Tuesday, July 3, 2007

Laval 1--l'arrivée











1er juillet—After a couple of uneventful flights—only a slight mix-up at the Newark airport and a plane-change due to a lightning strike, I arrived in Quebec City on time. A couple of nice students with ‘Ecole de langues’ signs picked a few of us up at the airport and brought us to our dorm. I had to get my mind in gear for the Québécois accent all over again.
The rooms in Pavillon Moreau are small but comfortable enough, and cleaner than the dorm rooms I’ve seen at home. The weather is uncommonly cool, even for Quebec and the locals feel bad for us. A few students had to go out to buy coats. Hopefully it won’t last past this week.

July1st is the Canadian national holiday. At the informational meeting we were told that there was a celebration that night in the Old City, so of course I had to go. I met another student, Susan, from Philadelphia, in the airport, and we decided to hop on a bus—in the wrong direction unfortunately—but finally arrived in the ‘vieille ville’ and I had dinner at a nice restaurant on the Grand Allée. I’ve seen this street many times during my ski trips but the patios were always covered with snow.
After dinner we walked over to the Plaines d’Abraham where we could hear music playing. It was a rock band from Québec, singing in French of course, but I didn’t catch the name. There were pretty good but we didn’t stay long enough for the fireworks because we kept feeling raindrops and it was already pretty chilly.

Les tunnels


















Université Laval has a really nice campus. It’s fairly modern compared to LSU. The earliest buildings were built in the 60’s but there are several that have very modern architecture. It’s obvious that art is really important here too. There is a rock sculpture in front of the ‘student union’ type building engraved with quotations from Felix LeClerc. There are several other sculptures around campus too.

All of the buildings on campus are linked underground with tunnels for pedestrians who have to walk to class during the snowy winters (or the rainy and cold summers). Artists have been commissioned to paint murals all along the walls of these tunnels. One artist was working on a painting but he didn’t want to be photographed. He showed us some of the murals he had already completed. (see image)