Unfortunately, my laptop charger AND my camera battery door broke at the start of this week, sending me right back to the stone age. Now every time I use my camera, I have to hold it closed with band-aids until they stretch out and eventually fail. Until I get a new charger, I will be writing, when I have time, from the computer lab.
Essentially, everything I own needs to be wrapped in bubble wrap and dummy-corded to me...
Anyways, here is the short and sweet version of week three at Explore. Enjoy.
July 15th:
After an intense day of grammar work, my first poetry atelier, and some fun at the dorms, Paris and I went to The Pumphouse to visit Jeff and have dinner.
I tried my first regional drink: the Caesar. Essentially, it's a bloody mary with clamato in place of tomato juice. It was interesting to say the least. Luckily, The Pumphouse's special hot-pickled string bean got the clamato taste out of my mouth!
We wrapped the night up with blueberry chocolate cheesecake and headed back to LaFrance.
July 16th:
In lieu of studying for our impending final, a group of us went out for a delicious meal at Pink Sushi. Being so close to the coast has many benefits, including fresh and inexpensive sea food!
If I could eat sushi every day, I would. Especially from Pink! The staff was friendly and attentive and the rolls were awesome. After, we set out in search of international postage stamps, and returned to the dorms victorious.
July 17th:
Today was quite the busy day! First, it was our final exam for semester one. I feel really confident despite the difficulty of the material. Sébastien has been a great professor.
Later, there was a field trip to Arbre en Arbre, but I opted out due to my fear of heights.
The girls who did go had a great time, though!
During the evening, we played a brilliantly executed interactive murder mystery game. We were given a short story, and a pictograph puzzle, and sent into a building completely chock full of clues and evidence, including codes and riddles, to figure out who murdered the Justin Bieber-looking victim pictured above.
On each floor, in random rooms and hallways, our monitors were dressed up as different characters (all potential murderers.)
Everyone stayed perfectly in character and acted their roles to a tee.
In fact, some of them were pretty terrifying!
Anyways, we had to converse with them to figure out the clues.
And each actor gave us the letter answer to one symbol of the pictograph, if we asked the right questions in French, and listened hard enough!
In the basement, we had to avoid this guy while opening lockers with the combinations we found in code form throughout the building.
Here's our nearly finished pictograph! We were so close!
After an hour, we all came outside to cast our vote of who we thought did it!
Alas, it was the janitor, his own brother, who killed him out of spite for stealing his spotlight and being their father's favorite son. I love our monitors!
July 18th:
Today I did a presentation on bulimia. I had everything pretty well down, so I think I did OK! In poetry, we did an adlib that was pretty fun, too.
In the afternoon, all of the Explorers participated in "Rallye Photo", a team-based photo contest. To gain points we had to form seven-(wo)man teams and take photos based on written cues.
The more team members in each shot and the more original was photo was, the more points were awarded. Plus, we couldn't tell people we were doing this stuff as part of a contest! Here are our shots:
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| Se prendre en photo avec un vélo. Take a picture with a bike. |
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| Prendre en photo une oeuvre d'art. Take a picture with a piece of art. |
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| Faire une planche humaine. Do a human plank. |
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| Se prendre en photo avec un travailleur du Tim Hortons. Take a picture with a Tim Hortons employee. |
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| Se prendre en photo avec la rivière chocolat. Take a picture with the chocolate river. |
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| Se prendre en photo en donnant un calin à un étranger. Take a photo while hugging a stranger. |
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| Prendre une photo de la plus belle personne que vous voyez. Take a picture of the prettiest person you see. |
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| Prendre une photo d'une demande en mariage. Take a picture of a marriage proposal. |
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| Faire un signe de paix à quelqu'un en complet. Make a peace sign at someone in a suit. |
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| Prendre une photo avec un chevreuil. Take a picture with a deer. |
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| Prendre en photo quelqu'un en train de rire à vous. Take a picture of someone laughing at you. |
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| Se Prendre en photo avec un officier de police. Take a picture with a police officer. |
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| Prendre en photo quelqu'un qui dort en publique. Take a picture of someone who is sleeping in public. |
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| Danser derrière quelqu'un sans qu'il ne s'en rende compte. Dance behind someone without them noticing. |
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| Prendre en photo une drôle de commande de nourriture. Take a picture of a funny food order. |
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| Prendre en photo une plaque d'immatriculation autre que celle du Nouveau-Brunswick. Take a picture of a license plate from somewhere other than a New Brunswick |
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| Prendre en photo quel'qu'u de mal habillé pour l'occasion. Take a picture of someone poorly dresses for the occasion. |
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| Se prendre en photo sur le dos d'un étranger. Take a picture on a stranger's back. |
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| Prende une photo d'n château. Take a picture of a castle. |
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| Prendre une photo d'une dame enceinte. Take a picture of a pregnant woman. |
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| Faire une pose d'une pyramide humaine. Make a human pyramid pose. |
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| Prendre une photo d'un drapeau acadien. Take a picture of an Acadian flag. |
Once again, our monitors struck it out of the park by creating an awesome activity! I hope we win!
