Voyageurs National Park - Jour Un

Bonjour, mes amis!

Due to my desire to ramble and tell details, I'm splitting this into two posts, one for Friday and the other for Saturday. We left early today (Sunday) so there's not much to tell.

Friday morning I woke up bright and early. Around four a.m., actually, although I didn't get out of bed until five a.m. We left ten minutes after six and during the five hour drive to Lake Kabetogama we stopped once to have brunch around ten or eleven a.m at boring old Perkins. We fueled up with a station that gets its gas from BP. I felt a little guilty.

As we turned onto the road that would take us to the resort we were staying at, my parents stopped at this giant fish thing. You know, one of those photo-op things where it's 9817392871928372 feet in the air and you're supposed to get on it? Yeah, no. I'm afraid of heights. They were kinda mad, I think.

Continuing on, we arrived at the little resort. When I say resort, I don't mean giant fancy hotel, I mean a cute little office building with some boats and cabins/trailer spots for rent. (Later it would prove to be gorgeous. You can see the live webcam of the dock I love here.) It was cloudy and drizzling as we put up the tent, and the rain kept building. I went for a little walk before we wandered into some tourist spots and stores looking for trinkets to buy. One of them had an awesome compass but I was talked out of getting it, and ended up buying a map of all of Voyageurs National Park. Pretty exciting start to my day.

Then we went to the Vince Shute Wildlife Sanctuary. It was so cool! You get bused into the site where there is a two-story tall deck, complete with a gift shop, and then you can see the black bears that wander in.

There were five cubs in this one tree. So ador

able.

There were an estimated 30 bears in the area while we

were there. This was just one little section of the area.

Story has it, Vince was a logger who was just trying to earn some money for his poor family, and turned out to be very good at it. He'd hire loggers to work for him, and he'd cook sourdough pancakes for them in the morning. They then went out to work, but when Vince returned, his house was being raided by hungry bears! He shot hundreds of bears, so many he lost count. Finally when he thought they were all gone, he went back to his house only to discover more bears. So he changed his plan of attack.

Instead of trying to kill the bears, Vince set out some sourdough bread just for the bears, away from his home. It worked. He quickly became attached to the bears and kept feeding them well into his old age. As he got older, he started to worry about what would happen to his bears after he passed away, so he and some others founded The American Bear Association.

Since it was a good cause, I ended up buying a comfy new hoodie and a new book bag for the coming school year (Pray I never wear my sweater to school, with the matching bag!).

We didn't do much else that evening. We tried to have a bonfire but everything was too soggy, it rained literally all day. I went out to the dock and laid on a bench to look at the stars. They were gorgeous, and I saw my first shooting star! Four, to be exact.

À demain,

Mlle Delphine

Week Two: Exercise

Bonjour mes amis,

It's 10:30pm and I have to be up at 4am to dog pile into the car for a trip up north for the weekend, so this will be a short post with no French.

I was bad again, but in a different way. I worked REALLY hard Monday... which left me sore all week. In fact, my legs are *still* sore. I didn't work out at all the rest of the week, I decided I should let my poor abused body recover. But next week I've got it down. Not too much, not too little, juuuuuuuust right (Goldie Locks, anyone?). I hope.

I'll post again upon my return to share about the trip to Lake Kabby!

À demain,

Mlle Delphine

No "If"s, "And"s, or "But"s

Bonjour mes amis,

Be it reading poems (Wild Geese by Mary Oliver), listening to music (Taking Chances - Glee, Cave In - Owl City), glancing at the school website ("The real meaning of travel, like that of a conversation by the fireside, is the discovery of oneself through contact with other people." -Paul Tournier), or even reading Facebook statuses ("Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." -Mark Twain), I am constantly reminded of my dream to go to school in Québec.

So I'm going to do it. No "if"s, "and"s, or "but"s about it. Where there is a will, there is a way, and boy do I have the will. If it means I don't get a nice pair of shoes or new clothes for the school year, if it means I have to continue playing my piano by sitting on my bed, if it means I have to hang out at home and save some gas money, if it means I have to skip lunch here and there... I'm going to find the money. I'm going to go to Québec for school. I filled out a few more job applications tonight and I'm going to pick some others up tomorrow.

I'm going to make my dreams into reality.

À demain,

Mlle Delphine

Short 'N' Sweet

Bonjour mes amis,

I have been stricken with the strong urge to jump in my car and go on a road trip. I could go somewhere closer like the river, or drive into Wisconsin and kidnap my big sister for a day, or if I had my passport I could cross the border and go see Canada.

Problem being I have 1/4 tank of gas and no money or passport. Seriously though, I really want to, like I spent my morning planning where I'd go if I could just up and leave! Maybe I can get some gas money from the parental units this weekend and go nag my sister and have her fiancé foot the bill for lunch ;) I don't think I've seen her since Easter.

I can't sit still. I'll write more tomorrow.

À demain,

Mlle Delphine.

College... in Quebec?

Bonjour, mes amis!

Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out.

Wouldn't that be SO AWESOME?! Okay, here I go trying to explain to my evil councilor why this is a good idea and why he shouldn't talk me out of it like he does to all my other friends and their ideas. Also, for my friends who are now panicking about me going away to Canada. *Clears throat and the screen does the wavey fade out and in again to another scene*

I want to major in Music Education and become a choir director. French, however, is something I could never give up, and so every time I search for colleges, I have to look for a music program and a good French program. Realistically, I know there are some out there, but they tend to be very expensive or in remote areas I'm not so fond of moving to... and to be honest, I want to go to a decent school, not some random place in a town of 400 that conveniently is affordable. No, money is not my primary concern, but it is a concern. I expect to be in debt until I'm forty and I want to make sure that every single dime was spent on me enjoying my one life. My father will be taking me to France after I graduate from high school for a couple weeks, and as much as I'll love it, I know I would never be able to afford to go to school there. So, I guess I could study abroad for a semester or two. But then I had a better idea:

Why not go to school in Quebec?

Think about it, I'd be doing all of my learning in one school so I wouldn't have to be uprooted every 4-9 months. It's a major French-speaking area in the world and most any college I look at will be taught in French, and they have programs to assist the students whose native language isn't French. I wouldn't have to worry about whether or not there is a good French program all while being pretty immersed in it, and I know my ability to speak the language would increase drastically. Then I would be able to focus my actual classes on getting my major and it would save me money in the long run since most language classes are a handful of credits.

As for the actual going to school in another country, I think it would be an incredible opportunity. I've always loved seeing new places, but visiting them on vacation is never the same as actually living there. Simply moving cities was an intense culture shock to me because my hometown was all I ever knew. Now I know the surrounding metro, but I feel like I'm still missing out on so much. I know it won't be easy to move to a place so far away, and I know I will miss my friends and family, but I don't believe that life is about living inside of your comfort zone. I also know, from experience, that I will be able to stay in touch with anyone who truly cares about me and that I'll make amazing, new friends while I'm there! I have learned so much about the way other people work, about other places, but most of all, about me. Going to a university in Quebec would be another opportunity to keep learning about the world while still moving onwards and upwards in my life, and I think I would be a fool to not take this opportunity.

*The screen wavey fades out and back into real time* What do you think? Somewhat convincing? The wording and rambling is going to happen no matter how much I edit this paragraph because I'm not the best speaker, so I figured I'd leave it as is. I'm actually really excited at the prospect of going to college in Quebec! I've been doing some research on it but know I still have more work to do before I can prove to my councilor that I know enough about the difference in systems.

À demain,

Mlle Delphine