Snow Daaaay!

On Saturday we got a bucket load of snow, and so we got to sleep in, and then we had an epic snow day! The origional plans were to have a snowman building competition, and go sledding. This turned into snow angels, wrestling, crazy carpet trains & sandwiches, and king of the hill. And don't forget the plastic snow pants.







On sunday I awoke and realized I could finally open the first present in my sequence of the 12 days of Christmas presents my parents sent me!!
The first day I got a little paper christmas tree, a glue stick and little sequins and me and Katey sat at the table and decorated my own homemade christmas tree and ate chocolates as my family tradition states. (: Thanks rents!


Last night we had to volunteer to clean up after a short range firework show that never happened because it was in the middle of a blizzard. So we came and cleaned up the metal barriers that were in charge of non-existant crowd control and they were heavy! With me and another person carrying one I found it heavy. Then you had to trudge about 30 feet away through a field of snow and toss it on this huge pile. We were working so hard we were over heating in our heavy duty snow gear and like unzipped our jackets in the middle of a blizzard, and ate snow to re-hydrate ourselves.
Today I worked in the laundry again and I actually really like it. I got to worin the kitchen for the last two hours and I cut about 20 frozen loafs of bread. It was really hard work and I didn't enjoy it that much, but theres a door in the kitchen that has a window looking to the outside and while I was cutting the bread I saw some homeless men outside, and suddenly the bread cutting was not that big of a deal. I mean, how much more justification, proof, in your face do you need that what you're doing is important and is going to help someone only a few hours from then?
Anyhow, I'm going to sleep before sleep comes to me..
stay updated!

Busy was her name-o!

So we got to have our work tours, and the jobs are all seemingly ballin'.
We also had our work interviews and the night before I'm all stressing because I suck at speaking French and so on and so forth and Stephanes just laughing at me and I find out later in my interviews while I'm speaking to all the bosses in English that panicking was not neccessary... ANYWAYS.
Once we had our interviews we were lined up in the hallway with our eyes closed and guided to chairs in front of our employers and I was partnered with Marc-Andre at the homeless shelter called Maison de Lauberiviere.
Katelyn is working at the old folks home, Sarah is doing physical education and custodial work at Patro Laval, Evelyne is working with disabled adults at L'arche, Brandon and Ryan are working at a second hand clothing store, Zoe is working at an industrial kitchen who makes food for the poor, Jared and Sara work at a sledding and ice skating park and Isaac works at an English Library.
My first day of work was a ton of fun. I had Marc-Andre there to help me in the language category, and we got to work in the kitchen! First we cut Brocoli, and then leeks and then helped serve lunch to the homeless. It's really justifying and rewarding to serve food you helped make to the homeless. I'm the soup lady because no talking or understanding of French is needed. :P After Marc-Andre sorted donated baked goods, and I cut ham and then we were free for the day and that's when we took our walk downtown.
Yesterday I encountered the laundry for the first time.
This is when all the homeless people's PJs, towels, sheets, blankets and slippers are brought into the basement and placed into industrial sized washers and dryers. Since I didn't know I was working in the laundry I brought nothing to do and no-one spoke English or even French to eachother so I just watched Prince music videos on mute inbetween loads. When things are dry you fold until your hands cannot fold anymore. After we again served food, which I think is my favourite thing to do because you can actually interact with people even if it's just saying bonjour over and over again.
That afternoon me and MA were enlisted to help paint a mural in what will be a pottery classroom for the homeless come January. We painted the ocean and at one point I leaned against a wall of wet paint in the newest sweater I own which I bought in prince george with my sleeve rolled up, so when I roll my sleeve down I have brown zebra stripes on my bright blue sweater in permanent paint. After a while the smell of paint and paint thinner got to me and MA and everything was funny...
Then today...
MA worked in laundry and I worked in the kitchen. I cut apples for an hour until 9am, and then at 9am is when IT began. I was taken into the basement and presented with a small knife, a bucket, a chair and a 50 lb bag of russet potatoes. From 9am until 4 pm with a one hour break inbetween, I peeled potatoes with fugatives who were serving their time peeling potatoes in the basement of a homeless shelter. Better yet, I cut my finger while doing so. And better yet, MA was there for only 2/6 hours to keep me company, and better yet when I finished my 50 pounds, I did half of his 50 pounds of potatoes.
My fingers are stained with iodine and to this very moment, I am still questioning why I flew all the way across Canada to voluntairly do the same community service that criminals are being punished with to avoid prison time.
Tomorrow is once again laundry day.
Oh Katimavik, the joys you bring into my life, bountious amounts of uncomprehendable French, 6am alarms, and bloody, aching, iodine stained fingers.
Anyhow, one of the first days here we had the oppertunity to volunteer for something I think is quite similar to Salvation army so we got to wear red vests, ring bells and beg the general public outside a grocery store for money. I have now perfect my french, hello, good evening and thank you very much.

