BEST DAY EVER

Saturday –

This was the most amazing day of my entire life!
QUIDDITCH PRACTICE! Oh my god, where do I begin. At 2:00pm the McGill Quidditch team met on the lower field for tryouts. I wander down with Lucy and Annabel. They are my supporters / photographers. I have a scar on my face and a broomstick with daisies in my hand. I nervously approach the huddled masses. But there are smiles and Harry Potter love all around! Especially for me being the coolest and having the most admired broom (oh, yes I do, I suppose) and for having a scar on my head! I got respect from the quidditch leaders who loved my effort. I was so happy to get my scar face in there. The captain comes and says this is the biggest group ever (it’s only been going two years – but yay) and we are going to play some Quidditch. So we spilt into groups of who wants to be what position. I had a good think about this over breakfast, and decided that Chaser was the position for me. The guys running it all drew straws to see who was going to be the snitch. Yes, a human snitch, he was wearing bright gold pants and a yellow shirt. He wears a tag that hangs out of his pants that has to be ripped off to end the game / get the points. Ok, I don’t know where to being. OK, well it is an organized chaos game. At the start we all have to close our eyes and count to ten as the snitch runs away. He is allowed to run all over campus. We are at each end of the pitch, and have dismounted our brooms. After counting to ten, the ref says mount your brooms, and we all race for the quaffle or bludgers, which are in the centre of the field. There is one quaffle, and the chasers are allowed to kick it (once) and throw it around like in volleyball to get it through the hoops. Chasers are only allowed to tackle other chasers. Then there are the beaters. There are two larger dodgeballs, which are used by the beaters. The beaters are only allowed to tackle beaters, and they can throw the bludgers at anyone. When you are hit by a bludger, you have to drop the ball if you have one and run around the goal post (simulating the time it would take to fall off a broom, and remount). Then there are the seekers, but this one was pretty easy to do, as they just chase the snitch. Then snitch always get a bit bored after a while, so comes back down to the pitch after running around aimlessly (from what I could tell). The keeper is not allowed to be tackled, and pretty much defends the three hoops, which are hula-hoop’s on sticks, or hula-hoop’s tied to a football goal post, or hula-hoop’s hanging off tree branches. The rotation provided by the tree branches adds a level of difficulty to the game they tell me. This was pretty much the best game ever. One of the main guys was impressed by my chaser skills (or so he said). We played about three games, and my team one twice, and lost once in sudden death, when the snitch was caught by our team (30 points) and the other team had scored three goals (10 points X 3). An intense death match ensued. THEN, then I bought a McGill quidditch shirt. I am going to wear this everyday of my life. I was so excited. So, that was pretty much the best fun I have had, ever! There is even going to be a world cup in Vermont in October. I hope I am good enough to make it there, otherwise I will offer my services maybe as a quidditch cheerleader or fan club. I mean there was a lot of interest, and some people were pretty good.
My morning was really good too! I woke up (clearly) and went for a run! The most amazing run ever. I ran up Rue Peel (I guess only mum will appreciate that, but it is a VERY steep street) then I ran up the stairs to the top of Mont Royal. I took a breather, then did a lap of the top of the mountain, and almost got lost, but thankfully not for long. The giant cross was a good helper in this matter. Anyway, I was feeling pretty good about that. When I came back Lucy and Annabel were planning today’s festivities. We walked down to Atwater markets. These are fresh food markets. We each bought some berries and shared then round as we wandered the joy that was the Atwater market. There was a huge amount of amazing looking produce, a shame it takes about 30 minutes to walk there. We plan to go there once a week. It would be a cool thing to stop buy on the way home when thinking about dinner. Then we went to the inside bit where we sampled cheese and chocolate while looking at the most amazing bakeries (they kick the crap out of the Vina Bakehouse) and butcheries (less exciting). It was really cool. Then we walked along to the old port, well the other side of the old port, as we only made it to the Five Roses sign, which I shook my fist at. Anyway there are lots of pics from that, so I’ve put them in a slide show!
Plans are yet to be made for tonight’s activities, but we are thinking dinner at the old Port, or at the Three Amigos, a cool Mexican restaurant about one minute from this place.