Cottage country

This past weekend, I finally got the chance to visit one of these mythical "cottages" everyone in Canada seems to have. No, seriously: maybe its the socioeconomic makeup of the Canadians I encounter at McGill, but there's a bizarrely high proportion of people in this country who seem to have a vacation home somewhere in the vast tracts of forested and lake-ed land that you encounter about ten minutes outside any major city. That vastness probably has something to do with it--when you have so much land, it's not that surprising that there's a lot of it available for relatively cheap.

My girlfriend's roommate (from here forward referred to as GFR) has one up in the Laurentians, a mountain range an hour or two north of Montreal. Since GFR is also the current president of the McGill Triathalon club and my girlfriend is a member, it was basically a triathalon-oriented trip with a few relatively slobbish people like myself tagging along. I like to think of myself as fairly in shape, but these are people who are excited by the prospect of 90 kilometer bike rides and come back from said rides saying things like "wow, amazing ride...who feels like a run?" instead of "OH GOD MY LEGS BURN."

Now it wasn't all intense training with me sitting on the sidelines feeling out of shape--there were some more casual activities as well. It was while trying my hand (feet?) at waterskiing on the first evening that things started to get...injurious. While futilely attempting to stand up on the damn things--it's hard, if you've never tried--one of my skis came off and beaned me quite hard in the side of the head. By the time we got back into the cottage, my left temple was swollen up and I was being fussed over and given ice and Advil by GFR's mother, who was up with us and happened to be a doctor. So okay, one of ten or so people up on a trip has a minor accident and ends up with a big bruise on the side of his head (and a very impressive black eye). Big deal.

...except that the next morning my girlfriend quite literally broke her face and split her lip falling out of bed and into a bedside table (it was a small chip fracture of the upper lip, but "broke her face" sounds awfully good, and is technically correct), necessitating a trip to the emergency room. Another girl almost passed out on the bike trip and later cut up her shin jumping off of the dock and onto a submerged rock. Another guy cut himself with a kitchen knife while making dinner. Another girl, while trying to throw another person out of a canoe, managed to fall into a canoe and bruise/scrape up her legs badly. Everyone was fine, but it became a running joke that the injured were starting to outnumber the healthy ones.

Then I get into work today: my co-worker's grandfather has died, another's house burned down a couple weeks ago, and my supervisor's mother fell very ill and her son broke his arm.

What the hell is going on?

Anyways, besides the apparent curse on this August (starting off with a shooting, no less), the weekend was pretty amazing. By the morning after my accident the swelling had gone down enough that I was able to enjoy myself. I never got back on the water skis, but I did try tubing (very fun), and although my poor girlfriend had to refrain from all intense physical activity--which was supposed to the point of the weekend--she still got to have a nice couple of days relaxing in the beautiful woods of Canada. As did I. And man, it's beautiful.