McQuid Kids!

As I might have mentioned previously, since I arrived in Montreal I have joined the McGill Quidditch team. Now, even as someone who has grown up living and breathing Harry Potter, I can hear how ridiculous that sounds... but it's actually turned out to be so much fun! 

We road tripped down to Cortland, New York this weekend for a tournament. Challenge 1: cross the border! We stopped at border control and an officer came on board the little yellow school bus to check our passports. Apart from myself and my Aussie friend Jamie, everyone had Canadian or American passports, so it was pretty intimidating when only the two of us were asked to step off the bus. We were escorted into what can only be described as a pen to await questioning and after a rather stressful 20minutes trying to explain what Quidditch was to an American official who had never read Harry Potter, we were asked to give our finger prints and got the all important passport stamp to let us into the country!


We stayed for the night at various students' houses at Ithaca College which was so lovely of them. Our host had to get up early for a rugby tournament so we had time to breakfast in Ithaca before we got the bus to the tournament. Unfortunately, we got incredibly lost in the maze that is an American college and still managed to be last on the bus. It was crazy, there were fountains and sculptures and amazing building all over the place- looked more like a stately home at times than a university!

We made it to the tournament and started warming up straight away since we were slightly late. Since it was my Quidditch debut I was pretty darn nervous but McGill have a million chants designed to wash away any nerves you might have. At any point during the day, if you were asked the question "How ya feelin'?" the one and only response was "FIRED UP" which really does convince you that you're ready for anything!

Our first match was amazing. I decided to make myself the last sub so that I could see what was going on as much as possible before I was thrown into the frenzy, but within about 5seconds of the whistle being blown my competitive spirit kicked in and I was ready to go! I've never really played a contact sport before and in training I'd been finding the whole concept of tackling a bit difficult to grasp, but as soon as the match started I realised my problem was just tackling people I knew: give me a complete stranger and, it turns out, I will happily tackle them to the ground if I'm able! Who knew?!

So, we went on through out the day to win our first three matches and yell several chants that unfortunately are probably not appropriate to be repeated on the internet! And then came the big show down. The tournament was played as a round robin, and so the final two matches were between Guelph and the two McGill teams. The first was kicked of with a rousing rendition of the Canadian national anthem since both teams were from Canada playing on American soil. The A team took them on first and fought valiantly but just missed out of the win. Now, it was B teams turn and, with the slight advantage of having watched Guelph play just before, the match was even tighter and ended on a draw meaning that we went into overtime. I don't care what people say about Quidditch not being a real sport, either way that was one of the most stressful 10 minutes of sport I have ever played and unfortunately we just missed out on a win. On the other hand, all three Canadian teams had lost only 1 match giving up the joint title for the cup!! Not too bad for my first tournament!

A brief encounter with Ottawa

After tackling the mammoth task of tidying the chalets and another quick paddle on the lake, we hopped back in the car and decided to stop in Ottawa for lunch. The impression that I have of Ottawa is much like that of Canberra- capital of a very impressive country, but outshone by bigger and better cities nearby. Yet,when we arrived the city was beautiful- helped by the fantastic weather!

We headed straight to Parliament Hill, which is so reminiscent of London, to the point where even the bells in the clock tower sound exactly like Big Ben. The buildings were some sort of a cross between the Houses of Parliament and Hogwarts and there was plenty of green space to sit and admire them. Perched right by the river, it seems like a pretty impressive place to work. We took the opportunity to go up the clock tower and despite the queue, the view was totally worth it.

Our friend Derek, a native Canadian, had made us promise to try something called Beaver Tails, and after clarifying that they weren’t in fact tails of the beaver, we made good on our promise. We headed straight to the markets and bought the tail-shaped pastries and we were not disappointed. I split an apple and cinnamon and a maple butter beaver tail with Ruth and we enjoyed them so much we found ourselves wearing the evidence all across our hands and faces. 

After lunch in the park by the river, we headed back to the car to make our way back to reality. Whether it be thanks to the weather or the pastries, our visit to Ottawa may have been short, but it was definitely sweet!

The Demise of Carla Bruni...

Driving back to Montreal, autumn colours out the window and Backstreet boys on full blast, I can’t help feeling sad that the perfect weekend is coming to an end.

This weekend is thanksgiving in Canada and with an extra day off for the holiday it’s the perfect excuse to escape Montreal for a few days. Twenty-four of us (all on exchange, of course) rented out a chalet, complete with kayaks and a jacuzzi, by the side of Lac Cayamant for the holiday, and it could not have been more amazing. The area was absolutely beautiful and we were lucky enough to have near-perfect weather- 25degrees in Canada, mid-October, not too shabby! The night we arrived we headed straight out to the bonfire and sat under the stars, chatting and singing until the early hours of the morning. The stars themselves were amazing, and, since we were so far from any light pollution, we could see the Milky Way and shooting stars so clearly.

The next morning we committed to getting up early to see the sunrise over the lake and, as skeptical as I was at 6:30am about leaving my bed, we jumped into a pedalo and headed to the middle of the lake. After a near-sinking experience we made it through the fog and waited… and waited. The mist was lying low over the water and as the sun started to creep up from behind the hills the light was truly spectacular- the whole lake was glowing orange!

