The Ridiculous Heat of Washington DC

An uneventful flight and a metro ride later sees me greeted by my vivacious cousin "Wooly-Jack" (aka Jacqueline or Jax), her gorgeous brood of three, Henry, Lucy and Charlie and an astoundingly solid wall of humidity. Heat I can deal with, but 90% humidity is a ridiculous assault on the body. I feel I've landed in the deep south, especially given the whitewashed houses with their picket fences, the constant sound of cicadas and the generally astounding green, lushness of the burbs that I have transported myself in to.

My first night I am easily lulled to sleep by the pitter-patter sound of raindrops on the roof. The largest earthquake that DC has ever experienced occurs at 5 that morning and doesn't even cause me to stir. Hows that for being dead to the world.

Diving into the 102`F heat and moisture I make my way to DC central to tackle the smorgasbord of free museums available for exploration. Being the book nerd that I am, I swim to the Library of Congress first. In so doing, I discover that the library itself is inaccessible to the public but the museum provides astounding coliseum-esq architecture to gawk at...

... a display of Carl Jung's Red Book, and innumerable underground passages that one can choose to get lost in. Seeing as I had already used about 2hrs wondering the multitude of bookless rooms, I decided getting lost wasn't really an option so instead I decided to befriend a squirrel...

... while admiring the Capital Building and its retinue of security guards before exploring the stark depths of the Holocaust Museum.

Feeling all educated out I jump on the metro and return back to the house with the three kids all under the age of 5. We play and frolic and that weekend, Jax (with her hubby Jeff crammed into the boot), myself and the three kids take on the Building Museum in town. Several hours are consumed with me building cubbies for the kids to climb in and promptly destroy, laughing all the while at their antics. Who knew that kids could be so cute in the midst of destruction. Here's Henry in all his glory...

Later in the week I brave the crowds to spend an entire day meandering the multitude of displays in the Natural History Museum. My new claims to fame include touching a rock from Mars...

... and laying my eyes on one very curious pink fairy armadillo (the size of a hamster)...

I was also highly excited by the fact that they had a pangolin on display (one of my favourite animals that I have only ever seen in documentaries).

The whole place was rather overwhelming really, with dinosaurs gallour, precious gems, innumerable stuffed animals, ancient Egyptian artefacts, a plethora of rocks from space, and a live and fully functioning bee hive (to name a few).

But moving along, one evening finds me releasing my inner child and promptly leaping about the front yard at 11 o'clock at night, trying to catch green luminescent fireflies. Feeling like an idiot but unable to remove the smile from my face when I successfully capture one, I proffer my spoils to Jeff who has been watching me in my lunacy, shaking his head in amusement. I then free the creature of my amusement to return to the air-conditioned sanctuary of the house to find I have been massacred by a dozen mosquitos. This being a daily occurrence since arriving I am unperturbed.

Other things of note while staying in DC include Jax's mouth watering cooking (I still owe you a cheesecake Jax!) and my new addiction to american mustard in a ham, cheese and tomato sandwich. I'm not gonna taste that for a while. Unfortunately the end of the week draws near and I make my final preparations for the more exotic and anxiety provoking leg of my world travels, my flight to South Africa. I procure a first aid kit, some warm gloves and begin taking my 7 weeks worth of malaria medication. Thus follows a sleepless night of worry before I depart on a 17 hour flight to Durban via Dakar of all places.

Montreal - The Tam Tams, Homeless Men and Festival Fun!

Forgive the long pause between entries but sufficient prompts from my mother has convinced me to finally return to my neglected blog.

We return now to my time in the wonderfully magical city of Montreal where the people speak another language appallingly, wear an eclectic array of clothing, and can often be seen either cycling or rollerbladding down the street. These are definitely my kind of people :)

After my unfortunately horrendous first night in the city I manage to book myself into a hostel that definitely has aircon. My first day sees me joining a group of fellow travellers from the hostel, along with our French-Canadian guide, Louis, and heading off to Parc Mount-Royal to witness the acoustically and visually astounding Tam Tams. For the uninitiated the Tam Tams are a massive gathering of the most eclectic bunch of people that swarm together in their thousands every Sunday to play and listen to spontaneous african drumming, as well as to enjoy the sunshine, play frisbee, hacky-sack, juggle, dance and occasionally stumble around in a bit of a haze of wonderment. A sense of free-spirit-ness kinda pervades over everything, including for the law enforcement that patrol the area that often let things slide for the sake of the Tam Tams. There really isn't anything else quite like it.

