So Fast

Hello!
Many things have happened since my long post below. Many things. But please understand these things happen fast and then they make me tired so I go to bed instead of blogging about these things.

These things include:
Hiking (up the one mountain Thunder Bay possesses)
Cake Making and birthday celebrations
Attending Shows
Billeting
Making lots of food
Becoming caffeine reliant
Gabe
Halloween
Update on the French

I will try my very hardest to cover EVERYTHING.

Hiking started out with our entire group leaving late. We packed a stupid amount of food and loaded ourselves into the van about 4 times before we finally left.  The first part of the hike was SUPER steep. At one point the mountain was a ski hill with a lift and everything but now it just has crazy steep 4 wheelers tracks all over it.  After the initial altitude gaining hill it's a pretty nice hike, a little bit of scree and a little bit of dirt paths, but for the most part we just wandered all over the mountain.  It is necessary to cover all sides of a mountain this size in order to get a good work out because up and down takes about 1/2 an hour each way.
We ate some lunch at the top and took pictures and made Petra super mom-nervous by going really close to the edge of large cliffs. Thanks guys..
On the way down we literally found ourselves in the cross fire of a game of paintball.. no injuries though.
After our hike we went back to Gale and Volker's house for chilli and we watched the rest of K2, which we started on Thanksgiving. Funny, funny movie. I don't recommend it.

Cakes
Eric (our baby) turned 18 on October 23rd.  I made him a 5 layer chocolate cake from scratch, icing included.  Sam decorated it with gummy bears we stole from Dalandrea.  We got him a sassy fedora also. I love Eric. I will put a picture up. I promise. I'm just not on my own computer right now.

Attending shows. Last Monday we went to a Magic show.  We got free tickets from the Salvation Army.  Really nothing much to say.  Sometimes there's a reason things are free.  Sometimes I should check what age group things are intended for. Magic sucks without cool lights.

We also went to Fierce Light, but I posted that below so check it out!

Billeting.
We had our billet family BBQ last Tuesday. We made a TON of food and accommodated.. way too many people for our little house to handle.  A week before we called in the local paper to promote us; they photographed us and Sam and I did an interview, which was great because the reporter was a fine specimen of a man. 
Basically the idea of billeting is to give you a break from the whole program and everyone you live with, as we are literally packed into that house. (I'm on the bottom bunk these days, Sophie and I switched) 
I started billeting last Friday.
I live with a couple named Anthea and Scot and they are really sweet.  We live 40 minutes out of town.  Anthea and I drive in every morning around 8 because she works at the university as a student advisor (I know, SCORE!) and Scot works at home restoring canoes and building things with his carpenter skills. They have 3 kids who have all left home so I share the top floor with their grumpy 18 year old cat who licks my feet.
This weekend they took me everywhere I haven't been here yet. 

I FINALLY SAW THE TERRY FOX MEMORIAL!! pictures definitely will be up soon, bear with me. (Anthea and Scot don't have wireless)

Then we went to Sleeping Giant park and walked around the cottage area.  People here are in love with their cottages, which they actually call camps. We also ran into lots of deer which are more or less tame. Pictures, I promise! We also went to a little camping/touristy spot near their house called Kekebeka Falls, it was very pretty.

On Saturday night I stayed in town with their daughter who is a 3rd year at Lakehead.  Her and her crazy roommates took me to a Halloween party which I wish I could remember more of.  We didn't stay long. Tonight they are taking me to Kanga Sauna.  It's a Finnish tradition to do group saunas and by the sounds of it a Thunder Bay drinking tradition.  I'll update on this one soon!

Caffeine
I drink coffee, daily.  I drink coffee and I don't have massive anxiety reactions or the desire to DO EVERYTHING WITH LOTS OF EFFICIENCY!  I drink coffee and I like it, and it appears to like me back.  I should probably not blog about this as it has zero point or affect, but I find it strange that I of all people now drink coffee. Okay, I'm over it now. Ignore this.

Gabe.
I came home on Wednesday of last week to find an unfamiliar face in my house.  I said hello to him nonetheless and then reached for a piece of celery which my beautiful house managers Sam and Martin had prepared for their working children. 

There was a lizard on my piece of celery.

Gabe (that's the guy, not the lizard) has a pet gecko.  I can't remember the gecko's name because I kept referring to him as Geico and speaking in an Australian accent to him. He was such a champ. Gabe was part of the program a year ago and lived in our house. He was driving back home to Quebec from Calgary where he had not be successful with finding work.  He had a really cool tattoo of a snake around a half-moon which was symbolic of his ADHD.  Best of luck Gabe, I hope you find work.

Last night was Halloween and Eric called me.  He's staying out of town too but in the other direction; he lives on a farm with a girl named Marcel who taught us how to make bread when we first got here.  Her and her boyfriend have a few animals but mostly they grow food to sell and contribute to the slow food trend that is growing quickly around the area.  Eric skinned a deer this weekend. I was extremely jealous. UNTIL...
Scot went out and shot a grouse and let me pluck it! I really don't know how to describe how strange it felt to be pulling feathers out of a bird that was still warm in my hands but had no tail feathers or head.  Pictoral evidence will come for this too, you bet!

French
is going well for the most part.  I'm wondering how fluent one can possibly get when all they say is "Ce quoi ________ au francais?"
Progress is progress though, but for the sake of measuring goals I'll say I'm at a 3 out of 5 on understanding and a 2 out of 5 with reiteration.


Okay, pictures soon!
Bye
Petra

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