My French broke today....

New definition for broken French, watching Mr. Vine order some "waterre" for one of the students this morning.

What a day - absolutely incredible experiences that I doubt I'll have the opportunity to do again in my lifetime.

We started off heading for Ste. Foy, for Tutti Frutti, which the GPS mangled about as much as we have with our French for the entire trip. The food was awesome, and the behaviour was perfect - compared to the previous dinner, it was much better.

Following that, we boarded the buses to the dogsledding. We started off with a cultural experience, as we met a Montaignais singer and storyteller, who also demonstrated lighting a fire without matches for us. He was very entertaining and interesting. Following that, we strapped on some snowshoes and marched towards the place where we met the dogs.

Mr. P and I boarded our dogsled, with him riding and me on the runners. I understand full well now why they call that position the runner position, because I think our dogs were spent, and I wound up pushing Mr. P. Once I even had to go forward and grab the front dogs, who had come back to fight with the 4 in the rear. Mr. P nearly panicked once they started going again, at least until I regained the brake position. When we caught up with some kids, we split up, and I wound up pushing Dihanna the rest of the way. I have to admit, I totally loved zooming thru the woods behind the dogs. It was so peaceful and beautiful - and I got some lovely pictures of dog butts. Madame Froese apparently decided that rolling down the hill behind the sled was the ideal way for a descent - and spent the bus ride into town removing snow clumps from her clothing.

Speaking of pictures, my camera is recharging right now. I've taken about 500 so far - what a picturesque town this is. I may post some later tonight, if I can stay awake long enough and my camera has enough juice to run again.

Following the dogsledding, we headed into the old town for lunch. Kids either went to Mickey Ds' or went to Chez Ashton. To hell with my arteries - when in Quebec, it's poutine! I had a diet pepsi to ease some of the damage....

Following lunch, we went to the Musee du Fort, where we saw a scale model re-enactment of the various battles in Quebec's history. The hit of the day was getting these little remote controls for a trivia contest. Following that, we walked over to the Chateau Frontenac for our group photo - the light was spectacular, so hopefully the photo will turn out well.

We then walked up to the Citadel, which is about the only point of the day where I wasn't impressed with some group members. A very large utility vehicle was trying to come thru the gate while many of our children were standing in the middle of the gate. Now, I know to get out of the way of large machines, I would assume YOU know to get out of the way of large machines...It was a bit dismaying to see how many of our students...didn't. There was NO extra room in the tunnel/gate. Also, the litany of "I left my (gloves hat scarf snow pants coat) on the bus we've been hearing is unbelievable.

The citadel was cool - and the snowbanks were unbelievable. Have I mentioned how much snow there is here? In some places, the banks are nearly as high as the bus.

We then reboarded the bus, and headed for the ice hotel. Apparently the ride took quite a while due to traffic, but I must confess to missing most of it - I went down for the count very quickly. The ice hotel was totally amazing - beautiful, breathtaking - just awesome. Can't wait to see my pictures. On the way out, the whole group, except for Deepak, gave it a ten out of ten. He only thought it was worth a 7.

After that it was on to the Sugar Shack, where we had a great meal. Dave recommended putting maple syrup on everything, and I did indeed do it! The pea soup was good to begin with - but with the syrup? Amazing! We had a one-man band playing French folk music, we did a group dance, had some maple syrup frozen toffee (delicious) and did a few dances in a snow pit.

The return to the hotel was smooth - I think we have some very tired children. We got an excellent behaviour report from the guard last night, and are hoping for another good one tomorrow.

The camera should be charged by now - I'll start working on pictures soon. Good night!