250720042347 Montreal, Quebec, Canada

It's my third night in Montreal and I'm having a great time so far! I haven't done much "stuff" so far - just been wandering around, hanging out and going to the park.

I left Calgary at the crack of dawn (aka checking in to the airport at 5.30am) - thanks again Mary, I REALLY appreciate the ride. I didn't manage to catch up with Andrew, but had a good time anyway. Unfortunately I think he now has a really bad rep within his family for not calling me!

The flight to Montreal was uneventful, but got to try out the new TV system for Westjet. 24 channels. Oooh.

This city is fantastic. Not the prettiest city, but some great buildings and it's by the water (i.e. on an island). There are so many festivals going on at the moment that it's impossible to see everything. So I've seen a bit of the Just for Laughs festival (thanks Phil), the African music festival and the German entry into the fireworks competition.

Today I hung out with some people I met at the hostel - we went to the Tam Tams in Parc du Mont Royal, which was even better than everyone promised it would be. Dozens of people get together with their drums and play all day. Then there's jugglers, poi twirlers (of whom I was happy to be one of the better ones, yay), frisbee players, diablo spinners, dancers and hacky sackers all over the place, as well as general hangers out, jewellery/drum/drug paraphernalia merchants and pot smokers. The atmosphere is wicked. There's also a little bit away a place where people get together and do medieval fighting with full armour and weapons made of foam and gaffer tape. That was hilarious. About 50 guys and girls all hitting each other randomly and groaning and shouting but not really hurting each other. And they weren't all weird uni freaks either. So weird.