One of the optional activities Monday night was traditional folk dancing. I’m not much of a dancer (though I wish I was) and I’m quite slow at learning physical skills as my coordination isn’t very good. However, my friends were in on it and I thought why not right? I thought it be dancing at a studio with an instructor, but what a surprise it was to me when we arrived at a park a 30 minute walk away from our school at Mont-Royal, where there is also a “mount” with a great view of the city (I definitely recommend it!). Turns out, this activity was a free activity in the park every Monday night and it was taught by an elderly lady with a lot of enthusiasm and energy with an elderly man in the back controlling the music. It turned out to be lots of fun and so many locals, especially senior couples were there to learn as well (some must come weekly because they danced so well!). People who were watching at first ended up participating and others just kept taking photos of us. It turned out to be a fantastic night of group dancing and we all left with tired legs, but happy smiles.

You would rarely find this opportunity where I’m from in Edmonton and I realize how active this city is. Around town, there are stations where you can rent bicycles to ride around town, and once your time is up, your bicycle stops running so you have to return it to any station before then. You are also are able to get a monthly or yearly subscription to using these bikes.  It’s encouraging seeing people so active by taking advantage of their biking lanes, going for walks in the evening and  working out outdoors. 

Tuesday
I went to discover an area known as Outremont/Mile End where its known as a “hipster” area. We were introduced to some cathedrals and landmarks here, but no sightings of hipsters were found. The best part was getting free bagels from one of two most famous bagel bakeries in this area, St. Viateur. We got the original I believe, a freshly baked, hot from the oven, soft and chewy sesame coated to perfection bagel. Plain, but delicious and better than any bagel I ever had, why do I even bother eating store bought bagels or ones from Timmies? Oui Oui, a great taste and find indeed!
 
Wednesday
Decided I needed to add more activity into my life again and went to the sport center to learn a class of Gumboots…en francais! It’s a dance similar to Stomp where the dominant part of your movement is from your legs. Gumboots is a dance originating from Africa and one they did often when mining in their Gumboots aka rubber high boots of course. We didn’t have these boots, so instead of slapping rubber, we made sound by slapping our calves.It was tons of fun and easy to pick up. I would love to do it again despite having redly discoloured calves after. Afterwards, we went for a walk down Cote de Neiges looking for a snack and ended up at  at Chez Lien as it was the busiest Vietnamese restaurant out of the three we saw.  This was my first bowl of pho since like January '12 and it was super satisfying and worth trying!
Beautiful view while strolling Cote de Neiges

Thursday

Tonight we went for a picnic at Parc La Fontaine near Sherbrooke metro station. It was like any typical park with lots of space for you to sprawl out and enjoy your time among the trees, squirrels and the company of one another.There were over a  hundred of us students just sitting around in circles, sharing food, enjoying the great outdoors, and… supposedly speaking French as it was part of the Explore program. Well, having spoken so much Anglais since Explore started, my friends and I actually tried to speak as much as we can (an incentive was getting these Bravo cards, which we could turn them in to be entered into  a draw for a trip to go to Quebec city as there was only limited spots available). Despite initially thinking I would be saying the same lines over and over, I actually learned from my friends who are at a higher level at me and picked up some new words/phrases as well. Being in immersion definitely makes you go at a quicker pace, but I’m actually learning more than I thought I would. Perhaps I should attempt a simple post en francais après.

However, I have an oral next week already… tres triste.