Later in the day we went for a hike just down the road to the top of a local viewing tower and the fall colours were fantastic. We crunched our way through the woods and climbed to the top of the tower, which gave us a complete panorama of the area. The thing that always surprises me about Canada is the scale of everything- the landscape is just so immense with forests and lakes as far as the eye can see.

The Sunday for us was the day we celebrated thanksgiving and was almost entirely spent cooking… preparing dinner for twenty-four people really is a mammoth task! Ruth (another girl from Edinburgh) and I somehow found ourselves in charge of the preparations and after a brief moment of panic upon realizing that the turkey (nicknamed Carla Bruni) was still frozen, everything went surprisingly smoothly! We prepared vast quantities of potatoes, cabbage, carrots, parsnips, squash and other seasonal vegetables with our army of choppers whilst Carla was in the oven. By 3pm the smell that wafted from our chalet across the lake was amazing (even if I do say so myself!), and we took a brief break to take a swim and pop into the Jacuzzi- a hard life I know, but someone has to do it. We put our own British twist of the dinner and made pigs in blanket which seems to be a complete novelty to the rest of

Europe! Until this day I will never know how everything went so smoothly, but at 7pm we all sat down at the makeshift table and ate. The wine flowed and the food seemed endless so it was smiles all round. It really felt like Christmas and I can’t believe how lucky I am to have found my little Canadian family so far from home. English, French, German and Dutch could be heard around the table, which is just amazing to listen to. 

We even took on the challenge of preparing a real North American specialty- pumpkin pie! And so, just as everyone declared that they could eat no more, we brought out the pie and ice cream.  The whole meal was such a success and for as long as I live, cooking thanksgiving dinner for twenty-four in a chalet in the middle of nowhere will be one of my biggest achievements!

En Plein Air

I made my escape from the city again this weekend to the Mont St Bruno national park and again, I was not disappointed! The park is actually only an hour south of Montreal on public transport so a few of us piled on to the bus (we were only told to keep it down once) and set out for an adventure.

The park was pretty busy when we arrived but we set off on the walk anyway and after about half an hour we'd shaken off all the families with young children and pretty much had the park to ourselves! We walked past the lakes and through the woods for a few hours and stopped for lunch by the water. It really was a beautiful walk!



On the way home we passed a little shop selling fresh vegetables- characterised of course by millions of pumpkins for halloween! I invested in my first ever pumpkin pie which was delicious and was finished by the end of the bus trip!
Another beautiful city escape, making the most of the weather before the snow hits!!

Rep Your Flag

Middle row Seb (belgium) John (UK) Aissa (Swaziland) Sanda (Belgim and Italy) Eoin (Ireland) and bottom right Jamie (Australia)

I'm slowly realising that a classic misapprehension of the year abroad is that you will actually hang out with local people- in fact they seem to be some of the hardest people to find! The exchange students tend to gravitate towards each other which makes a lot of sense- we are all far from home and have the same total disregard for school work in favour of exploring Canada!

The MISN recently organised a rep your flag party which pretty much did what it said on the tin really. We all wore our colours with pride and I decided to support my Scottish roots for the night- it tends to confuse people here when I say I study in Scotland but live in England, that is if they even know where Edinburgh... got to keep things simple. It was also a fun little experiment to see how many other Scots were about- actually only about 4!

The party itself was a generic, North American movie scene to be honest. Loud music, red cups, some pretty drunk teenagers (lots of people here have come up to study from the US and are only just getting used to being able to drink legally for the first time!) so it felt a lot like being 18 again. Not necessarily a bad thing but not something I was to repeat on a regular basis... I'm getting too old for that!

My main reason for mentioning the party (other than to show off my fantastic face paint!) was to introduce some of my close friends here in Montreal! All have been named and shamed in the top picture- Montreal definitely wouldn't be the same without them. 

Hockey Fever!

It really is true what they say, hockey truly is the life blood of Canada, and this week marked the start of the NHL season- that is to say, this week was a BIG DEAL in hockey! On top of that it was also the first big meet between the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Montreal Canadiennes- an even BIGGER deal.

So, on Tuesday after university, I headed down to Place des Arts with some friends since we'd heard rumours that Kings of Leon would be playing to hype up the match and we were not disappointed. The square was absolutely heaving- stalls were set up left, right and centre handing out free scarves, food and beer and sure enough in pride of place stood a huge stage. We picked up our free merchandise, and sporting our new and incredibly attractive hats, battled our way to the front of the crowd. 

It was worth the fight though. We had an amazing view for a FREE concert of one of my favourite bands. They played all the classics as well as multiple tracks from their new album so, needless to say, I'd already lost my voice by the time the hockey started.  

The match itself was potentially one of the most ridiculous sporting matches I've ever seen (and this is coming from a girl who has just taken up quidditch as a sport)! Not only is the sport itself seriously violent, but fighting is actually allowed between the players. On a regular basis, all that testosterone just overflows and the gloves come off and the punching begins and the referees just stand back and watch. So bizarre!

Unfortunately, despite all the additional support Montreal had in the form of the exchange students we just lost to Toronto- alas, until next time!!