Wilkommen, Bienvenue

Welcome to Odd Birds' inaugural post! Manners dictate that on such an occasion, introductions are the appropriate course of action, so without further ado,

I'm Katherine

And I'm one half of this blog.

I'm Victoria

And if my fractions are correct, I'm the other half of this blog.

To be honest, it's rather difficult to summarize what this here weblog is meant to be, or give it any kind of outline - we don't even really know ourselves what it will end up being! But that's the approach we take to most things, and we've found that it's led to adventure - the be-all and end-all of most of our endeavours, frankly - happily often. And this is where our latest adventure took us;

Essentially, every Sunday during the warmer months a respectable portion of Mount Royal becomes a sort of gipsy encampment - and boy, do we love us some gipsies! For one day (and one day only) a week, all sorts of interesting folk come together to, well, be together.

Now don't get us wrong: we don't all sit in a circle and sing kumbaya (not that we wouldn't really enjoy that). Instead, we stand/sit/whatever-floats-your-boat in a semi-circle (an important difference!) with our djembes, tambourines and dancing shoes - okay, bare feet - and just enjoy ourselves!

 (Yes, that's us, letting loose - you've no idea how difficult it is to take decent photographs of a dancing subject!)

Montrealers get to dive into a world of spontaneity and originality, and judging by the impressive turn-out, they're quite enjoying it (we can vouch for that)!

So what did our little eyes spy today? What sorts of oddities have we Odd Birds to offer?

Well, since you asked so politely...

A LADY WITH A SNAKE!

A NUDIST FLUTIST

A HARE KRISHNA MONK(?) PLAYING SOME SORT OF ACCORDIAN-LIKE INSTRUMENT AND GIVING OUT FREE BISCUITS

(Biscuits not pictured, but they were delicious)

AND SOME CAMERA-SHY ARTISTS!

(We did expressly ask her permission, though!)

Although our favourite bit was definitely the dancing, we had quite a time browsing the little kiosques, full of glittery gems, beaded bracelets and some mighty majestic llamas.

(Thanks again to the man selling these crystals for keeping an eye on our bags while we were dancing!)

Llamas, yeah!

Such is the truly bizarre, unpredictable, magical gathering we'll be attending just about every week.

Come to think of it, those might be the perfect words to describe our (mis)adventures, and what we will try our very best to capture here, in our clumsy words & amateur pictures; the complete and total oddness of everyday life, especially when you're an odd bird.