This past week, November 9-11th, Odyssey sent the language monitors to Québec City for training. We shared our experiences and some activities. But the most formative was the free time we had. During our free time, we went on walks, had impromptu hangouts and group dinners.

 I’m thankful to have the privilege to take part in something like this. I was able to cement some friendships and get acquainted with even more people involved in the Odyssey program. Exploring old Québec will now be on my list of favourite activities ever.

During a group dinner, we were served the traditional Québecois dessert of maple syrup taffy. In the past I’ve only ever seen pictures and learned about the process, but this was my first time actually eating it! I enjoyed it! I found it to be a good flavour, but many others didn’t even finish it! They said it was too sweet!

The first night we hung out and had a great time. We grabbed drinks and food. While at the bar, we did speak French, which was impressive. One of my friends remarked that he was proud of us for speaking in French while at a bar. Even though we may have annoyed the other patrons with our English, we still had fun. We only got yelled at once for speaking English! At the end of the night, we left as a group and with a sense of connection and familiarity. It was nice to hangout as a small group, as when we are in training it is often large groups. Making friends in our different regions as language monitors might be difficult as they are often very rural, or we are completely alone in our region, so I am thankful for the opportunity to travel to Québec city to gain a larger sense of community.

“It was nice to have a group of peers close to my age as at school I am mostly around young children.”

The second night we simply went for a walk to find good food. We walked 10 minutes and ended up in a very small Vietnamese restaurant. The food was really good! I had the Pho with rare beef and vegetables and my favourite, bean sprouts!

 Just like the night before we talked and had a good conversation. It was nice to have a group of peers close to my age as at school I am mostly around young children. However, the most memorable part of the night was retreating to my hotel room with the other monitor placed in Amqui and hanging out. This surprised me! Although we see each other every day at school, and multiple times during the week outside of school, we usually only hang out due to our proximity, such as driving to a concert band or to our French class, never voluntarily. We chose to chat which I enjoyed, but I’m hoping both of us enjoyed it. I appreciated the conversation; it was easy and enjoyable, which is something you can’t often get if you work with young children or are living in your second language.

Overall, I’m happy with how the training went. The part I was looking forward to the most was getting to know the other monitors and exploring the city. I’m very appreciative of Odyssey for allowing me the privilege to explore the City of Québec and to make friendships and memories that I am certain will last a lifetime.