The GISHWHES week

Since the GISHWHES week is over, I can now share my submissions for this year! Special thanks to Margo, Sara and Simone for helping me with some of the items!

Group picture:

Item #16

Your yard needs an upgrade. It's too expensive to do proper landscaping, so let's just dress it up nicely... with every item of clothing you own displayed in a beautiful, artistic manner on the trees, bushes, cars, patio furniture, fountain, etc. Have your neighbors over in the middle of it for a yard-warming party if you wish!

 

Item #85

It’s summer (for those of us above the equator)! Time to go the beach! But sand castles are so dated, so gauche, so elitist, so medieval. Catch up with the times and build a sand trailer park.

Item #116

Submit two images, side-by-side: let's see what existential angst looks like next to what the meaning of life is. - Stephanie Magnolia

Item #117

Gishwhes has conquered the Great Wall, South American waterfalls, the Champs-Élysées, and even SPACE! Help gishwhes conquer new territory— take gishwhes somewhere epic that it’s never been before. - Julie Reynolds

 

Item #139

We’re writing an e-book and we want you to do our work for us. There’s a habit that was hard for you to change, but you changed it anyway. What is the habit, and what is your number one piece of advice for making that change? Please submit an image of one paragraph of text.

 

Item #167

Justin Guarini can be a "Lil Sweet" at times: http://www.dietdrpepper.com/?gclid=Cj0KEQjwwry8BRDjsbjMpPSDvagBEiQA5oW0nCKHz838Mz7MBDeTb_x_W9puq-FTaSHe9wyyAv2TwHcaAjEq8P8HAQ Using nothing but forced perspective and a disproportionately large, “weird, unusual or scary” object that you wouldn’t want to be smaller than, make yourself look tiny.

 

Salt Spring Island

Even though it was my day off, I got up quite early today. Since it was Saturday, I had decided to finally go and check out Salt Spring Island.
Sara and Simone joined me and we met up on the bus to the Swartz Bay ferry terminal.
We arrived about 50 minutes early in order to have enough time to board the ferry. However, the ferry was 20 minutes late so that we ended up waiting way too long. For some reason, it read 'MARS' on our ferry tickets, thus we were joking around that we would be going to Mars instead of Salt Spring Island.
When we could finally board the ferry, we went upstairs and sat down on a bench outside at first. However, it was cooler outside than I had expected so we ended up spending the ferry ride inside.
Even though there were too many passengers, we managed to catch the first bus to Ganges. Just before we arrived in the village, the bus driver motivated most passengers to sing 'Yellow Submarine', which was kind of weird but cool.
After looking around the village, our first stop was at 'Barbs Buns' to eat lunch. At first Simone and Sara got a wrong meal and when they finally got the right meal 10 minutes later, there was still something wrong with Simone's meal, so that she had to send it back once again. I just had a vegetable soup but it turned out to be too spicy for me to enjoy it. When we got the bill, Simone complained about having to pay for her meal after all the mix-ups and the waiting time. The server was quite unfriendly about it but we ended up not having to pay for all of our meals because of it.
Next we checked out the famous Saturday island market and the view from the harbor.
As I still needed change for the bus back, I bought a baker's dozen mini donuts for all of us. As it turned out, it was a very generous dozen since we got 15 donuts. Soon after we discovered a lot of wild blackberries which we snacked on.
As there was still a lot of time until the next bus, we walked through a forest which was also a disc golf course.
When we were back at the harbor we still had almost an hour until the bus was supposed to leave. As we didn't feel like doing much, we just sat on the ground and relaxed.
Unfortunately, we couldn't take the bus we wanted to take as there wasn't enough space left on the bus for us. There was an extra bus 15 minutes later, though, and we were still in time for the ferry. In fact, the ferry was more than 20 minutes late this time.
Back on Vancouver Island we caught a bus right away. It was the 72, which was more slowly than the 70 as it took the scenic road closer to the coast down to Victoria. By now I was feeling quite sleepy and exhausted due to all the sitting and waiting today.

As I would have just missed my transfer bus home in Downtown anyway, I decided to try and get some more free pizza at work. I was lucky, this time they even had some nice chicken pizza. I spent almost an hour in the lunchroom getting to know some more coworkers from 'Moose Crossing' and enjoying some pizza and cake. When I was done, I actually felt a lot more energetic. I finally caught a bus home around 9 PM.

The turkey and the pizza

Due to the record sales we have had in the gift stores in the past week, there was free pizza and cake for everyone in one of the lunchrooms today. Unfortunately, I had a shift from 10:30 to 3 PM with no lunch break. However, my coworker Kateryna was so kind to bring me a little snack from her visit to the lunchroom in her break.
After my shift, I went directly to Beacon Hill Park for my next volunteer shift. It's been more than two weeks since my last shift at the farm and so I was quite happy to be back with all the cute animals. Today my tasks consisted of cleaning the duck compound, spending time with the goats as the poop patrol and helping to bring all the animals into their barn. After the goat stampede, I also helped to walk the turkeys back to their barn. The farm has just gotten a new male turkey, which apparently didn't get along too well with the female one. Walking the male turkey was quite a spectacle. First of all, it had a limp so it was kind of cute to watch. In addition to that, with every step it took the turkey made some weird noises.
I walked back to Downtown through the park and the inner harbour area. As it was just about 6 PM and there was supposed to be a new pizza delivery around 5:15 PM, I went to the 'Moose Crossing' lunchroom. The pizza wasn't what I would usually order and eat since it had a lot of stuff on it that I didn't particularly like. Nevertheless, as it was for free, I still tried it and it was quite good. I had about 3 slices of pizza and then some really nice cake. In the end, I stayed for about an hour, chatting with coworkers from other stores and eating way too much.
Before leaving I rediscovered a little sign that I had seen here on the day of my job orientation. It read 'If you're lucky enough to be in Victoria, Canada, you're lucky enough' and I still think that this is very true.

