The Fern Fest

It was a gray day so that I didn't really feel like going out. Hence, I spent the morning inside reading and cleaning a bit. As I still wanted to check out the Fern Festival today, I forced myself to leave the house in the afternoon.

The Fern Fest was fun so I was glad that I went there. At first I checked out all the booths in the back, which offered food, soap, clothes, accessoires and information. You could also take part in a communal weaving project and add one row to the whole thing. I seemed interestingly different so I did just that. 

Afterwards I met up with Shamilla, Adam, Charis and a few other people. We listened to the bands playing, danced and had some fun with soap bubbles and chalk. I also had a cider and a hotdog.
When the others left, I decided to stay a little longer. However, after a few more minutes I changed my mind and started walking home. As it turned out, I felt a lot more drunk than I had anticipated, which was weird after just one cider. I still kept walking and made a little detour to the supermarket to get some milk for tomorrow. It was a walk of about 2.5 km in total but it felt a lot longer and I was happy to arrive back home just past 6 PM. 

Katrina's son Josh was visiting this evening and I joined the two of them for a while. We talked a lot about many different topics like the climate, other languages, my accent, politics, travelling, the distorted world map and cycling. Katrina had gotten a huge cookie from a food store for free which we shared and consequently, I ended up eating way too much sweet stuff today.

The Aboriginal Cultural Festival

After sleeping in, I went to the Aboriginal Cultural Festival at the Royal BC Museum.
I watched two of the dancing and singing acts there, however, they couldn't really catch my attention. I kind of thought that it was weird for grown up people to dress up this way and jump around to those primal music sounds on stage. I understand that it is their tradition and their culture, but to me it just seemed out of place that people who usually look and do the same as everybody else dress up an act like traditional first nations people. I mean I get that it can be fun to dress up and get into a role for one day, but this seemed kind of different. In addition to that, I didn't enjoy the music too much and at least the second dancing act was a little boring - they were mostly walking in a circle and making sweeping movements with their hands. So to sum up, the festival just wasn't my thing.

Next I took the bus to get to a bakery in order to check out their bread. For some reason, I didn't like that bakery too much when I arrived there; they wouldn't sell me half a bread and the prices were a bit too high. Nevertheless, since I had had to walk a while to get there, I didn't want to leave empty handed. Thus I bought some rye bread. I guess the bread wasn't too bad but it definitely wasn't worth its price (7.50 CAD).
The way back home took a while as the bus I wanted to take was late and when it finally arrived, it only drove for a few minutes until it stopped because someone needed an ambulance or something. I had to transfer to another bus to finally get home.
When I arrived, I didn't feel energetic enough to go out again. Consequently, I ended up having a nice movie evening with snacks and 'White Collar' together with Katrina. 

Dragonflies and working late

While I was checking if my laundry, which was hanging in the garden, was already dry, there was a huge dragonfly sitting on it. It looked quite interesting and sat there long enough for me to get my camera and take a picture.

After breakfast, I was chatting a bit with Katrina. We talked about birthday traditions and inviting people over. I thought it was quite weird that if you invite people over for dinner or something, they are actually expected to cook and bring part of the meal. Furthermore, if you invite people to a restaurant for your birthday, everyone pays for his or her own food and even the food of the birthday boy or girl is being paid for by the other people. In contrast to that, the person who invites everyone for his or her birthday usually ends up paying for everyone's food and amusement in Germany. I guess I would prefer the Canadian way.
As I had taken a shower in the morning, I was sitting in the garden and waiting for my hair to dry in the sun while reading for a while around noon.

I also had to work today but my shift didn't start until 3:30 PM. I didn't get off work until 10:45 though, so it was still a rather long work day.