From this rather entertaining day out, my evening evolves into a very enlightening night out. Keep in mind that this particular night also happens to coincide with the Soccer World Cup final. After my day in the park I finally get a chance to book into the hostel and on entering my new room I meet 'Claire', the only other occupant of the room for the night. It turns out she is only there for the night before she flys up to Quebec to act as a sign-language interpreter for a university conference. Finding out that we were both famished we decided to hit the town to find what delicacies could be found. Stumbling upon a quaint three story, balcony-be-decked italian restaurant, we climb the stairs and make ourselves comfortable on the uppermost tier, overlooking the rest of the lively city street. Innumerable cars pass below us honking horns and waving spanish (?) flags, celebrating their countries latest world cup win as we tuck into delectable pasta and an optimistically sized jug of sangria. Minute after minute passes by as I learn more and more about the curious world of a sign-language interpreter based in Toronto. The one thing that I'm kicking myself during all of my travels is the fact that I never got her email address (or remember her actual name) to find out how the conference went. Certainly isn't an occupation that one comes across that often.

But moving right along, the next day I tackled the metro system again (amazing structure built more than three stories below ground) in order to search out and destroy the infamous Montreal bagel. It was kind of a let down really, but the fact that I befriended a homeless man by the name of Jean-Louis, more than made up for it. I was having a bit of a break in a park when Jean-Louis walks up to me and joins me on my bench, slightly rough around the edges but with a big smile on his face. He starts asking me questions about myself and the conversation slowly turns into a quite stimulating philosophical discussion about life and the universe. Certainly an unexpected turn of events but more than welcome and indeed perspective changing. I think it would be good for all of us to meet a Jean-Louis at least once.

Moving on from there I return to the hostel and happen to come across a music magazine lying on one of the couches. The whole thing is in french but I flick through the pages and come across an article about Passion Pit. I see at the bottom of the page that they actually have a concert on that night in Montreal. Feeling slightly excited I jump online and find that there are still tickets available so now giddy with anticipation I purchase a ticket. By the time I get to the venue the whole show has sold out and the venue is packed, standing room only. I squeeze my way in and bounce away with the crowd of strangers to a band that is more indie than pop, but certainly entertaining with their skin tight animal print leggings. Another brilliant night out in Montreal was absorbed into my bloodstream.

The next day a ramble about 'old Montreal' and wined my way through criss-crossing, ivy strewn suburban streets, snapping away at the intriguing local architecture...

In need of evening entertainment and finding out that the... wait for it... The Montreal Comedy Festival is on in town (one of the festivals, alongside Edinburgh Comedy Fest. that I've always wanted see), I go ahead and book tickets to see a foursome called "Uncalled For". As an act that was a part of the fringe fest my expectations weren't too high, but after watching their show 'Hypnogogic Logic' I fork out another 15 quid to see their next two shows that night. They were abso-friggen hilarious!!! Obscure in the purest of senses with a huge smattering of ad lib madness and physical exertion, their mind bending humour left me with my sides aching.

The night also introduced me to Marilyn, the ticket seller (I was in the theatre for more than 4hrs with plenty of time to kill between shows). She was a friend of the guys from Uncalled For and hooked me up with brilliant fan photo... (the guy on the left was a visiting american comedian that wanted to join in on the fun).

...plus a lift back to the hostel and an open invitation to sleep on her couch the next time I was in the city :) Sweet!

My supposed final day in Montreal found me traveling to the outskirts to locate a sloth at the Biodome. I rock up to this crazily designed building only to discover that the one day that they are closed for the summer happens to be today. Grr-reeere-*unintelligble grumbelings*

Not wanting to waste the gorgeous sunny day I had a picnic lunch in Parc Mont-Royal watching the crazy squirrels, listening to a free bagpipe practice and admiring the motley crew of people zipping through the park. Sadly, the day is coming to a close so I say my farewells to the staff at the hostel and make my way to the airport, only to find that I've missed my flight by 20min and the next flight isn't till tomorrow. Far from phased, I rebook my ticket and then make arrangements to spend one final night at the hostel, the staff greeting me back with a conciliatory cookie. Yay!

This time, my attempt to catch my flight to Washington DC sees me sitting at the airport 4hrs early. See, she does learn.