Craigdarroch Castle and the Moon Festival Lantern Celebration

It was raining this morning. Consequentlz, I thought it was best to do something indoors. In the end, it didn't rain anymore after lunch but I still stuck to my indoor plan for the afternoon:
I went to Craigdarroch Castle with Simone early this afternoon, as they had free entry today for some reason. Apparently we were not the only ones taking advantage of the free entry, as there was already a long line in front of the castle. Thus, it took us a while to get inside.
The castle was more interesting than I had expected. Apart from seeing all the 19th century furniture, you could find out a lot about the Dunsmuir family, for whom the castle had been built, and the history of the castle, which had also served as a military hospital, a college, and a music conservatory before being turned into an museum.

Even though I didn't spend more than two hours at the museum, I was quite exhausted when I came back home. I was tempted to just spend the evening relaxing at home. However, I had planned to go to the Moon Festival Lantern Celebration and as I didn't want to miss that event, I forced myself to go out again. Tuulia had also planned to go to the festival and so we went there together.
The festival was located on the grounds of some preschool or recreation centre and at first we had some trouble finding our way around there. 
Part of the program this evening was making a lantern. For 3 CAD you would get a paper box, some stickers and decorations, as well as a candle. Even though this activity was mostly meant for children, Tuulia and I both tried our luck and we had a lot of fun decorating our lanterns. I tried making my lantern look a little like a cat on the front side.
When we were done after about an hour, we went on exploring. You could get free mooncakes, green tea, chocolate chip cookies and hot chocolate at the festival. I never say no to free food and so Tuulia and I tried all of the offered treats. I especially enjoyed the chocolate chip cookie. 
After we were done eating, we went into a gymnasium in order to watch several Chinese dance performances. There was a performance by two groups of Chinese kids, which was really adorable, and another performance by some girls in peacock outfits, which was just very graceful. I also very much enjoyed watching a group of dancers that embedded some tai chi elements into their movements. We left when a group of Chinese men was about to sing some traditional Chinese songs. 
The lantern procession outside had already started and as it was getting dark, it was the perfect time to join in. Walking with our self made lanterns reminded me of the lantern processions I took part in as a little child, which was nice. 
The whole thing seemed to be over just before 8:30 PM and it actually took us a little while to find our  way to the bus stop. People were starting to line up at the bus stop and the bus was really taking its time. We must have waited for more than 20 minutes before the bus finally arrived. As it was already pretty full, we were lucky to get on the bus - not everyone was that lucky. 

Back at home, Katrina let us now that she and Margo had waited for us so that we could watch a movie together. It was already past 9 PM and I knew I had to get up early the next day. Nevertheless, I joined them as the movie sounded quite interesting to me: The movie was called 'The Big Short' and it was about the market crash in 2007.
 

Another split shift

I was still pretty exhausted from yesterday this morning, but I had to get up early in order to get ready for work. I had another split shift today. In the morning, I was working from 10:30 to 2 PM. We had a lot of restock to do and since there was a cruise ship, we also had a lot of customers this morning. Thus, my first shift went by very quickly.
I spent my 3.5 hour break at home, where I had some snacks for lunch and spend most of the time just relaxing. By the time I had to leave for work again, I was feeling even more exhausted than this morning. Thus, I drank some coke, which actually made me feel a lot more awake and enthusiastic.
Like usually, I had planned to take an earlier bus to work. I was at the bus stop on time and the bus was a little late, which wasn't too bad. However, when the bus finally arrived, it just displayed the message 'Sorry, we're full' and drove past my stop. I was very annoyed by that since I was worried about being late for work now even though I left the house early. Luckily, there was another bus 5 minutes later and this way, I was still on time.
The first part of my second shift today was quite busy. However, it got really quite around 8 PM, so that I had the chance to clean the toy area a little.
We had a lot of US customers today who paid with USD. By now, I had figured out how to handle those transactions best: If the customer paid in USD and I told him that he would get Canadian change beforehand, the customer would often not be very happy about that. However, if the customer paid by USD and gave me almost the exact amount, I would just accept the money and give the Canadian change to the customer with the words 'And some Canadian coins back for you as a souvenir.'  That way, the American customers would actually be happy about their change and thank me for it. It seemed funny to me how rephrasing a sentence could change the reaction of the customer. Unfortunately, this approach would only work if the customer paid almost the exact amount. Otherwise, I would have to inform him about the change since it would be quite a lot of Canadian money.
By the time I was done with my shift at 10 PM, I was a lot more energetic than I was at the beginning of my shift and I easily could have kept working a little bit. Nevertheless, I was happy to get home as I was very hungry. Consequently, I had a late night snack just when I got home around 10:30 PM.