Rueda and the thing with the '7' and the '1'

While opening the gift store today and filling out the usual financial forms, I learned that there is a difference between the European and the American way to write numbers: The way I write a '1' makes it look like a '7' to Canadians. I can reconize both ways of writing a '1', however, the way Canadians write the number '7' makes it look like a '1' to me. Isn't that confusing?
Anyway, today was payday, so I finally earned my first money (apart from the 60 CAD I got at the hostel each week). After getting my check, I brought it straight to my bank, which is conveniently located just two blocks from my work place.
I also used some of the money to buy some more groceries. Once again, I went to the nearby supermarket Save-On-Foods... Well actually Katrina dropped me off there once again. Before that, we went to a bakery together where I got the first halfway decent bread since leaving Germany. It's pretty hard to find anything that doesn't have the texture of toast around here.
This evening I took a bus to the local University, the UVic, as there was some kind of Salsa dancing lesson. It was 'Rueda', a particular kind of Salsa round dance. They offered an introduction for beginners as well as an intermediate dancing group. I took part in the beginner's lesson, which was harder than I had expected, given my experience with Salsa - Dancing in a circle is just pretty different from dancing with just one dancing partner. It was still fun and I did reconize most of the figures - we learned a lot in that beginners course. Nevertheless, I didn't feel like dancing that much today. Consequently, I went home after the first hour of introductions and didn't join the big group circle. I'll leave that for the next time.
Back at home, I tried some soup that Katrina had made, which was good but a bit too spicy for me. We concluded the evening by watching two episodes of 'White Collar' again.

Now You See Me 2

Work was a bit exhausting and annoying today since I had to check all tags and zippers of all shirts and pants on hangers in the store - there are really a lot of items fitting in that category. I wasn't even done with that task at the end of my 4.5 hour shift.
Anyway, I met up with Sara at the hostel right after work (well ok... first I went to eat a piece of pizza or lunch). We wanted to go to the Cineplex to see the movie 'Now You See Me 2'. Even though I was at the hostel half an hour earlier, we were almost too late - Shamilla, Brielle and Charis had also decided to join us and it took some time until everyone was ready. Since it was tuesday, the entry fee was only 6 CAD. I thought it was interesting that you didn't choose a seat while buying the ticket. Instead, you just bought a ticket to the movie and then chose any free seat in the theatre. Since the entry was so cheap, I ended up spending some more money on ice cream. The movie itself was definitely fun and captivating.
After the movie, I walked with the others back to the hostel. Brielle was talking about getting some dumplings and as I had never tried them, I was considering to join her. However, when I had made up my mind, she was already gone. I tried finding the dumpling place myself without success. Consequently I just walked a bit through the neighborhood. There was some kind of dance choreography lesson going on in Centennial Square, which looked interesting. I considered asking if I could join in but I felt a bit too lazy. In the end, I only went to the supermarket to buy a few things and then took the bus home.
At home, I took a shower and afterwards joined Katrina for another two episodes of 'White Collar'.

Bye Bye Blues

As I had found out during the Oak Bay Tea Party parade, there is a free movie event every monday evening in this neighborhood - Movie Monday. What is more, today was their 23rd anniversary, so I thought that it might be interesting to go there. As it turned out, the movie theatre is actually an auditorium in a psychiatric clinic, but you didn't see any of that.
Katrina had heard of the movie mondays before, she had never been there though. Since she didn't have any other plans, she decided to join me tonight.
The movie being shows was 'Bye Bye Blues', a canadian movie from 1989 which takes place in the 1940s. Rebecca Jenkins, the actress starring in the movie, was here tonight and the evening began with her singing three blues songs from the movie. She had a really great voice!
The movie itself was based on a true story about a woman whose husband got captured by the Japanese in the war. While she was waiting for him and caring for their two children, she had to figure out a way to earn money. It took a while for her to be accepted but eventually she started singing and playing the piano in a blues band, which became quite popular. One of the band's members had also fallen for her. Nevertheless, she gave it all up when her husband returned after the war.
During the movie, I had some popcorn, which was surprisingly cheap (1 CAD) and afterwards, they gave out free chocolate cake. The actress also answered some of the audience's questions about the making of the movie, which was quite interesting.
All things considered, I had a really amazing evening - and all that for free.

Working, shopping and cooking

I didn't do anything too interesting today; I had to work from noon till 4:30 and afterwards, I went shopping. Since I bought some basa fish, I also cooked after coming home.
In the evening, I did some research and watched more 'White Collar' with Katrina and the dogs.