Fireworks

Haha, honestly, if it wasn't for RHJ, I don't think that I would ever update here.
Last friday was Saint Jean-Baptiste day, which is THE Quebec national holiday, appearantly. Now, I've asked many of my Quebec-er friends, and none of them could rightly expain WHY it's a holiday, or the Quebec one at that. All I know is that we get the day off and the Old Port gets closed so that there can be a parade. It's scorching hot now, but the walk down to the Old Port was well worth it! A bunch of musicians, magicians, artists and artisans had settled all across the middle of the main roads of the Old Port, and they looked like lost islands among the floods of people. Plus next week is Canada day (yeah!), so we get another long weekend.
I missed the parade because I had to go swing dancing (it'd been two weeks... I'd have gone insaaaane if I hadn't gone), so I have no idea wheter is was any good or not (I'll assume it was; Quebec-ers know how to party!). The swing dancing, however, was well, well worth it. Now that the summer has rolled around, it seems as though there are alot less newbies on the dance floor (except for me, of course, haha), so chances are you're going to be dancing with somebody amazing! Plus, I've discovered that wearing my swing skirt really helps too: it's so twirly that people can't see all the mistakes I'm making beneath it. Moo ha ha!
Every saturday, there's been a fireworks competition. Certain countries compete against each other (last night was France, the week before was Australia), and the show is accompanied by a musical score and everything. Again, the action goes down at the Old Port. We rushed to get there last night, but parking the car was hellish and we only managed to catch the tail-end of it. Ugh!! The exact same thing happened last week. We decided to actually plan ahead from now on: next week, or perhaps the week after, we're going to drive to the beach (there's a small beach on the outskirts of Montreal, you can even metro there, but I've never been), spend the day there, then picnic and watch the fireworks from there. Sounds like a plan!! I'm excited, but we'll see if this actually works out.
On a random note, I might be going camping my last weekend here, with some Quebec-er friends. Hmm, I'm not sure if I should though, because not only is that weekend the jazz fest, but it's ALSO the swing fest, and there are some people I would want to say good-bye to.