Margo's Birthday

I had another shift at the Beacon Hill Children's Farm this morning. My task today was to clean the chicken barn, which turned out to be quite fun. Cleaning the chicken barn sounded easy enough, however, it was quite a challenge since there were still several chicken in the barn. The chicken weren't too happy about me cleaning their barn: They didn't really want to move when I needed them to and in addition to that, they were making a lot of noise. Somehow, I still managed to finish my task and just when I was about to put clean sawdust into the barn, I discovered an egg. For some reason, that egg really surprised me since I hadn't expected to find any eggs.

Afterwards, I walked Downtown in order to pick up my paycheck. I got a little more money than I had expected due to Labour Day, so this was a nice surprise. After putting the money on my bank account I took the next bus home.
Back at home I took a shower and had some lunch. I had to be at work by 5 PM so I was happy to have a little bit of time to relax before then.
My shift at work went by quite fast as I was busy tidying up the store and cleaning some shelves. There was a customer that actually came back about three times today to buy some more stuff. I ended up chatting a bit with her and found out that she was actually born in Germny but had been living in Texas for quite a while now. I was working on the Garden side on the store, which was kind of new to me since I usually worked on the Royal side. Thus closing on this side was actually a bit interesting as I didn't really know where to put all the different items.

After work, I walked to 'Canoe' in order to meet up with Katrina, Margo and Tuulia. We were celebrating Margo's birthday. The others had already been there for a while and were just finished eating dinner when I arrived. I didn't want to order a full meal anymore since it was already past 9:30 PM. However, I had some leftover fries. Throughout the evening, I also had two ciders, which were really tasty but quickly made me feel drunk. There was a live band, the "Electric Sex Panther", playing and they were really good. Some of the band members were also really cute.
During the intermission, I asked one of the band members if they could dedicate a song to Margo because of her birthday. In the end, they dedicated a song to three different girls whose birthday it was today, but it was still kind of cool (although they mispronounced the name). I also decided to dance on the dance floor sometime during the second half of the concert. It was super fun and after a while, I convinced Katrina to join me. Margo and Tuulia didn't really dare to go dancing at that time. Nevertheless, the two joined me on the dance floor for the last song of the evening. All things considered, the evening was super fun and when I left, I felt totally drunk because of the two ciders I had drunk.

Back at home, I had some macarones which Margo had brought from her workplace for dinner. By now I had figured out which flavour of macarones I liked best: Strawberry cake.

Bear Hill

I was planning to meet with Simone today in order to hike up Bear Hill. I had planned to meet up with Simone in Downtown. However, I already met her on the way there as she was taking the same bus as me. After transfering to another bus in Downtown, we still had to ride that bus for almost an hour until we arrived.
Hiking up Bear Hill didn't take too long. Nevertheless, it was quite challenging as the trail was very steep. The hike offered some nice scenic views and at the top of the hill we had an extremely good view of Mount Baker. Since we had brought a small picnic, we settled down at the top to eat lunch. We couldn't really eat in peace, though, as there were some wasps that tried to join our meal.
After our short break at the top, we hiked back down. We didn't go the same way back. Instead, we kept walking South in the direction of Elk Lake. This trail was actually a bit easier than the one we had walked up.
Since it was right there, we also walked to Elk Lake. As it was a really nice day, I wished I had brought some swimming gear since the water of the lake was actually quite warm (compared to the water of the ocean). There were a lot of geese on the lake, though, so it might have been weird to swim with them.
In total, we spent about two hours at Bear Hill and Elk Lake before taking a bus back. I wanted to look for a new keyboard for my tablet and Simone wanted to look for something as well, so we got off the bus at Uptown in order to check out Best Buy and the electronic section at Walmart. Simone didn't find what she was looking for and left soon after as she still had to pack for a camping trip. I stayed a bit longer.
While walking through Uptown, I discovered a Halloween Store. Of course I had to check it out. They were selling a lot of costumes and accessories as well as Halloween decorations like skeletons, gravestones, or special lights. I tried one of the female vampire dresses on for fun, which looked quite interesting.