My exciting morning hike up Mount Douglas

This morning right after breakfast, I took the bus going to Mount Douglas. Even though I had to work in the evening, I quickly wanted to hike up and down the mountain in order to take a video for GISHWHES.
Hiking up the mountain was quite exhausting as it was a steep climb to the top. Still, I only needed about 40 minutes to reach the top.
I was done with the GISHWHES video around noon and decided to try and find an easier path down the mountain. I decided on a hidden pathway that seemed to be declared an easy trail. However, after the first meters, the path became more and more challenging and hard to see. I even had to slide down some rather slippery and steep part of the way. After a while, I was quite sure that I had lost the path and was walking on some kind of shortcut. By then I was getting a bit worried but thanks to the GPS on my phone, I knew at least that I was walking in the right direction. When I finally reached a real trail, I was relieved and quickly went on to the bus stop. Due to my getting lost, getting down took me even longer than climbing up the mountain. And even though I had been worried about being lost and thus being late for work, the hike was a really fun workout.

I caught the bus back home just after 1 PM, where I took a quick shower and heated up the rest of my Labskaus for lunch.
The rest of my day was quite uneventful. My shift from 4 to 10 PM at overboard went by pretty quickly as I was busy with taking care of customers, checking hangers and tidying up the store. After my sh, I quickly went to 'Royal Garden' to get my new schedule for next week and then I took the next bus home.

Scones with tea

This morning, I went to Willow's Beach in order to work on a GISHWHES item. Sara and Simone joined me and together, we build a sand trailer park. Sara and Simone had some really great ideas to make our trailer park particularly interesting. It took us about two hours to complete it, but it was definitely worth it. Building the trailer park was really quite fun although I think that I wouldn't have had the patience to finish it if I had been working on it on my own.
After we had taken several pictures of our masterpiece, which was starting to attract the attention of a few passers-by, we walked to Oak Bay Avenue. It was early afternoon when we arrived and we decided to go into a restaurant and try their 'scones with tea'. I had never eaten a scone before and to be honest I didn't even know what scones were. But since my two kiwi friends both ordered a 'scone with tea',  I decided to give them a try. The restaurant had quite a nice selection of tea and I had a strawberry tea, which was served in a quite fancy cup. The scones were served with jam and cream and tasted really good.

After our meal, we parted ways and went home. I had planned to go on a short hike up Mount Doug in the evening but in the end, I was a bit too exhausted. Instead, I spent the evening relaxing, writing, and researching stuff.

Labskaus

Today was my sixth day of working in a row. In addition to that, I had an 8 hour shift. The time passed quickly, though, as there was a lot of restocking to be done and we had a lot of customers in the afternoon. Still, I was pretty glad when my shift was over sice I was pretty exhausted.
After I got home, I decided to cook some Labskaus. I had been planning to cook this typically German dish for a while now but until this evening I never had the time or all of the ingredients. It was my first time cooking Labskaus but I think I did quite well even though I completely overcooked the potatoes. Granted, the dish does not look too appealing, which is probably the reason why some people call it 'sailors vomit'. Nevertheless, it was very tasty.

After eating, I brought the recycling outside since Katrina is still gone and the recycling is supposed to be collected tomorrow morning. As I was very tired and in need of some rest after the last few days, just watched some TV before going to bed.

Ice cream breakfast

Thanks to a picture I wanted to take for GISHWHES, my breakfast this morning consisted of ice cream with maple syrup. Theoretically I could have taken the picture at any time of the day but since I needed Margo's help and she was leaving for her US trip this morning, I just had to do it this early. However, on my way to work I picked up a second less sugary breakfast at 7eleven.
After work, I went to the supermarket, where I ended up buying several too heavy items. Carrying my groceries home was quite the ordeal but I managed somehow. Nevertheless, I was pretty exhausted when I got home. Consequently, I spent the rest of the day relaxing at home.

Finding the meaning of life in Beacon Hill Park and fireworks

This morning, Margo helped me complete a few GISHWHES items. Among other things, we 'decorated' Katrina's garden...
Before work, Margo joined me on a short trip to Beacon Hill Park in order to take a picture depicting the meaning of life. As the streets were quite crowded due to the Symphony Splash in the Harbour, the bus arrived quite late at the bus stop near the park. Consequently, I didn't have too much time to find the meaning of life, but we still managed to take a few pictures. Afterwards, I more or less jogged to work and barely managed to arrive in time.
I had several small tasks during my 4 hour shift so that the time passed quickly. Just before my shift was over, Johanna came to the shop, as we had planned to spend the evening together before she left for Vancouver tomorrow. After considering several possible plans for the evening (unfortunately it was a bit too late to get a kayak and see the fireworks from the water), we decided on starting the evening with a nice meal at Romeos - the second location that had been recommended to me before coming to Victoria. I decided on some Chicken Souvlaki, which was quite good except for the potatoes, which were quite dry and disappointing. It was kind of weird having a long conversation in  German with Johanna after all this time of mainly speaking English and I often started speaking in English without really noticing.
We left the restaurant around 9:20 PM and as there wasn't enough time to get to the harbour and see the fireworks anymore, we just crossed the bridge to Victoria West and sat down right at the Ocean. Even though we were quite far away from the parliament building, we could faintly make out the symphony concert. As it turned out, we had a perfect spot for seeing the fireworks - they were really close! However, the show only lasted for about two minutes.
In contrast to Canada Day, where I couldn't catch any bus due to all the people Downtown, catching a bus was quite easy from this location and thus I could easily get home.