Walk the Chewbacca

This post is starting life in Denis' office at 21:20, Tuesday. He has to speak to someone in China at a time convenient to them. I don't have to be here, I mostly came along to make going back to work after 9pm slightly less painful.

Wednesday there will be no working in the evening. There will be dancing! At possibly the worst advertised social. This has been on the cards since last week (when the venue decided to wait until 10 hours before the event to confirm and then moved it to this week) but the one person who is in a position to put the event on Facebook waited until about 8pm this evening. Oh well, probably will mean more space on the dancefloor for me, muahahahaaaa!

So Saturday night we celebrated Hallowe'en by dressing up (as Jessica Rabbit and Chewbacca) and playing Beer Pong with the Queen of Hearts, some kind of Sexy Rabbit Princess With Feathers (??), Fairy, Prisoner, Baseball Player, Harry Potter, and a bunch of people who couldn't be bothered to dress up. Beginners' luck did not help at all and my team lost. My team also mostly refused to drink all the beer we were supposed to; but it was really horrible beer and we lost really badly so I don't feel bad about essentially cheating. 

We then headed to a bar where Chewbacca was a huge hit and I couldn't hear anything anyone said. My lip reading in French is terrible so I mostly just nodded; they could have been saying anything (Denis recently introduced me to How I Met Your Mother - turns out the secret is to start with season 1, episode 1 and get the proper character introductions otherwise it is far less funny).

Sunday I watched Ghostbusters for the first time, except it was actually S.O.S. Fantômes, because I watched it in French. Still good, in a very 80s way. Talking of the 80s, I have been reliving my childhood and listening to songs from NOW 1987 such as the exceedingly dated but no less funky Walk the Dinosaur. 

Monday evening started with a "cocktail" (where beer, wine and soft drinks were available for consumption). It was for the Liberal Party of Quebec and I met Michelle Courchesne who was very taken with the story of how I came to be in Rimouski (i.e. Denis). She said we should turn it into a book. Unfortunately, I think the book would be pretty short and probably very chick-lit-y due to subject matter and lack of content. Although, if it looks like I'll never find a job that would give me something to do.

Then we headed off to Denis' wine-tasting class. I was allowed to come for free because it was Denis and Marc who were "teaching" that evening. It was a good job I was there, otherwise a paying customer would have had to hold the map of Lebanon in the style of glamourous assistant. And then there was whisky tasting. Not quite sure how that fits in with a wine class but at least it was something I wanted to hear about (as obviously I'm happy to taste as much free wine and whisky as people are willing to give me). I didn't learn anything new as the focus was very much on Scotch whisky - the one type I know a little about. Unsurprisingly the English girl with Scots blood did know more about it that the bloke from Quebec.

So a "cocktail" where no cocktails were served and "wine tasting" with whisky sampling. Clearly Monday was a night of things not being what they seemed - appropriate for Hallowe'en.

Tuesday afternoon was not only productive but good fun. I met up with Claire as she's not working this week. We drank tea and talked painting and knitting. Plus, in the really cool tea room Claire took me to (that I'd totally walked past not realising what it was) I bumped into Raf, who I'd met at the "cocktail". It's almost like I know people here.

Right, people have arrived, pre-dancing. I should be less un-sociable and get my head out of my computer.

2 days, 200km, less than $200, 3 hot chocolates.

There are two Allo-Stop stops in RdL. One is at the McDonald's I can see on the other side of the centre commercial on my way to school and is maybe 20 minutes walk from the house, if that. The other is at St Hubert (fast chicken but classier than KFC or Maccy D's. Just about.) which is at least a 50 minute walk away. Unfortunately it was the latter I was headed for on Friday.

It was a chilly walk so I got myself a petrol station hot chocolate to keep warm while I waited for the man. It worked but it wasn't the best way to introduce myself to Canadian hot chocolate. I was to find out they do it pretty well here.

My driver was Jean-Michel. He wore a bandana on his head like a pirate and had small shifty eyes but was neither a pirate or shifty and we had a good chat so I practiced my French. He'd not been to England but knows some of Europe as he has a Swedish girlfriend. We talked about the environment and public transport and travel and drinking cultures. The two hour journey passed quickly enough and it was wonderful to see forests all different autumn colours.

I caught the bus into town from Ste-Foy (a suburb of Quebec City that is about 7 minutes drive from the towncentre in a car, several hours' walk or half an hour by bus. I don't understand it either) picked up a box o'beer and headed to Andy's place. Or should I say André's as Andy was in Germany and my host was André. And a very good host he was too.

We were just discussing what would happen if magicians worked for armies when Stephanie and Salima turned up and we went flyering for an Palestinian hiphop group. I say "flyering" there was a little bit of sticking paper to old posters with sellotape, quite a lot of holding the end of the tape so the roll unwound and rolled off, a bit of making André wear the ruined tape but mostly it was wandering about and looking in shops. We even went to a lovely chocolaterie called Erico for hot chocolate. Much better than the first one I had! Not as thick as the French ones that are pretty much just melted chocolate but not that sweet and so SO good. I was also shown a very sweet épicerie which has all sorts of fancy and expensive and interesting wares dedans.

