Tumblr and Beacon Hill Park

I slept past 10 AM today, which was pretty long compared to the last few days, but I guess I needed the sleep. Just when I was about to get up, I saw on facebook that Misha Collins was organising a short GISHWHES weekend to break tumblr. Since doing something creative seemed like good plan today, I started with one of the tasks: Explaining what happened to the 'e' in tumblr.

In the end, this was the only item I participated in, since I either didn't have any ideas for the other items or it seemed to me like the time was too short to get them done.

Around 2 PM, I felt like I really needed to get out. I went to Centennial square, where some kind of children's theatre festival was taking place. They had some kind of igloo as a stage, which looked kind of interesting. I had wanted to see 'The little prince', however, when I saw that it was a puppet theatre, I changed my mind.
I went to 'Beacon Hill Park' instead.  There, I just sat in the grass on a hill for some time and relaxed. Afterwards, I walked a bit through the park before going back home.

I spent the evening sitting in the living room watching some movies to keep the dogs company while Katrina was out. It was not only Katrina's dog Jakki tonight but also Jasper, a big poodle who belongs to a friend of Katrina.

Just an ordinary day

Getting up this morning was really hard, since I felt like I had barely slept. This was probably due to the sound of an ambulance that had woken me up last night around 4 AM. Nevertheless, I had to be at work by 9 AM. The bus was unusually puntual one again - just like almost every morning, but you never know. I still need to get used to the customary 'Thank you' you say to the bus driver when leaving the bus.
Even though I had to work 8 hours, working wasn't too exhausting. I guess I am finally getting used to it. And since it was just the right amount of busy in the store today, it was even a little fun.
On the way back home, I stopped at a supermarket close to the hostel, which offered a great, cheap and fresh vegetable mix. Thus after coming home, I cooked some rice with vegetables for dinner, although I had actually just eaten something similar a few days ago.
After eating and taking a shower, I ended up watching two more episodes of 'White Collar' with Katrina. She had made fresh popcorn again and I snacked a little too much of it.

Mount Doug

Today was my day off and as the weather was nice, I decided to go to Mount Douglas. Just when I wanted to leave, Sara messaged me and asked me about my plans and since she was nearby, we decided to go together. We took the bus, which brought us close to the Mount Douglas Provincial Park in less than 30 minutes.
At first we walked towards the Beach, which was quite nice even though it consisted of a lot of stones and the ground was quite wet.
After that, we wanted to hike up the mountain. We tried following the designated routes, however, at some point the path split into three paths with no sign showing us the way. We decided to take the path that seemed to go upwards. As it turned out, it wan't one of the designated paths and we had to climb over or below trees. The path itself was sometimes also a bit steep, overgrown and very rocky, but it was really fun. When we came to the top, we had a great view of the ocean and surrounding area. We had a short break to eat a snack and make a lot of nice pictures. When we decided to go on, we discovered that we hadn't been on Mount Doug yet. Instead, this was just some small plateau which wasn't even on the map. We still found a way from here to the real top of the mountain, which wasn't too far anymore. I must say that I enjoyed the view from our rather remote plateau more than the view from Mount Doug, which was pretty good as well - you could see pretty far in every direction.
After a while, we decided to find a route back down. This time, we stayed on a designated route, which wasn't much easier than the route we took on the way up. In fact, since we were going downward and it was quite steep and sandy, this way seemed even more dangerous, as it was easy to slip.
We still managed to get down without any incidents and took the next bus back to my place, where Sara picked up her stuff before going back to the hostel.

 
I still had a little time before having to leave again, so I just relaxed a little and cooked some dinner - mostly leftovers from yesterday.There was a free drumming workshop at Fairfield Church Hall this evening and since I felt like trying something new, I had signed up for it.
When I arrived at the Hall, I was actually surprised about its size. It was like a small auditorium and there were seats for about 80 people. By the time the workshop started almost all of the seats were filled. Most of the people actually had their own drums, some even played in some kind of drum orchestra. Nevertheless, there were several beginners like me as well. We got a 'Djembe', which is an African drum. The guy leading the workshop showed us several more or less diffucult beats which we were supposed to repeat. After we had learned several rhythms, some the orchestra people switched to other instruments like bells and xylophones and together, we played some African song. At one point, we were even supposed to sing. At first playing didn't seem too hard but after a while, it got a little tiring and I had a hard time remembering which rhythms I was supposed to play at what time. Anyhow, just listening to the beat was quite amazing, hearing so many people drum in unison and the different rhythms overlap and mix was definitely an interesting acoustic experience.
The workshop was over at 8:30 and as it turned out, the bus I had wanted to take back home didn't go past that particular location after 8 PM. Consequently, I had to figure out where the nearest bus stop for me would be. Luckily, it was only a 10 minute walk from where I was and I also only had to wait for about 10 more minutes for the bus.

