A grand trip across Canada and spending six weeks in a small town outside montreal. w00t!
For all students in grade 10 or 11 out there, who know some french or are bilingual, apply for this exchange next spring. Especially if you are a shy person because there is nothing like spending three days on a train with complete stangers to help you make friends. except maybe mosh pits...thats another story though.
I started off my grand tour excited and already a little bit tired from not sleeping much the night before at the train station in edmonton, where we waited for about an hour before boarding the train. Not to knock VIA rail Canada but maybe a lesson from the british tain system is in order there..... I am what they call extroverted. I am also still not entirely sure what is implied here but whatever, I still started off my journey by stumbling across a group of girls and one boy (many, many more girls than boys on this trip.) with two guitars and a binder full of songs with chords and songs. I can`t play giutar but apparently I can sing so with them i sang myself horse that day and some of the next two days when i wasn`t playing cards with some kids from Vernon and Nelson B.C, or salsa dancing with one of the coordinators from Quebec. I had a rad trip except for the sleep(none) and for some sad twist of fate i was put in the car. yeah, that sucked. hahaha not that i don`t love music, but three diffrent genres at volumes usually reserved for TV with a deaf grannie....it gets to be a bit much. (the music didn`t help me trying to get to sleep) We arrived in Toronto at about 9.30pm and were on our way to montreal by 10.45, and spent the next several hours sleeping, well for me it was closer to passed out than asleep, and arrived in Montreal an hour early...4 am. we waited for out rent-a-families and went to our respective rent-a-homes to sleep off the train ride and then shower and eat (not nessesarily in that order.)
I`m glad that i don`t have to repeat the journey for another month but when i do i know i`m bringing something to help me sleep. apparently there is a really good natural remedies store in the town whre i work! fingers crossed for sleep!