We then went to get ingredients for dinner, at which point André realised that cuillère à thé de canelle doesn't mean "a spoon of cinnamon tea" (because why would you put cinnamon tea in apple crumble?) but rather "a teaspoon of cinnamon". This story was to be recounted at every possible opportunity.

Dinner was quiche, presided over by Salima and pudding was apple crumble, presided over byAndré for his very first solo baking experience. It was yummy and there was plenty of random yet entertaining conversation with people I'd only met that afternoon.

Saturday I met Laura and Nick in Second Cup for a hot chocolate with whipped cream and chocolate curls. We spent most of the rest of the day in Simons and a couple of other shops out in Ste-Foy but it was my formal introduction to Simons and couldn't been rushed. I bought furry white earmuffs that I'm certain are not vegetarian and a fluffy white beret.

Laura and Nick also found themselves some chic attire.

Hat and earmuffs from Simons Scarf and cardigan from Simons

After the most enjoyable trip to the pretty clothes and accessories we went back to Nick's for tea (Eary Grey) and biscuits. When I saw André later that evening he couldn't get over how British we were being with our tea and biscuits. Fiona always says there is no one more patriotic than an ex-pat and I know I drink a lot more tea here (as I did in France) than I do in England.

Anyway, that evening I took the bus out quite a long way to find the Port-o Swing studio and my whole reason for the weekend in Quebec. You guessed it: Swing dance. It was weird going on my own but I made good dancers dance with me and then other good dancers asked me to dance including ...the Canadian balboa champion (well, the bloke anyway).

Sadly I only got about three hours of dancing in before I had to catch the last bus back (that or a two hour walk after midnight, no thank you). But then I went to Salima's birthday house party where there were cupcakes and dancing and a very old drunk couple who smoked a lot and petticoats and a Newfie (someone from Newfoundland) and discussions over who of the Canadians was the most English.

On Sunday I met Nick and Laura and we (mostly me) cooked brunch for André to say thank you for letting me stay and then I had to run off and get my Allo-Stop so left my fellow Brits to do the washing up. Fortunately I had fed them well and we're all still friends.

In these shoes?

It feels like something that may have happened some months ago but it was only yesterday that I met my Mum and sister and went to the Clothes Show Live.

Talking to Mum today we worked out that so far in 2008 I've seen my parents for less than 3 weeks. That's less than a short uni holiday. We predict that this trend is likely to continue as I grow up more.

With any luck I'll be running off to Quebec some time in August (2009) until sometime in June (2010) - best part of ten months.

Anyway, yes, the Clothes Show was on tv when I was little and I loved it. Mum always wanted to take me and my sister and has been waiting for us to be old enough.

I feel that I was pretty cunning about the shopping element of it: I got two items that I'd seen in town but couldn't justify at that price and managed to get them for considerably less. I got a pair of shoes that fitted a description I had in my head but didn't know existed for less than expected. Also they are Irregular Choice - a brand I've lusted over for some time. I got a handmade prototype one-of-a-kind top that just happened to be my size and my colour (has a bit of Westwood feel about it).

We saw the main show (from afar) introduced by Dave Berry and Alex Pettyfer, featuring the Saturdays (wearing two-tone tights). The models were accompanied by dancers including a bit to a big band version of Wonderwall - it totally worked.

There was another, smaller, show pretty much just with models but you could get a lot closer which was good as the clothes were the main event there. It featured Dolce & Gabbana, Burberry, Gareth Pugh, Giles Deacon and some I've forgotten.

I walked home from the station. It was a really good end to the day - a woman outside Vodka Revolution wearing black with gold hotpants and a gold headband was firespinning - I didn't see a hat for collecting money but didn't get close enough to check. When I got to the Co-op I nipped in for Camomile tea thinking that I wanted it enough to pay 79p for 20 bags and then the label said £1.19! Fortunately when the girl bleeped it it said 79p and then we discussed the 50 pence piece I gave her. It had a soldier carrying another - I already had one like it in my small connection of coins with interesting pictures on.

Pretty darned excited at the prospect of wearing my new shoes tomorrow and SWING DANCE! It has been like nine days since I last did it. I'm gasping for a dance. Err?

Also feeling somewhat more smug about Christmas now that I've spent some money on other people (even if it hasn't been dispatched yet). At least I know what I'm doing. Well, not entirely. Don't know about housemates at all. Previously we did Secret Santa but it is different this year as there are very old and very new friendships within the house - don't know half of them at all well enough. I'll make cards. Soon. Yes.

www.cbcradio.ca/radio2 - Drive with Rich Terfry. Yes. It is keeping me up because I don't want to miss any but I know I need to sleep. Poetry on the radio.

Talking of radio, listened to Peach's show today. Started off very well but did go a bit downhill when they started sorting out their social life. Hello, audience *waves*!

Ten days left to get sorted before I go home for Christmas. It doesn't feel like long but I like the pressure.