Went to the fireworks the other night. Unlike Wellington, which can only manage one fireworks extravaganza per year – apart from last year when we were transitioning from Guy Fawkes to Matariki – in Montreal they have fireworks twice a week, on Wednesday and Saturday nights. No evidence that people are getting bored with them either, considering the numbers of people we saw on the banks of the St Lawrence River, a prime vantage spot (the fireworks are actually let off from an old adventure park downriver).
I wasn’t going to bother trying to take pictures, because they are invariably disappointing, much like photos of sunsets. But then I thought it might be nice to break up the dullness of my prose with a photo right about here:
We actually saw the fireworks from a special boat cruise, so we were hovering in the middle of the fast flowing river when that photo was taken. I took that photo on the “square” photo setting on my iPhone, I don’t know why you would have that setting there even? I was only on it by accident because the rest of my photos were “live” meaning that you could see a bit of movement, much like pictures in Wizarding newspapers in Harry Potter. It’s a marvelous effect which I highly recommend – really brings things to life – it’s a shame I can’t show you. Anyway, somehow I bumped it onto the square setting in my fevered haste not to miss anything good.
The fireworks were set to music which was broadcast by a francophone radio station that was projected from loudspeakers on the boat. The theme, bizarrely enough, was TV shows. I suppose if you have to come up with ideas twice a week every week you eventually scrape the bottom of the barrel. They had a whole range, none of which really related to the fireworks at all – although my daughter recognized the theme to Breaking Bad and said that explained the blue fireworks – apparently the hero makes very pure blue crystal meth but I can’t confirm that (although I suppose I could with the help of google but I’m not going to bother because that will ruin my narrative flow). I knew a number of tunes from my youth – I dream of genie, etc – and my daughter knew most of the newer ones, which I suppose means there weren’t many Francophone TV series represented.
The oddest moment of the evening was when they played the Tellytubbies themetune. There have been fewer things more surreal in my life than listening to “Tinky winky! Dipsy! La la! Po!” played loudly on a boat on a river in the dark in a foreign country with hundreds of strangers watching fireworks.