All the leaves are brown...

Saturday 17 – was quite a good day. In the morning there was still a lack of toilet paper; and Annabel and I climbed up Mont Royal. The sun was shining (relatively speaking) and the weather had improved dramatically (no negative numbers). We frolicked in the fall leaves!

We walked by Saint. Lawrence and got some brunch (or maybe it was just breakfast as it was still pretty early) at a nice bakery. Had some warming coffee, and caught the metro to Peel Street for haircuts! Amanda and Lucy had both got their haircuts there and had recommended this place to us. Lucy even booked us in for the Saturday. We went up the escalator on Amanda’s directions and arrived at a fancy day spa. This must be wrong we thought to ourselves. But no, it had the name on the window and everything. We were both really scared that instead of $40 Lucy and Amanda had really meant $140 or something for this haircut. They took our coats from us, and sat us on a fancy lounge sweet while we waited. I flicked through their booklet to my horror as I discovered the $200 - $300 facials and massages you could get. The lady taking me couldn’t pronounce my name; she called out Rate (this was also with a Quebecois accent - so was doubly hard to interpret). I finally figured out she meant me, and away I went. I got my hair shampooed, and described that I would like to keep some of my length, all the time hoping she was somehow understanding what I was saying. Particularly horrifying was the moment she took out a men’s shaver to cut some of the back of my hair! (I did not ask for this!) Somehow I managed to trust her, and my hair(I would say) looks pretty good. She even styled and straightened my hair. I was rather disappointed I had to go to quidditch and go through the effort of messing it up, and then having to wash the dirt and sweat from it. We went home – very pleased with ourselves, cooked some lunch, and then it was time to head off for quidditch. We had an intense 3-hour practise, and we even had a quick game against what I think was a frat party. They were each dressed in costumes (one was a cow, one was a baby, one was an Indian etc, but all the girls just wore red jumpsuits). They saw our game and wanted a go. They went down pretty quick, despite being much bigger than all of us. We caught the snitch in about 10 minutes. After cleaning myself up and having to wash out my once so pretty hair, I met up with Eric. We went to see where the wild things are. A movie in which I feel lacked some elements of morals and conclusions, but v. cute nonetheless. We went to dinner at a tasty but slow Indian place near my house before heading out to the Quidditch 'One Year of being a Team' Anniversary party. This was good fun, I feel so integrated with the team!

Sunday 18 – slept in! Lounged around, did some washing and in the afternoon I went bike riding around the city with Eric. I borrowed his flatmates bike, and we rode through the city (quite scary riding next to cars, and even more scary having to pass cars doing reverse parallel parks) and down to the Old Port (much less scary as there was a nice bike path, for only people on bikes). I wore a helmet I was so worried. It was so nice - it was a really good day (above 0), infact good enough for me not to have to wear thermals, and I simply rode around in jeans, a tank top and a jumper. We rode all along the canals and then up into the old town, where we got some poutine. This I am sure negated all of the good riding work we had just put in. We added up the mileage on a map, and I think we did just over 20km! Woo! I came home and bopped around with Annabel and Lucy, we cooked some tea, and went over to starbucks for faithful hot chocolates. I went to bed pretty early – all that fresh air, exercise and lack of toilet paper can take it out of you.