Québec

I haven't actually done a lot in Québec. I got here late on Sunday night, and today I've mostly been recovering from a body-wide soreness that I got as a result of way too much time on the trampoline on Saturday (more on that later). I guess I should give a bit of a recap on what the hell happened between now and a week ago.

Bowling for Burlington

A few of us went bowling on Tuesday, for the most part as a rematch between Shelley and I, stemming from a friendly feud that Shelley had gotten the better part of from our Panorama days. This time, instead of 5-pin bowling, we went with the more traditional 10-pin version. I finally got one up on Shelley (literally) in the first game, winning by one point on the final frame. It was the taste of sweet victory. She beat me on the second game, but that matters not.

Climbing rocks

On Thursday, we went and did some outdoor rock climbing. I hadn't done any outdoor climbing before (all my experiences with rock climbing had been indoors), so I wasn't really expecting to get too far on my first attempt. It turned out to be a lot of fun, albeit a lot of hard work (as is always the case whenever I go climbing after a long period of not doing it). On my second attempt I got more than two thirds of the way up the climb, which is about the point where it got really tricky, so I was satisfied with my achievement.

Dead by dawn

On the Friday night, we were scheduled to watch Evil Dead: The Musical in Toronto. The original plan was to leave at around 6, pick up Janna from Mississauga, and go to the theatre. Sadly, things don't always go to plan. We left at around 6:30, and were left to rue the traffic heading towards Toronto as we slowly made our way there. Thankfully, we were only late by a few minutes. We sat down at our table (each 4 seats had a table, which was neat), and enjoyed the show.

And what a show it was! Having only seen about 4 or 5 musicals in my entire life, I can safely say that this is the best that I have seen. It's a low-budget musical that both satirizes and pays homage to the low-budget cult classic trilogy of the same name in a fittingly cheesy fashion. Everything from the songs to the dialogue to the cheap production values to the excess amounts of fake blood fits so well with the franchise, and it's no surprise that both Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell (of Evil Dead fame) approve of this theatrical interpretation of the Evil Dead. It's really silly and really really fun, and I honestly hope that it gets productions worldwide.

That wasn't the end of the days fun though. There was still the Harry Potter book release. But before that, an unfortunate and very sad incident occurred... upon inserting the Clerks Animated Series DVD's second disc into the DVD player (after we got home from the show), it soon became apparent that the second disc was exactly the same as the first disc, just with different printing on the front (saying 'Disc 2' instead of 'Disc 1'). This quite irritated me, because I hadn't thought to check if the discs were faulty when I first bought it in Banff. I have since gotten rid of the receipt, and obviously it would be more than a hassle to go to Banff just to get it replaced. I'm hoping that any HMV store (or any store that stocks the DVD for that matter) will replace the faulty disc with a proper one.

Friday night also happened to be the night that the seventh and final Harry Potter book was to be released. Chapters, one of the nearby bookstores, was having a midnight release of the book, and Shelley wanted to buy it, so we went and lined up. It was pretty cool, the doors were painted as a brick wall, and when you entered it said "Platform 9 3/4" (a reference to the secret train platform from the series). All the staff were dressed up, as were many of the people lining up for the book. There was much excitement as it got closer to midnight, and huge applause once the book was finally revealed. As an apparent joker was heading out of the store he screamed, pointing at a random page of the book, "OH MY GOD! HARRY DIES!" to much laughter. I bought the paperback of the sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, as I am not fully caught up to the whole Potterverse. The lady at the check out looked at me funny and said, "you waited in line for that?"

Golf game and BBQ... OF PAIN!

Saturday was my last day in Burlington, and it was only fitting that it was filled with a lot of activities. I was going on about 4 hours of sleep from the night before, as I had stayed up to pack my bags. The first order of business was golf. The ski club that Shelley, Dave, and Terry belong had organized a golf game and BBQ for the day, and I was invited. It was only my second time golfing, and this time it was on a proper course, which was fairly intimidating. However, it was a social outing, so scores didn't really matter, as long as we had fun, which we did. I shot about 10 over what I got last time, which was pretty good considering the course was slightly more difficult. It's something I want to at least get decent at.

After golf, the BBQ commenced. It was held at Terry's backyard, and the many attendees could enjoy food, badminton, volley ball, and a trampoline. The trampoline was what I picked to be the main source of entertainment. I love bouncing around on them, and Dave had brought along his trampoline board, so I was doing snowboard tricks on it. It was incredibly tiring, but incredibly fun. The day was a long one. We sat down around the fire, drank some beer, did some more trampolining, ran through the cornfields, got bitten by lots of mosquitoes (damn them mozzies), before finally crashing on Terry's couch at around 3 or 4 in the morning.

When I woke up, I wasn't really feeling very sore, as it was around 8 in the morning, and my body had not yet had time to register the muscle pain from the excess trampolining (but I did feel those mozzie bites). It was only after I caught the train towards Québec that I started feeling just how much my body was hurting. It especially sucks when walking down stairs. When I got to the hostel in Québec, all I could think about was getting some food and some rest.

Burlington overview

Days spent: 20
23rd birthdays: 1
Last 9-hole golf score: 73
Theme song(s): Holly Throsby - The Shoulders and Bends

The clueless guide

I met two French guys (actually from France) at the hostel who asked me for some help regarding hostels in New York, which was where they were headed in a few days' time. I helped them out, and they were really friendly and appreciative, so we hung out and toured a bit of the area. I didn't really know a lot about the area, but I seemed to know enough of the immediate area to make them think that I was an expert on the city. I assured them that I only knew what I had seen during my couple of searches for food. If anything, it's a lot more comforting for me to have them around, just in case I run into some language difficulties with said food locations.

I have six more days in Québec, and apparently it's not such a big city, so there's no doubt that I'll have some free time to post new photos within the next week.