Then on Sunday we volunteered for something called the toy parade. Mine and Katelyns job entailed, getting our faces intricately painted in the Christmas spirit, and then entertaining wealthy children on the second floor of a hotel, and then watching the parade from the VIP section.


I spent the afternoon giving away tickets for a door prize and trying to explain this in French to many children who did not understand a word I was saying. It was magical. This day I was also not in a very good mood because while I was in one half of the city my camera and wallet were in the other half in the school we got our makeup done in, and so therefore did not get to eat, and on the way to go eat with the group which I could not do because I did not have money, Isaac and Brandon threw a slush snowball at my back so we can all imagine how happy I was about that detail. At the same time as this, my boots were faling apart and the slush on the streets were equal to the amount of slush in my boots. At the end of the parage me and MA and Jared and Kate also missed the yellow school bus back to the school so we were texted and informed that we should public bus to the Beauport house and this proved difficult as 3/4 of us did not have our bus passes and mine and katelyns being MIA in a different half of the city. So we had to break Katelyn's $10 on something random, run for a bus we've never been on. We were told to go to the bus terminal and then randomly to stop at 'the bread factory' so MA asked where the bread factory was... turns out we passed it already so we had to get out and walk backwards to the Beauport house. Once we got there we saw multiple katima vans outside so we assumed our group was there and banged on the door and rang the door bell excitedly to discover our group was not there and we got to meet the Beauport group after be obnoxious with their bell and knocking and with our faces painted rediculously for the first time.
Eventually even showed up and we had supper games and a skit and Stephane attempted to play the strange organ that's in their living room.



It was cool hanging out with us (ste-foy/quebec) and Levis and Beauport and Beauport's house is even bigger than our house was in Vanderhoof if you can imagine!
We also have two weeks off for just Christmas activities and I got to write them ALL on our calendar. Check it out.


And crazy little tidbit, me and MA have the same job/work at the same place but we won't be working together for 6 weeks!! This is because next week he's house manager, then we have 2 weeks off work, then I'm house manager for a week, then he's house manager and then I'm house manager!! Kinda insane. Soon he's staring earlier than me too because he can talk french he's going to sign the homeless in for breakfast and so this entails waking up at 5:30, bussing at 6, arriving at 7 working till 3.
I swear I am legit tired and jet lagged and stressed right now, but HEY welcome to Katimavik! The program that never stops giving.
Wish me luck.
(And BTW my fam rocks and sent me a box of presents for each 12 days of Christmas, SO excited to open em, love you guysss!)

Quebec Cityyyy!

So the 2nd night we were here, we had the joy of getting our bus passes. Now bus passes in Quebec is no ordinary story, no suree!! They
a. have your picture
b. your name
c. your birthday
and d. a ballin microchip.
After we got our bus passes Stephane our new PL who by the way is a young, extremely sarcastic take nothing seriously kind of guy who reminds me of a teenager in a grown up body, took us on our first unoffical tour of Old Quebec which is a 25 min bus ride away from my house in Ste-Foy! Anyhow, we saw this huge theatre and huge hotel and outdoor skating rink and then you go through this gate and all of a sudden you're surrounded by old buildings filled with modern stores, and christmas lights, and little apartments, and amazing shopping and narrow cobbled stoned streets and christmas carols playing from store fronts and the buzz of french all around you. It was seriously amazing. The Hotel Fontanac is huge and gorgeous and amazing, huge churches tower over you, and statues are everywhere. We wandered around as if in a real life dream land. It's GORGEOUS!! Do you believe me? No..? Well now you have no choice. Check it.







Now riddle me this, how does one get used to living in a place so beautiful? As far as I'm concerned, it's not possible! It is such a gorgeous place!!
The other day after work me and MA took a walk through down town quebec, those pictures before was uptown quebec and it's just as gorgeous, if not more during the day.




You would seriously love it mom, and whoever says that picture of us is not cute is obviously lying.
What, I work 5 days a week in DownTown Old Quebec, no big.

The house!

