Noche de Carnaval et Carnaval de Québec

My dear friends!

Hope you are fine, not freezing too much! (Surprisingly, every time I check the temperature in FFB it seems to be colder than here) I had a very busy week, was merely at home and accumulated a lack of sleep that resulted in 11 hours of sleep last night. You wonder why?

First of al, there was the Intercultural Week at university, one week full of special activities organized by volunteers… There were conferences on topics like “Rights of indigenous peoples in Quebec” or “The spiritual structure of Islam”, presentation of films, open dancing classes (salsa, tango, bollywood), introduction to Japanese calligraphy, collective painting, cookery courses… and finally on Friday night the “Noche de Carnaval”, a party on the theme of Latin-American carnival with dancing and percussion performances and typical food! I participated in the realization of this program, helping to set up stands, getting CD players, drawing posters, selling tickets, preparing decoration for the party and working at the coat check… But I also learned some Egyptian recipes and basics of tango that week.

Collective painting (I did 3 triangles)

Egyptian cooking

Noche de Carnaval (with handmade decoration)

And the carnival continued on the weekend. I went to Quebec city, the place to go for carnival! Carnival here is kind of different from German carnival. People watching the parade are not disguised, remember that all the parties where people wear costumes take place at Halloween. The special thing about carnival in Quebec is all the winter stuff, there are installations made of snow or ice and activities like snow tubing and rafting of ice. The most important character of this carnival is “Bonhomme”, a person disguised as a showman who is participating in the parade and other events and is present on publicity, posters etc. Although it’s freezing cold, people are celebrating outside hilariously – maybe it’s because of “Caribou”, a drink with 22 ‰ alcohol that tastes like “Glühwein” but is not warmed. Another culinary must-dry is “Tire d’érable”, maple syrup that is poured on snow to get viscous and is then rolled on a piece of wood.

Carnival people

At the parade

Snow sculptures

The castle made of ice

Noah kissing Bonhomme

Arnaud and me drinking Caribou

Maple syrup on snow

I walked through the old city again and went to the falls of Montmorency. You have to compare with the pictures on one of my first posts and you will remark an important change. I could not imagine that falls or huge rivers like the Saint Lawrence could freeze!! Amazing and really beautiful…

Chateau Frontenac

Saint Lawrence

Montmorency falls

Don’t expect another post before end of February, it’s time for exams again and I have to start my revisions tomorrow!

Hugs and kisses!

geli

Crémaillère à l'allemande

For those of you who don’t understand the title, well, the English translation of "crémaillère" seems quite strange to me: "housewarming party", zu deutsch "Einweihungsparty".

I had this idea two weeks ago when one of my roommates asked me what we’re eating in Germany. Thanks to Nadine who left me some instant potato dumplings (Kartoffelknödel) I showed her a typical German meal including the famous dumpling, roast pork and broccoli. As many of my friends were curious to see my new apartment, I decided to invite them for Friday night and used the opportunity to present them some German food at the same time.

While writing the invitations, I realized that I have to many friends to invite all of them at the same time: There are my friends from the outdoor club, especially from the trip to Ottawa who are the people I’m hanging out with most often. There is Melanie whom I know from one of my courses of the last term. I invited two guys of my Jazz course as well. I was also thinking about inviting my former roommates but Gab had a show the same day…

On Thursday and Friday, I went to different grocery stores, the market and SAQ (Société des alcools de Québec) to buy all the ingredients and some alcohol. You might be curious what I was cooking. I was waiting for my guests with small sandwiches (a piece of baguette with ham/cheese and a slice of pickels, the kind we often have at buffets) and “Pfannkuchensuppe” on the stove as they had to battle their way through the blizzard. As most of them had arrived, I served some “Kasspatzn” made of Alsatian spaetzle, “Fromage Swiss” (cheese that is supposed to be something like Emmentaler but you have to know that in Canada, you can’t distinguish a block of Mozzarella from Cheddar or Swiss) and five fresh onions from the market. Most of my guests were already full after the degustation of these two dishes but I forced them to try “Schweinebraten mit Kartoffelknödel” as well. And this was not yet the end, Ilona, Elsa and Melanie brought some delicious desserts! As there was so much food left, I was very happy that against my expectations, the two guys of my music course arrived with two friends around 11. Nevertheless, I didn’t have to cook the whole weekend ;-)

You may wonder what happened to the alcohol I bought. Well, we nearly emptied the bottle of vodka playing a game where you have to drink each time you say “Yes” or “No”. After this warm-up, the four guys and me went to a bar where a rock cover band has been giving a show. Unfortunately, one hour later it was 3 a.m. – time to go home…

It’s again been a while since my last post, thus I didn’t tell you yet about my skiing day at Mont Saint Sauveur a week ago. At 7:30, I met with two girls of the outdoor club on the central bus station (what a pity that I moved, I had been living next to the bus station before…). We bought a ticket including the bus transfer (the ski-region was at a distance of 50 km) and a whole day pass for 70 $. Having arrived there, we went to the location store to get skis and boots and at 10 we started our skiing day. The weather was perfect, sunny all the day, not too cold. Unfortunately, parts of the trails were quite icy as there were no precipitation the preceding days. Thus, I was not able to experience the fluffy powder snow I was hoping to encounter in Canada. I have to admit that the mountains in Quebec can’t keep up with the alps. The trails were quite short what means that we made one downhill every 10 minutes. In the end, we did some skiing on illuminated trails as well, as the pass was valid till 6 pm. All in all, I really enjoyed this day!! Now I’m waiting for a big blizzard bringing lots of fresh snow and I’ll be on skis again…

That’s all for today… Take care!! And don’t get it wrong: although I’ve got lots of friends here meanwhile, I’m so much looking forward to seeing you again in less than four months (wow!!) at home =)

geli