After, Jeff brought spicy tuna rolls and an avocado milkshakes from Delightfully Delicious and we had a picnic in the Art Park. Yum!
July 19th:
Today was my second-to-last day of poetry, during which I wrote a four stanza poem about my favorite Canadian candy bar: Coffee Crisp! They don't exist in The States, so I've been eating my fair share of them...
J'ai faim de toi tellement souvent
Je tends les bras vers ton emballage brillant
Jaune, rouge et blanc, ils sont tes couleurs
Je te regarde avec le plaisir et le douleur
J'insère les monnaies en le machine automatique
Et quand tu tombe je deviens extatique
Quand je t'ouvre et j'inhale ton parfum
Je m'ai faiblis car je me sens tellement faim
Mais quand je prends le première goût
Je le savoure et j'oublie presque tout
Ma langue est dans un état de la frénésie
Avant je réalise, je mange un demi.
J'adore la mousse de café entre tes gaufrettes
Tout enrobé en chocolat aussi
Je veux te mange toujours sans arrête
Mais avant je suis satisfaite, t'es partie.
I'm sure it's not the most perfect, but it turned out pretty funny none-the-less.
July 20th:
After classes, Paris, Jarrett and I headed off to the Mosaic Culture Festival downtown.
Before we left, Samuel gave us Mr. Freezies!
The fest was pretty cool, and there were stalls and booths with goods from different places around the world.
There was live music, too! There's always something going on in downtown Moncton.
July 20th:
Today, we all climbed onto coach busses and headed to Prince Edward Island for the afternoon.
I napped for quite a bit of the trip, but the view from Confederation Bridge was just too incredible to miss. This massive 42,323 foot-long feat of man links P.E.I. to the mainland by spanning the Abegweit Passage of Northumberland Strait. Incredible, no?
It took quite a while to get all the way across.
The weather was perfect, and the view just blew me away.
First stop, the Acadian Museum.
This tiny place was exciting for about 13 minutes...
After that, we just laid out on the front lawn and waiting to load the bus...
Next stop, Cavendish Figurines. Essentially, a giant gift shop where I picked up a few things for the fam.
The guys had a little too much fun with it...
Some of them anyway.
I never read the books, so I didn't really pique my interest, but it was still kind of funny, in kitschy way.
Next, we drove to the Green Gables Heritage Place. The best part of the whole thing was the cinnamon bun ice cream at the café there!
We just played tourist and the Anne House, and then sat around waiting to die. No one was really thrilled with the trip, but at least we had each others' company!
All in all the week was great. But seriously, we were surrounded on all sides by water and still didn't go to the beach! /endrant. This has been the only slow spot in my whole trip, thus far!
Anyway, THANK YOU SO MUCH to everyone who let me use their glorious photos. I couldn't do it without you guys!
Thanks so much for reading!