Okay okay, before you get mad, let me apologize again for not being very good with updating my blog. It's been absolutely crazy lately!!
Where I left off is probably a tour of the house.
Now the group before us deemed it the crack house or the crayon box, and the reason why is because it's super cute, tiny, and cozy, and each room has at least one wall that is painted a random colour, for instance my bedroom has 3 white walls and 1 bright green wall. Anyhow, this is the bedroom I share with Sara(h) Squared.
Mine is the bottom bunk.


This is the boys bedroom. There is 5 beds in this room and I couldn't fit them all in one picture and the boys bedroom is not worth two pictures so shabam.

This is Evelyne and Zoe's and Kates room.

This is our hallway, our room is on the left, the boys on the right and when you turn around its the same thing but the PLs bedroom, the other girls room and the bathroom.

This is our living room

And this is the risk room because its only ever used for risk.

And I'm just going to leave the kitchen and dining room up for interpretation.
It's a cute house, and I'm starting to learn that
a. you can hear every single breath in this house, soooo unsound proof.
b. the floor right in front of my room moans when you stand on it
c. the sink in the upstairs washroom makes a noise when you turn it on
d. the hot water runs out after 2 showers
e. that my bedroom door squeals if you open it slowly
But its all good, ahaha, it's a cute, vintage house.
Stay posted. Round two comin' this way.

V-Hoof Finale

Hey long time no post, and my sincere apologies! One can only imagine how busy one must be whilest moving to a completely different province!! So therefore I will do 2or3 seperate posts.
Sorry I didnt do these when I said rents, I got caught up in an adventure instead!
So the last few days of Vanderhoof were spent celebrating, cleaning and crying. The three c's I guess.
Isaac turned 18 and Sarah turned 19 so we baked them each a cake!!


Then packing ensued. And packing is a huge job considering we had done it three months before, and since then we had all bought and recieved various things so it made it harder to fit everything inside our luggage. As can be seen here, packing makes one incredibly tired.

While cleaning we also discovered that our dining room table was used to leave messages behind from all the past katimavikers in the house so a few of us left our mark.

We also decided to be more environmently friendly and we all went to timmies on such a regular basis so we invested in traveller mugs and we made one last visit to timmies as one big group, then madeness insued as half the group was hyped on coffee. Slug wars, chasing eachother and matching PJs included.




Mel-mel also gave each of us a card and a present and she gave me one of her super cute shirt that she said in the first week I complimented her on, and a deep redish black nailpolish. I gave her the scarf my mom knitted and she was over the moon and just ooed and awed over every little detail. She loved it, thanks mam!!

On the Monday before we left Reg dropped by to say bye and he gave me an amazingly nice letter, and a carving of his aborigional clans symbol that he carved himself. It's beautiful. He was such a great guy to work with and I learnt so, so much from him.

After a bit more cleaning Mel said she had to go and we gathered for a picture, had multiple group hugs, made a little tower for her to run over and me and Katey had a rather tearful goodbye.

End of rotation reflection was only a day and a half long and went by pretty quickly in between making goodbye presents for our pls, having snow ball fights, skating and eating mass suppers. It was hectic having our PL ripped away from us and then having Quesnel in our house but I survived it. We woke up on Tuesday morning at 3 am, packed up a yellow school bus, and headed off to Prince George at 4am.


We got to the airport at 5, and flew from PG to Van and once we got to Van we were informed that our flight to Montreal was cancelled so we had to call the katimavik travel people and flew from van to toronto, toronto to montreal.
While flying a saw a MOUNTAIN poking out from the clouds which was amazing because I had no idea a mountain could be so tall!!

While flying from Van to Toronto we noticed that our flight map began to look a bit strange and noticed we were flying through the United States. Slightly alarmed and after a mini panic attack, Sara asked our flight attendant why and he said its because its fast to eastern canada over the USA but it's still kinda weird when your screen looks like this and you're trying to get to toronto:




When we got off the plane in Montreal we met up with the Victoriaville and Levis group and we got on the bus and drove from Montreal, to Victoriaville, to Levis to Ste-Foy and we got on the bus at 8:15 pm and got to our house at 1:00 am. At certain points in the bus ride the music blaring loud and I could not even hear myself think over the two French DJs who would announce the next Celine Dion song. :P
Our new PL is named Stephane and he is super cool. Me and Evelyne stayed up and talked with him until 3 am and went to sleep.
Duh duh duh.. next post! Stay tuned for pictures of house, and old quebec and two volunteering oppertunities, and work placements!!