We don't need another hero

My day wasn't too exciting - I had to work for 4.5 hours and in addition to that I also did some laundry. I had washed my first load of laundry in the morning and hanged it outside to dry since I thought the weather would be fine. Unfortunately, it was drizzeling all day long and just when I was about to go home after work it started to really rain. Luckily, Katrina brought my clothes in for me so that they were actually amost dry when I came home.

Tonight I went to see a dance show called 'We don't need another hero'. It was some kind of independent dance and I didn't know what to expect, which was good. 

When entering the auditorium, every audience member got a small rock that he or she was supposed to put anywhere on the stage. During the time before the show really started, one of the female artists dressed in white was making gymnastic moves while moving the rocks around the stage.
There were also two other female dancers and one male dancer. In the first part of the show, those three dancers offered an irritating and kind of alien performance. They were moving around the stage, interacting with each other as well as imaginary objects and moving in inhuman ways. There were times when the dancers would move almost like a puppet on a string and other times when they would crawl like animals. Sometimes it looked like they were fighting and trying to intimidate each other and sometimes there seemed to be a deep and almost erotic connection between them.
Next, the dancer in white together with a French girl took over the stage. The French girl was proclaiming that the universe as well as all of us were made of stardust and rocks while the dancer in white was translating it all into English. 

The dancer in white posed the question whether truth lies in the intellect, which is the mind, or in emotions, which lie in the heart, or in intuition, which is represented by the gut. In order to answer this question, she took off all her clothes and danced around naked while being influenced by sad music (emotions), arithmetic problems (mind) and sudden switches of direction (gut). 

Afterwards, she put on some black clothes and asked the audience to decide where truth lies. Everyone was supposed to come on stage and stand next to a heap of small rocks representing one of the three options. The audience was given some examples to make a better decision and when everyone had found a place (I went with the heart), people started making noises. The gut group was saying 'So...?', the heart group was saying 'Hey!' and the intellect group was making bird sounds. This went on for a few minutes until everyone went into some kind of humming noise. 

Finally, people started asking each other to dance until the whole audience was dancing on stage. The song 'We don't need another hero' started to play. The whole thing was truly amazing and unexpected. I ended up dancing with another woman in the center of the stage and we were both waving our scarfs around, which was fun. 

When it was over, we were all clapping and people - strangers - were hugging and thanking each other for the dance. 

To sum up, the show triggered many different feelings in me, ranging from irritated and disturbed over fascinated to thoughtful and humbled. The end seemed like some kind of social experiment which conveyed feelings of belonging and wonder.

When leaving, I also took one of the small stones with me as a souvenir.

 

Getting home was taking some time. It was already 10:20 PM and my bus home was pretty late. In addition to that, it was overcrowded, so that getting in and out of the bus was a small challange. However, when I got home by 11 PM, I was actually the first one home - Katrina and Margot were apparently still out. 

Hunting chickens

Even though I was working until 11:15 yesterday, I already had to be at work at 10:30 today. Luckily, it was only a 4 hour shift. I had planned to eat lunch at Red and Blue Fish afterwards, a fish shop that had been recommended to me by several people. Unfortunately, just as Shirley had predicted when I told her about my plan at work, there were too many people lining up and since I didn't have the time to wait for my lunch forever, I just ended up eating some small snack.

In the end, I was a bit in a hurry as I had a shift at the petting zoo at 3:45 pm and it always takes some time getting there. Nevertheless, I managed to arrive just in time. Today, my first task was to prepare dinner for the chickens as well as for the turkey and the pig. The chickens and the turkey got a mix of rasped apples, lettuce, broccoli and carrots and the pig got a few cut pieces of bananas, apples, carrots and eggs. Afterwards I had to clean the chicken compound until it was time to bring all the animals into their respective barn. We started with the chickens, who had to be shooed into their barn. That task was actually quite fun! It was a similar procedure with the ducks. Next, we put a harness on the donkeys to lead them into their barn. Afterwards, it was the turn of the sheep and the alpaca.
Now that the farm was almost empty, it was time for another goat stampede: This time, the goats were running back through the whole farm into their barn. When this was done, only one lone turkey lady was left. She was a bit reluctant to go into her barn, which is actually quite understandable - her companion had just died two days ago, so the barn was bound to feel quite lonely to her.

After my shift at the farm, I decided to try my luck at Barb's and consequently walked to Fisherman's Wharf. I ordered some fish and chips (with green salad instead of fries!) at Barb's and enjoyed it while sitting at the harbour. The walk to Fisherman's Wharf, ordering the food and waiting for the bus back took quite long so that I was only home around 8 PM.

Background music

Since I didn't do anything too interesting today apart from working late, I thought I'd dedicate this post to music. I listen to the radio all day long while I am working - whether I want to or not. There are some songs that I hear almost every day and since they are also a part of my Canada experiences, I wanted to list them here.

MAGIC! - Rude


 Coleman Hell - 2 Heads


Ruth B - Lost Boy


Lukas Graham - 7 years


ZAYN MALIK - Pillowtalk


Justin Bieber - Love Yourself


Kelly Clarkson - Piece by Piece


Adele - When we were young


Andrew Allen - What you wanted

Especially the song '7 years' has more or less followed me through my whole journey. So far I have been hearing that song at every corner since I arrived in Vancouver for the first time.

