“Hey let’s go surfing!” the staff suggested for a campus activity. Of course, loud mouth that I am, I screamed out “It’s freezing! What do you mean surfing?!” “No Matt… indoor surfing.” Indoor surfing has always been an activity I’ve seen on the internet or on TV, but never something I thought I would be able to try. Hearing about the idea, I immediately signed up.
A couple weeks passed and the day finally arrived. I showed up at the Academic Center with my metro pass and a big smile on my face. Andrea (our activities coordinator) herded us up and escorted us to the Metro. Traveling on the orange line towards Montmorency (the last stop, and farthest away from us) didn’t help with how excited I felt. Thirty minutes later the metro rolled to a stop and we hopped into taxis to finish our trip to Maeva Surf. I was in charge of operating one taxi, which of course involved telling him the address. “2005 David Johnston…no wait that’s a student… 2005 Daniel Johnson please!”
Laval was a quieter and slower moving place than Montreal but had a unique feel to it. It was nice to get away from the city for a little bit. Arriving at Maeva Surf (after the taxi driver thought I said 2500 Daniel Johnson instead of 2005) we changed into our swimwear and waited for the current session to finish up. Apart from indoor surfing, they have an on site clothing store and bar. I browsed there for a little bit and took pictures on the fake surfboard with some classmates. “Hey you guys are up!” the instructor shouted.
The next 15 minutes consisted of listening to the safety pointers and surfing instructions from the staff member. During this time a young girl was surfing, probably about 12-14 years old. She was doing board flips, jumps and all sorts of tricks, making me self conscious of my non existent surfing skills. No worries though, I got this. We started on the boogie board lying down on our stomachs which was a lot easier than I expected. I quickly moved to sitting up on my knees and even doing barrel rolls and somersaults. After a couple of runs it was time to move up to the stand up board. Despite how easy the young girl from before made it seem, it was incredibly hard. Surprisingly myself and my friends made decent progress in our time there. That being said, I did fall a lot. Thanks to the trampoline floor underneath it wasn’t too bad.
After about an hour of surfing our session was over and it was time to head back home. I could easily lose myself there for hours. To top this whole trip off we were surprised with nachos at Jack Astor’s Bar & Grill after the event! Couldn’t have asked for a better day with some great friends. 10/10.
