May 2-4 Weekend is just an incredible concept. It’s generally understood as the weekend that all residents of southern Ontario head north to open up the cottage, which generally entails a bit of manual labour paired with a lot of many beers. So Andrew and I packed up the car and drove up to Barry’s Bay where, as it conveniently happens, both of our families have their cottages. The thing about May 2-4, though, is that we all generally delude ourselves into thinking that the weather will actually be warm and that summer has actually begun. This is never the case. Never. Yet, we still try to don shorts and tanks and all things skin-revealing, and end up freezing our forested asses off. You probably wouldn’t believe me if I told you that it actually snowed this morning… but it did. I woke up to Christmas, threw on my Birkenstocks, and braved the “summer” weather I believed in. After all, if May 2-4 has taught us anything, it’s that summer is really only a state of mind anyway.

The weather didn’t start off so wintery. We actually enjoyed a lovely afternoon of reading The Economist and napping in the sun, followed by a canoe excursion and kicking it with a Polish Priest. We paddled over to the outdoor church called ‘Kaszuby’, and explored a bit. We figured it wasn’t trespassing since we’re both technically baptized. And and and I finally got to test out my new fishing rod (it’s a quantum) and I totally morphed into a wickedawesome female version of Bob Izumi. I caught a pike, and some bass. Being MP, however, my immediate reaction to a good hook-set it “Andrew! I don’t wanna touch the fish!!!!!”. It is true. Despite my incredibly impressive and mad fishing skillz, I do not like the part that involves rescuing the fish from death by lip-ring. I support piercings, but I do no support gross fish skin. I am far too Glamorous for that… flossy flossy.

The wonderful Andrew took me on a hike to an old abandoned farm from 1912. It was wonderfully decrepit and exceptionally ramshackle. The farm was abandoned since the land is far too rocky to actually successfully grow any sort of bumper crop. The homestead was so eerie. Newspaper and straw poured out of the old walls, having insulated the inhabitants, once upon a time. And you could see where they kept the animals, and lived their simple northern lives. I wonder what happened to them. A small grotto with a statue of Mary was placed at the edge of a clearing, encased within a portion of the old building. It was serene, and lush, and I was happy to explore.

Saturday was a big day in Barry’s Bay. It was the annual Bay Day, which is really just a glorified street party with old cars and even older dudes playing the oldest Polish waltzes on fiddles, with washboard strumming backup. Saturday was particularly cold, and rather rainy, but The Bay gave’r and Andrew bought new hipster sunglasses. Not bad, if you ask me.

The ride home was somewhat morose, since the weather was still shitty and we had to return to city lives and city problems. Nevertheless, we plugged in some wonderful Canadian indie tunes, and rocked our way back to Toronto going 65km per album.