Bonne fête au Canada!

Since I've been living in the USA, I have missed spending Canada's birthday in my native land and it was great for me (and I hope my students too) to be here in Québec, where Canada was first discovered, for both the Provincial and Federal holidays this year. I knew that June 24 (la St Jean) would be a much bigger deal here than July 1 (Canada Day), and I was pleasantly surprised to see the Maple Leaf flying, a giant birthday cake on la Terrasse Dufferin made by Château Frontenac chefs and an assortment of Canadian license plates driving around for the long weekend. This is the kick off to the summer season in Canada, and Québec City changes a bit from this point. For one thing, there are more international tourists here. I noticed this right away today walking through the old city - I heard English, really for the first time in these two weeks. Le Festival d'été gets underway this month too (after the Montréal Jazz Festival winds down) with headlining band Métallica sure to bring in crowds of all nationalities.

Another big deal here this Canada Day weekend is the royal visit of Prince William and Princess Catherine on Sunday. While newspapers have been speculating the anti-royalist protesters will be out in full force to show their distaste for all things British, I have also read that the Québécois are quite smitten, like the rest of the country and the world, with Will and Kate. We will get to sample the climate first hand as we attempt to catch of a glimpse of them at the Hôtel de Dieu.

We saw fireworks this weekend at the Québec Capitales (AAA league) baseball game where they creamed the Worcester Hurricane 9-1. It was great to watch baseball on a pleasant summer evening, sing the national anthem in French and learn baseball terminology in French. There were plenty of circuits (home runs) and a grande victoire shared by all.