Day 5 - Sherbrooke, UQTR, Laval

Hello friends, today we went deeper into the unknown as we drove further into Quebec. We left Montreal at about 9:30 am today, which was significantly harder than any of the previous days because the amount of exercise we did yesterday. It was worth it, but man waking up was a struggle. We got onto the highway, and one thing that I noticed about Quebec is that all drivers drive in the right lane, and only use the left lane for passing, which is a far cry from Ontario drivers who severely struggle with following common sense. But I digress. One interesting experience we had today was driving up to a Tim Horton's in Windsor, QC where none of the workers there spoke English. Anthony and I had to point at pictures and mispronounce things in French, but we got our food one way or another.

We started our visits today by driving to Université de Sherbrooke. We unfortunately didn't know anyone in Sherbrooke, and it's a purely French school, but Anthony and I were going to make the most of it anyways. Finding the entrance to the university took some time, but when we got in there we were kind of blown away by how big this campus was. After sometime, we found the Engineering building, and went straight to the Association Générale des Étudiants en Génie (AGEG) office to see if any of the Executive to be around or if we can buy some swag. Sherbrooke has some really cool bandannas, and even had leggings with cats shooting lasers from their eyes at the Sherbrooke logo. They didn't really have anything for us to purchase, but it's always cool to see how other EngSoc's operate and the culture that is fostered at each school. While walking around the rest of their campus, we stopped by the bookstore and Anthony ended up spending over $60 on patches and stickers. Sherbrooke campus had a beautiful mountain view, and a tremendous amount of green space, so it was a lovely campus to visit!

After visiting Sherbrooke, we drove to Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR), and this was the first school on my trip that I hadn't heard of before starting to plan my road trip, so I had no real expectations going into it. We unfortunately got there at a time where the school was on lock-out as a result of issues between the university and the teaching staff, so everything was basically closed. We ran into a guy there who had just graduated from Industrial Engineering at UQTR who is apparently known as "DJ Taxi", who showed us around a bit. I learned today that UQTR is the only school in Quebec (as far as I'm aware) that has coveralls (which are dark orange and have their logo on the right thigh). Overall an interesting experience in Trois-Rivières, QC.

The last stop of the day took place in Quebec City, the capital of Quebec as many of the signs on the highway kept on reminding us. We went to Université Laval, but at this time it started raining heavily, so we were mainly able to see the inside of the Engineering buildings. Jérôme Montembeault showed us around the campus, and he was an absolute delight to be around today. I learnt that every building on campus (including residences) are connected via underground tunnels, so it's wonderful in the winter when the weather isn't that great. Jérôme showed us the places where they usually have their parties on campus, the different labs and student design team areas, and the different cafeterias that are run by their EngSoc. We stopped by the Association des Étudiants en Sciences et Génie de l'Université Laval (AESGUL) office, but it was closed because we got to their campus kind of late. After showing us around, Jérôme took us to their campus pub (Pub Universitaire) and we had some great chats in there. From what I was able to see of Laval, it is a gorgeous campus with so much of a focus on student accessibility to services and a focus on the social aspect of being a student. They even have a golf course and a cinema on their campus, so you can't go wrong there.

After finishing up our visits for the day, Anthony and I wanted to go grab some dinner. One thing we both noticed is the number of stores neither of us have ever seen or heard of while in Ontario, with one of the biggest ones being a restaurant called St Hubert. I can best describe it as Quebec Swiss Chalet, but so much more popular. We thought that since we're in Quebec, might as well give it a shot, and it was pretty good all things considered. We ended our day on the drive home by driving by the Quebec bridge, which holds so much meaning to me now that I have my iron ring and understand the full history of it, so it was a pretty cool feeling getting to see it in person.

Tomorrow we venture into New Brunswick for the first time, so it'll be a whole new experience! Here's to hoping the flooding in some parts of the highway doesn't interfere with the trip!

Sherbrooke: www.instagram.com/p/BiYcxSnl_Go
UQTR: www.instagram.com/p/BiYdTeyFhhj
Laval: www.instagram.com/p/BiYd6P1F7YL