"Ape Lay Onwards": Billeting Part One: Working at the Carwash

In am a little behind on the times since billeting is already more than half way done, but between working, sleeping and reading the Twilight Saga there is little time left for writing blog posts. Nevertheless I wanted to fill everyone in on what I have been up to during the last week. Last Friday we all commenced the journey known as billeting. For those of you who do not know what billeting is, well basically it is when you get picked up by a random stranger (sometimes strangers) and get taken to their house to live out the next stage of your life. In my case the next stage would last 9 days and my strangers were the Provencher family. Pauline, Albert and Dereck are all super nice and staying with them has been a good workout for my French since none of them speak English. Dereck and I did watch Harry Potter in English last night so that was kinda cool! Dereck is 16 and is basically the cooler version of me. He has mastered the Justin Beiber hair flick to a tee, goes to an arts high school and has cooler clothes than me. Guhh I will not admit that I am jealous. I haven’t been able to spend much time with him though because he is in the middle of exams so he is super stressed and my Twilight reading schedule keeps me super busy.

Anyways a few of the other highlights during the billeting cycle have been spending an afternoon with Dereck`s Grandma (it was actually quite a fun date, we went flower shopping and then I went back to her place for tea), cycling with Pauline (I am so glad I have spandex), Pauline`s cooking (we had Chinese Fondue last night and it was like heaven in my mouth), and working at a car wash. That will be an experience I will not forget. Last Sunday our Katimavik group (minus Fred...she was wind surfing or sick I am not sure which one) volunteered for La Nichée (an organization that helps mothers and their babies through tough times) to wash cars. The day started off quite nicely. The two fire fighters, who came to set up our water stations, were so incredibly good looking that saying they are good looking is an understatement. I was a tad slow in realizing that though because L.A and Jessica had ``dibs dibed`` them both leaving me and Shoshana with nothing but our overly large signs that we were told to put up. That was when the wind picked up. The temperature was around 20 degrees and sunny but this wind was blistering cold and lasted the ENTIRE day. It made washing cars slightly difficult. I still had a fantastic time though. It was the first time I took part in a car wash and I would definitely do it again. I really liked when the drivers would blast music for us as we washed their car, except when it was this mid forty year old creepo who played Nelly Furtado`s Maneater while he sat in his huge Ford 150 and watched us. ICK! All in all it has been a good week of billeting but I miss my group and I am excited to get back to the Katimavik house.