Walking around Thetis Lake and dancing Salsa Rueda

This morning I joined Katrina and Jakki on a walk around Thetis Lake. The drive there took a bit longer than expected since there was a traffic jam at a crossing. We got there at 10:45 and walked about 5.2 km around the lake. Today was a surprisingly nice day and thus it was really nice to spent the morning outside. I was a bit surprised about how friendly all the dogs interacted with each other compared to how dogs often act in Germany. Katrina told me that here in Canada all dogs were usually neutered, which was probably the reason for their quieter behavior.
We got back to the car by noon and when we got back home, I ate some granola as a snack and researched why the bark of the arbutus tree has often peeled off. I had been wondering about that for a while now since you can see those trees with their smooth skin in so many parks around here. However, I didn't find any scientific answer, there were only some guesses that it's supposed to prevent insects or fungus from living in the bark or that it's a protection from watter freezing within the bark in winter and destroying the tree in the process.

Since I wanted to be fit enough to go dancing this evening, I didn't go out in the afternoon. Instead I spent it watching 'White Collar' with Katrina again and enjoying some more popcorn and chips just like we usually did.

Xue joined me for the Salsa Rueda tonight. It was her first time dancing but I'd say that she did pretty well. I spent the first hour dancing as a male lead, as there were not enough men for the beginner lesson. It was really weird to have to do everything the opposite way and I sometimes messed up my footwork. On the other hand, it was nice to see a different perspective, although I felt like the female part was more exhausting.
After the beginner lesson was over, I dared to join the big dancing circle. This time, I was dancing the female follow part again, which was definitely easier than the male lead role as I barely knew any of the figures we were dancing. It was still a lot of fun and felt like a really good workout. I hadn't moved this much and felt so hot and sweaty for a while. Even though I sometimes messed up a little due to the unfamilliar steps, I really enjoyed it.

I missed my bus on the way home and as I didn't know how long it would take for the next bus to come, I just took any other bus going south. Consequently, I needed to walk for a few blocks to get home but it was still nice out, so I didn't mind.
Katrina was getting home at the same time as me and since we were both pretty addicted to the show by now and it wasn't too late yet, we decided to watch a little more 'White Collar'. Katrina had baked a banana bread a few days ago and offered me to try some. I had never tried banana bread before but I really liked it now.

Bingo!

I had to get up extremely early today as I had to start working at 7:30. Nevertheless, the day went by pretty quickly as we had a lot of stuff to do: In the morning we had to do some restocking and in the afternoon I had to reorganize all the name programms.
I got off at 4 PM and went straight home to take a quick shower. However, just when I was sitting in the bus I realized that I had forgotten my jacket at work.
After taking my shower, I watched one more episode of 'White Collar' with Katrina and then quicly prepared some dinner.
I was meeting Kathy at the hostel at 8 PM but since I wanted to get my jacket back first, I had to leave a little earlier.
It was bingo night at the hostel and we had a lot of fun with the musical bingo. Even though I barely knew any of the songs from the 20's to 60's bingo, I still managed to win that round (mostly thanks to my smartphone app shazam). The second round of musical bingo had songs from the 70's to the 2010's and even though I didn't win that round, I really enjoyed it due to all the nice songs.
Since I had won 10 Ocean Island Dollars, I spent them on a potato ('Taco Time'), which I shared with Kathy. It was a bit spicier than I had expected but still edible for me. In fact, it was really tasty.
Just after we had finished our potato, we had to leave in order to catch our bus home.

Finnerty Gardens after work

We had so many customers, so muh restocking and so many T-shirts to refold at the store today that everything was still a mess when I was done with my shift. I felt bad for leaving all the work for Kathy, however, 4.5 hour just weren't enough to straighten everything up.
When I got home, Katrina was working and since I didn't want to disturb her, I only ate a quick snack before going out again. I took the bus to the Finnerty Gardens, where I walked and relaxed for about 45 minutes. The Gardens didn't fascinate me as much as they did last time as most of the flowers weren't blooming anymore. It was still nice to have all of the plants all around me.

When I got back home, I changed into more comfortable clothes, cooked some dinner and watched more 'White Collar' with Katrina.

Cleaning, cooking and working

I kept myself quite busy with working all day long. After getting up and taking a shower, I cleaned the bathroom and my room. Since I had been shopping yesterday, I got some more cleaning agent: Apparently most Canadians only use ceramic and glass cleaner in order to clean the bath-/washroom, which doesn't seem enough for me. Thus, I got some anti-bacterial all purpose cleaner.
By the way, Canadians call the toilet usually a 'washroom', while Americans call it a 'restroom'. 

Next I cooked myself a really nice lunch - mashed potatoes, califlower and scrambled eggs, some of my favourite things to eat. As the weather was quite nice, I decided to eat outside on the terrace. When I was done with eating and cleaning up after my cooking, I already had to leave for work.

I got back home around 10 PM and as Katrina was still up and eager for some more 'White Collar', we watched two more episodes.