When I arrived home, Katrina was just finished watching a tv show and about to make popcorn. I told her about 'White Collar' since the show had been on my mind the past few days. We ended up watching the first episode together on her netflix, which I really enjoyed although I had already seen it so many times before.

The Conspiracy Draft

Even though I was extremely tired this morning, work wasn't too bad today. Since I was busy the whole time (but not too stressed), time went by pretty quickly. The fact that I only had to work 4.5 hours might have also added to that expression. Furthermore, as there were no unhappy or unfriendly costumers today, it was also almost fun.
After coming back home, I took a shower and cooked some lunch (vegetables with rice - at least something healthy). The afternoon went by pretty quickly.
In the evening, I took the bus to Downtown once again. This time, I went to a comic book / game store in order to play some Magic the Gathering. I hadn't played for a while and since I didn't have any cards in Canada, the draft event at the store tonight was just perfect for me. It was a Consipracy Draft, which offered a few interesting cards that had some special effects just for drafting. There weren't any especially valuable cards but I managed to build a decent blue / white deck. We played a big multiplayer game with five people and I almost won... The game lasted almost three hours and at the end, it was a 'life or death' situation; I gambled the game on my next card on the library and lost. Nevertheless, I got an extra booster for the coolest deck - I had several life gain cards - and another booster for participating. Five boosters worth of cards for 17 CAD really isn't too bad and I definitely had a fun time, so I'll probably do it again.

Getting up too early and playing Bingo

I had to get up at 5:50 since I had to be at work by 7:30 this morning. Because the buses here are usually late, I took an early bus at 7 AM. However, the bus was unusually punctual and arrived very much on time, so that I had a little time to wander around before work. I walked to the water once again and watched a seaplane leave.
Work today was very exhausting again and it also seemed to be taking forever, as it was a very quiet day. I had a very long shift and only got off at 4 PM. I went home right afterwards to relax and read a little before going to the hostel tonight.
After arriving at the hostel, I ordered a big salad with pulled pork, which was pretty good. It was Bingo night, so I stayed a while to play. Since someone next to me was eating a really tasty looking ice cream, I had to order one, too, which I ate during the last round of musical Bingo. After that there was just a quick round of normal Bingo and when that was done, it was already past 10:30 and thus I went home.

Working and shopping for groceries

Before I went to work, I already went shopping for some groceries this morning. My landlady Katrina gave me a ride to the supermarket, since she was just leaving to drive to a freind with her car. Since it was the cheapest option, I bought 24 little bottles of water. Carrying them back home was quite exhausting, but at least I don't have to worry about water for the next two week or so.
I had to start working at noon. Since it was only a 4.5 hour shift, working wasn't too exhausting today. It was also a little fun since we had some German tourists. In addition to that, I was busy all the time with sorting stuff, so the tie went by pretty quickly.
After work, I sat a while at the harbour and had a small snack.

When I came home, I realized that I had forgotten to buy milk. Thus, I went to the supermarket again. Lucily, Katrina went out with her car again, so I could catch a ride to the supermarket once more.
In the evening, I just took a shower and read a little. I would have liked to go out tonight, but unfortunately I have to get up very early tomorrow morning, so staying up late is out of the question.
I had mozzarella cheese and tomatoes for dinner, which was really good and I especially enjoyed the cheese, since I hadn't eaten much cheese lately - it is one of the most expensive groceries you can buy here in Canada!

Working and World Oceans Day

Due to World Oceans Day, there was a lot going on around Fisherman's Wharf today. I went there around noon and took part in a scavenger hunt, which was interesting since it made me explore all the different booths and talk to the people there. As it turned out, I was the first to complete all the questions, so I might actually have a good chance at winning something. I had two cod tacos for lunch, which were a bit too spicy in my opinion.
Afterwards, I took a bus to Downtown since I had to work at 'Garden City' at 3 PM.
Even though I only had to work for 6 hours today, it was quite exhausting. After finishing at 9:30 PM, I just missed the bus and since the next bus was late, I only got home around 10:30 PM.