The Last Week! (Rski XXVII)

August 6-13


We randomly got drunk in the middle of the week. Why not? Our evaluations were in anyway.


Oh so photo-genic.

Then the next day (?) Alix, Kit and I finally made it out to the maritime museum which is only open 9:00-5:00 and is in the maritime institute of Rimouski, which also holds cegep programs. They teach people things from scuba diving to driving (?) a boat to logistics.


Pool for practicing scuba diving... that black part is like 15 metres deep. Maybe I'm just making that number up, it was deep though.


They throw that in the water to pratice what's it like in a submarine or to practice escapes. I can't remember, but they definitely dunk that in the pool.


Then we found this exhibit and had our maritime institute graduation photos taken.


We're on the bottom row there. We're wearing a hat.


With Honours.


Valedictorian.


These people were important.


I surfed.


No way! Jesus went there! (PS that's name is Jesus the Cross - who gives a kid a name like that).

We had some important dilberations after:

"I say Crepe Chignon"


"What beer?"


"uh oh are they going to kick us out of here?"


"Good point."

Thursday, August 10

Work took everyone out for lunch. I'd name everyone but you can't see them anyway. This was a fancy restaurant, I forget what it was called. Anyway, we were annoyed that they took us somewhere expensive, turns out the company paid for us! Sweet! I also punked a spoon for roommate J's collection.


Here's Paule (my boss!), Kristel (from France) and Catherine P (then already maternity leave).


Other end of the table, front-back, left side: Claude (Paule was also his boss), Annick, Audrey, Isabelle and front-back, right side: Jesse from Nova Scotia (yes?), Sebastian, Kathleen (head honcho).


Full of pizza.
They gave us presents. They got Kit relaxing soaps and they got me a star map gazer thing because I never got stars of the week (this lame-o thing they did at the weekly meetings) because I never bitched about how much work I got...I mean, I watched movies, why would I complain? They also got us a card, on mine Claude wrote "vive le tofu!" which I thought was awesome. He also gave Kit a tofu cookbook for me (she left a few days after me). PS Claude is only a social meat eater.


The people I sat next to, that's Julie, Catherine B, Isabelle, Audrey, Annick.


Me and Catherine P with the candy flower she gave me.

Friday, August 11
We said our good byes to everyone at noon. I was really sad to leave, Kit not so much (they did treat her like their programme-slave though). I also said I'd try to make out to the festival, which didn't work out since both weekends fell on rather important holidays..boo! I really wanted to be the escort for the cute Swedish director.

At night...we had another wine and cheese night.

We got insane amounts of food. Clearly already it was all eaten at this point.


I took one for the team.


One word: Gloria. Da da da.


I (heart) pylons.

Kollene wasn't feeling to well after dinner, so Alix and I walked her home. Kit had already gone home trashed, I think, I don't really remember. This happened three months ago.

On the way back...





we took the pylons out for a spin.

Saturday, August 12
Alix' flight was leaving early Sunday morning, so she decided to take the bus down to Quebec at 10:00 and just hang around the airport for a few hours.

We spent the day walking around.




Then we had dinner at the Crepe Chignon.

We spent over three hours there. It was crazy. We were so full.


We also wrote each other notes of good-bye.

After dinner, we headed back to Alix' place and she packed up the rest of her things. Marie-Noelle drove her to the bus station, so we tagged along and said salut to her as well. Due to some errors in logistics we kissed. There, I said it.

We hung around for a while and ran into Valerie from Mont-Joli on her way home - she was taking the bus all the way to Toronto! That's about 24 hours! Holy crap! What a trooper. Then we said our good-byes and it was sad, I'll be honest. Alix got on the bus and the summer in Rimouski was officially over. We walked back along the water and stopped at Timmy's for a while...then headed home.

Sunday, August 13
The next day, Kollene, Kit and I met for breakfast and got annoyed with the service so we went to the Retro 50 instead. After breakfast, we headed back to my place and I packed up whatever was left and took out my garbage. Kit took some of my stuff that I bought strictly for the summer (kettle, etc.) and gave it to her roommate. Then Mrs. Nadeau (err Joelle?) took us all to the bus station. Craap, I never wrote them a thank you email. I said good-bye to Kollene and Kit and headed to Quebec City.

(no photos because remember my digi broke. The film in my SLR might yield surprises though).

At the airport, my bags were once again heavy, but they couldn't figure out how to charge me that time, so it was free. Then I got a drink and hung out/watched entourage and posted. The flight was all right enough - significantly less scary than the one to Quebec. I was home by 10:00 and totally exhausted. The house was entirely different, my room freshly painted with pictures rearranged and no more posters. My bulletin board was gone! It was strange to be home.

General thoughts: It was a really unique experience and I don't think I'd want to do it again because it could never be as good. My summer in Rimouski could never be relived. And maybe one day the four of us will meet again somewhere (the Ontario folk have already met up for a brief 15 minutes downtown).

And that's how three months of my summer happened.