 37% better than a city of otherwise equivalent goodness (OEG).
Now. Maple. Anything maple. Maple donut, maple biscuits, pancakes with maple syrup, ice cream with maple syrup, maple sugar, beer with maple whisky, maple bagels, and la tire d'érable (mapple taffy?). And that's just what I've had so far.
French is slowly coming back to me, mostly through a process of pronouncing english words with a quebecois accent and judging from people's puzzled expression whether or not it's also a french word.
This afternoon I'm off to talk to a family friend about the possibility of getting some work for the next few weeks. It's not all fun and games, you know.
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Mark Beer with maple whisky...? Not sure that is right... the others work ok... Still to experience: eggs in maple syrup, des grandperes (research this one...), des feves au lard au sirop d'érable, tarte au sucre....