Blogs from Beaupré, Quebec, Canada, North America

Today we had our last breakfast in the hotel (Best western) and we had th funniest waiter ever, gay as Christmas and as camp as a row of tents ??? Julian, he described himself as aggressively happy ?, and he was not kiddin, it was like being at a stand up comedy night. He Whispers to us that if we didn't like the scrambled egg or omelette at the buffet he could get us eggs anyway we wanted. I really didn't mind as the buffet was HUGE, but us seemed churlish of me not to go along with it. So egg sunny side up was presented to me with added bacon for good measure. Sadly it was time to leave Quebec City, I really have fallen in love with it, such a chilled out, arty city, ... read more

Ok so things have gone a tad awry since I last published a blog..... Effectively last Monday afternoon we had hit the bar and as per usual we met up with Guy in there. Anyway he ended up being called away for an emergency meeting and when he came back he said he needed a meeting with all of us back at the chalet at which point we knew it was bad news. Anyway it transpires the company I came out here with, Global Sports Xperience, hadn't paid the ski school their final installment of money and so that night we got told the course was canceled and we had to leave the chalet by Friday. We had previous problems back in January over money and payment however after a lot of e:mails and phonecalls the ... read more

So this week has been a quiet one after the excitement of teaching. Last Thursday was good but hard work in the new powder and Friday was the start of our lessons again with Pat in preparation for us working towards our level 2 exam. After a long day on the slopes we were due to go to Stoneham, a ski resort north of Quebec, however only Nicky and I of the skiiers wanted to go but the boarders were up for it so it was all systems go and plans put into place. As well as going night skiing the resort was hosting the Snowboarding World Cup and that night was the half pipe competition. Anyway we rolled up at the resort and set off for our first run with Guy and Marie-Eve acting as ... read more

OK after lots of stressing for the past week and lots of thoughts of failing I took my level 1 instructors exam yesterday and thankfully I passed!!!! The day was stressful to say the least. We were dropped off at the mountain for 9am with instructions to meet the examiner, Dan, at the top of the mountain at 9.30am so we all got ready and did a free run to warm us up. The morning was free skiing but we were all very conscious of being constantly assessed. In fact it was apparent as for the first time in five weeks we all did what we were meant to do when stopping and that is come to a controlled stop underneath each other. Not once in five weeks have we done this but we managed it ... read more

Well I'm really sorry for this but I hadn't really planned on writing another travel blog until I had some more new photographs and some more interesting stories for you however events have actually overtaken me so I felt the need to write now! Anyway this week is another boring week of skiing and working our way towards our level 1 exam. We have been told that our exam is to take place next Tuesday so everyone is now starting to stress and worry (me included!). The past couple of days have been further ski improvement and teaching practice however I seem to have become Calamity Jane for the week and lost my ability to ski and think!! On Monday we went through the easy forest run and I "kissed" a tree - meaning I turned, ... read more