Travelling to Tofino

I didn't really want to leave the hostel this morning since I was having such a great time with everyone. Nevertheless, I took the bus to Tofino around noon. The bus ride was rather relaxed. There was a lot of rain and also some fog today, so I didn't see too much of the landscape. Still, it was nice to look out of the window of the bus. Some time in the afternoon, the bus came to an unexpected halt as there was a long line of cars standing on the street. It took a while until we were moving again. Apparently the cause was a car that had driven off the street into the guardrail.
The last third of the bus ride was beautiful, we drove through a remote area with mountains partly covered by clouds, lakes and rivers.

I finally arrived in the hostel around 7:30 PM. My room was really nice with an amazing view of the ocean. 

Around 9 PM - just when the sun was about to set - I walked to a nearby beach to take some pictures of the sunset. It was a really amazing and calming scenery and I enjoyed watching some dogs play in the water. 

On the walk back, I was actually worried that I would get totally lost, since I ended up on a path which was longer than I had expected. In addition to that, I was the only one walking there. On the one hand side, this was a bit scary as it was getting dark. On the other hand, I really enjoyed the silence all around me.

Music, nail polish and drinks

Work today was quite exhausting. It was my last day working at the hostel and for some reason, everything seemed to be taking forever.
Nevertheless, today was one of my most fun and memorable days (or rather evenings) so far. Leon was playing the guitar and singing in Ocean Island Inn again. The atmosphere was really great, everyone was singing along. During the concert, Brielle was applying nail polish to all of our nails. It looked so amazing, I have never had such colorful nails! After the concert, we all went to the taphouse on Yates Street for a few drinks, where I had a Bellini and a really fun time.

Ogden Point

Since it was quite cloudy today, we (Jay, Charis, Simone, Luiza and me) decided against going to Mount Douglas and walked to James Bay and Ogden Point instead. Being at the coast was just perfect for me today, I loved the smell of the ocean and the strong wind. Ogden Point Lighthouse is in the middle of the ocean and you can decide between taking a paved road or a path consisting of huge rectangular rocks. We took the rocky path on the way there and sat on the rocks at the very end of the path for a while.
On the way back, I decided to make a detour to Beacon Hill park and spent some time reading. Just when I arrived at the park, I somehow managed to get splashed by a water sprinkler. It wasn't too bad though so I still sat down on a bench and read for a while before returning to the hostel.
For some reason, I was awfully tired, so I didn't really do anything in the afternoon.

In the evening I cooked some vegetables that I had bought for just two dollars the day before and some rice. It was quiz night in the bar and our team the 'No Australians' got the second place, although I couldn't really help much. The first part of the questions was about current events, the second about TV show names, the third about stars and the last about band names. It was fun but really hard, especially for non-americans.

Afterwards we went to room 25 in the hostel, where some people were having some kind of good-bye party. I got to eat nice lemon muffins (I'd smelled those already this afternoon in the kitchen so I was happy to try them) and to drink cider. The party itself was very chilled since we couldn't be too loud. It was mostly just talking and working on a fun music playlist.

The last statue of a hand and open mic night

I was supposed to start working at noon today, so I could relax in the morning. After breakfast, Leon was playing a few songs on his guitar, which was really nice. He also finally went down to resign - originally he had promised Jay to stay and work here until July, but now he already wanted to leave at the beginning of June and he had been afraid to tell the supervisors. It turned out that it was no problem at all and that he had been worried for nothing.
Because of my late shift, I didn't have to do the usual tasks. Instead, I had to deep clean the front desk today, which took me almost all of my five hours of work. Apparently, no one has ever deep cleaned the front desk as thoroughly as me, although I feel like I only did what was necessary.
When I was finally done with work at 5:30 PM, I went out for a walk to find the last statue of a hand. It was really well hidden on a vegetated rock. Walking to the location, searching for the statue, and walking back took me about 1.5 hours, so it was a really nice evening walk. Furthermore, it offered me a great view of the harbour and the sea, so I really enjoyed it.
After taking a shower, I went down to the bar. There was an open mic event this evening. Apart from Leon, who played a few really good songs, there were some other great musicians as well, all of them were playing the guitar and singing. I especially enjoyed a group of three reggae singers and one guy with a rather aggressive and energetic stye.

The Royal BC museum

Today, I went with my roomate Luiza from Brasil to the Royal BC museum. They had exhibits on climate change, the flora and fauna in British Columbia, the First Nations and their diverse languages as well as the discovery and development of the Northwest. There was a small 19th century village that we could walk through with an old cinema, in which we watched a black and white movie (with Charlie Chaplin?) without sound. The movie was actually really fun and one of my highlights today.
We also watched another movie in the big IMAX theatre. It was about the US national parks, which all looked really fascinating. I definitely want to check out the Yellowstone national park with the geysers one day. The movie was supposed to be in 3D but unfortunately, the 3D projector had just broken, thus we could only watch the movie in 2D. It was still good, although you could see that it was meant to be in 3D.
For some reason, my camera wouldn't turn on in the museum, so I could only take pictures with my phone. I think the battery might be broken. Either way I need to keep an eye on it in the next few days.

 
After the museum, we each had a slice of cheese pizza in some pizza shop close to the hostel.

Tonight was bingo night at the hostel. I was cooking dinner during the first two rounds, which didn't work out too well - my mashed potatoes got too much milk and thus were like a liquid. 

After the normal bingo rounds, we were playing musical bingo, which was really fun.

Victoria Day Parade

Because of Victoria Day, there was a big parade along Douglas Street about 3 minutes from the hostel. Unfortunately I had to work at 10 AM. Thus, I only managed to see 20 minutes of the beginning of the parade before I had to head back to the hostel. It was still quite nice to look at. I was surprised at the amount of uniformed army people marching in the parade, I guess you wouldn't see that in Germany. There were also a lot of marching bands, which was nice.

After work, I had to do some laundry. While waiting for the washing machine, I listened to Leon playing the guitar and singing on the back stairwell of the hostel.
In the evening, we had a short rock paper scissors tournament in the bar. Unfortunately, I lost again in the first round.

Salsa, BBQ and ice cream

There was some kind of Salsa dance meeting in a nearby square this afternoon and since I missed dancing, I went there after work. Most people just sat there to watch and the people who wanted to dance usually already had a dancing partner or a dancing group, which didn't make it easy for me to join in. In the end, I just danced a little for myself and later on also with some middle aged asian guy who had asked me to dance. It was really fun to dance a little after all this time.
I left already after about an hour in order to join my roommate Shamilla and a few other people from the hostel. They were going to a BBQ house party. As I arrived back at the hostel just when they were about to board a taxi, I quickly went up to my room to grab whatever I could cook on a BBQ grill, which turned out to be some frozen salmon I had gotten from Paige earlier as well as some vegetables.
The party was quite fun, people were playing volleyball, drawing things with chalk, climbing on a huge tree (which looked extremely dangerous) and of course drinking beer. It was the first time I actually saw people drinking beer from a keg headfirst.
We already went back to the hostel around 9:30 PM but decided to go out again after sitting a while downstairs in the bar area in order to eat a Mc Flurry at Mc Donalds. I thought it was pretty weird that the Canadian Mc Donalds symbol had a maple tree on it.