Vive l'Acadie!

Last week I went up to Bathurst (about 3 hours north where my family is from) to visit my French grandmother, aunts and cousins. Victor and I spent 5 days with family and it was a really nice change of pace for us (the pace being much faster that is!) My aunt from Toronto and her girls were there and it was actually the first time in a long time where all the grandchildren were together in the same place. My mom and sister also came up for a few days with the dogs, so it was a busy place! Victor, of course, was the main focus (my aunts love babies and hadn't seen him before), so he was plenty spoiled while there :)

Anyway, on the second day there my sister, grandmother, Victor and I went to the Village historique acadien, about 45 mins down the shore on the Acadian coast. It's a really interesting place where they re-create acadian homes and farms from the 1700s, 1800s and 1900s. There were people in each house, in character, ready to talk to you about life as it was back then, using the tools and actually working as if they were back in the old days. The characters speak in old acadian french (which is the french I speak mostly), there was a tavern, school, church, several different kinds of houses, farm animals everywhere, it was just a really cool place. My grandmother is acadian (she actually grew up about 10 mins away from where the village was located), so it's also part of my culture and heritage, so I was really happy to go.

Here are a few pictures from the trip (I just love old stuff like this, so much of it I would have in my house today!)  [You can see the rest of the pics on my Flickr.]

         

On the way out I was telling my sister Daphné how that, despite the hardships these people must have gone through, in a way their lives were better than ours, because they had to work for their own survival; they made their own food, clothing, housing, everything, and because of that, they didn't have time to be bored or depressed or restless or any of the other issues people face today. They have a program at the village where kids can go and spend a day in traditional dress, working and pretending to be living in those times, I wish I had gone when I was a kid! (My cousins have gone 3 or 4 times and they love it.)  Visiting there inspired me to try and live more simply (but it's hard!)

It was also really nice because I used to spend a lot of time 'downshore' at my nanny's cottage, playing on the beach, so it made me all nostalgic to drive along the shore again, it's so beautiful there!

I'm still working on my friggin' A Week in the Life post (Blogger has been pissing me off to no end lately), so I'll try to get it up later this week, I'm about 4-5 posts behind, hopefully this week I'll be able to get them all up!

Until then,

G.

PS-If you want to know more about the Acadians and their Deportation from the Maritimes (I assume most Americans don't know much about them; they are the original  'Cajuns' from Louisiana), you can find more information here.