This was me three weeks ago.
I flew through the air at Parc Jean-Drapeau on a trapeze set up for the Festival du Monde coinciding with Le Festival Complètement Cirque in Montreal.
Definitions
Festival du Monde: A two-weekend event celebrating the cultures of different cultures from around the world. All over the big island south of Montreal built for Expo ’67 different countries set up stages, food kiosques, and info stalls and visitors walk from area to area, from country to country, watching African dances, a Caribana parade, eating Turkish baklava and seeing traditional coffee ceremonies. There’s a lot of cheap food, and a lot of delicious things.
Completely Circus: A 2 week circus festival in Montreal featuring young troupes from all over the world. Cheaper tickets than the Cirque du Soleil, and often more interesting productions with a storyline and human characters with endearing personalities.
The first has little to do with the second other than maybe one being a sponsor of the other or having some kind of agreement. Anyway, it worked, because there were huge lines to try out the trapeze on the festival weekends. I waited an hour and a half, and then was instructed on how to swing out, flip upside, down, let go of my hands, re-grasp, flip back upright, and then do a backflip to dismount onto a net. You wear a harness, don’t worry. My mom took photos. Thanks for being patient with the line, and thanks for the photos, mom. The only reason we were out there in the heat was because she was visiting.
All this to say, if you really want to be a trapeze artist you have to be ridiculously strong. We watched a mini show the professional troupe did before us general public people could try the trapeze. Geez it’s hard to pull your legs up like that, not to mention the rest of your body doing everything in its power to weigh you down.
So if you want to do trapeze I recommend eating a little salad. Or a large salad, like this one:
Lettuce, green and red peppers, hard-boiled egg, walnuts, tomatoes, avocado, cucumber, with cheese on the side for people who can digest cheese. A lot of these ingredients are pretty rich and full of healthy fats, so it’s all about the ratio of ingredients if you want to lighten up. f you have two strands of lettuce, and some stray peppers to your entire avocado and tons of eggs and nuts, you’re not going to feel that lifted off the ground…
A Salad for Lightness
1 head Boston lettuce, torn (or other crunchy lettuce. Iceberg doesn’t have much nutritional value, but you can mix it with other greens if you want the crunch. The biggest mistake you can make with lettuce is washing it and then serving it when it’s still wet and having it dilute the dressing. So make sure you spin it or let it air-dry completely)
1 green pepper, seeded and thinly sliced
1 red pepper, seeded and thinly sliced
1 cucumber, sliced
2 tomatoes (beefsteak are great), chopped
1/2 avocado, chopped
1/4 cup walnuts, broken up and toasted for 5 minutes in a 350 F oven (or soaked for 8 hours and dehydrated to keep them raw)
2 hard-boiled eggs
3 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
2 tbsp olive oil
Combine all salad ingredients in a large bowl. Whisk together the vinegar and Dijon. Slowly drizzle in the oil, whisking as you pour. Serve on the side or toss with salad.
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