Afterwards, I went back to Walmart where I now found a keyboard that seemed to have the right size, even though it was meant for an Ipad. I decided to buy it anyway since it was quite cheap. I also bought some groceries and then took the next bus home.
Back at home, I enjoyed some nice strawberries with granola and jogurt, which I had bought at Walmart. I also watched the second episode of 'Suits' with Katrina - we had watched the first episode yesterday and the show had really caught my attention.

Background Music - Part 3

Today wasn't too exciting: I worked, I went shopping for some groceries, I cooked dinner and I watched the first episode of several TV shows with Katrina. Thus I thought I would dedicate another blog entry to the music I hear in the store every day.

Clean Bandit - Rather Be


Shawn Mendes - Stitches


Meaghan Trainor - No


One Republic - Wherever I go


Katey Perry - Rise


Genesis - That's all


Rachel Platten - Stand by you


WALK THE MOON - Shut up and dance


Nico & Vinz - Am I Wrong


Taylor Swift - Style


Katey Perry - Dark Horse

French Beach

Originally, I had planned to go on a little hike today. However, I just wasn't in the mood for a hike today and when Katrina proposed driving to French Beach, I just had to join her. Margo also decided to join us and so we left sometime after noon.
The ride to French Beach was quite long and we passed Sooke on the way. As we wanted to have a little picnic at the beach, we stopped at a supermarket to get some snacks. I decided to try some cinnamon scones, which turned out to be quite tasty. Even though the drive was quite long, I still very much enjoyed it since I just loved looking at the beautiful scenery we drove through.
We arrived at the beach around 2:30 PM. At first Katrina was actually a bit disappointed since we had a very high tide and there wasn't really any sandy beach to sit on.
However, after walking along the beach for a while, it got a little more sandy and at the end of the beach, we found a really nice spot to settle down. We stayed at that spot for most of the afternoon. There was a washroom nearby but in order to get there, I needed to climb over some driftwood. On the way, I actually saw a surprisingly big snake. It quickly hid somewhere, though.
After enjoying our snacks, we explored the area a little. Margo had a lot of fun playing with Jakki and I just enjoyed the smells and sounds of the ocean. Later on, we tried building some kind of tent for Jakki to hide in so that she could be in the shade. She didn't really dare to go inside, though, and tried digging a hole in the sand instead.
Just before we were about to leave, we heard some weird sounds coming from the ocean. We had supposedly seen some seals earlier so we were wondering if they were making those sounds or if there was maybe some kind of whale nearby. Unfortunately, we couldn't see anything that might have made those sounds then.

We started walking back to the car around 4:30 as Margo had some clay mug class at 7 PM which she wanted to go to in the evening.
Back at home I ended up watching the movie 'Seven Psychopaths' with Katrina, which was actually quite interesting and fun.

Goats, chalk and partying

After being too busy the last two weeks, I finally had another shift at the Beacon Hill Farm today. My volunteer shift was only supposed to start at 2 PM, so I slept in and took my time eating breakfast while chatting with my roommates about the upcoming rifflandia festival.
When I got off the bus at Beacon Hill Park, I was astonished by the strong smell of flowers that was still in the air. The park was still green and filled with beautifully blooming flowers even though summer was almost over.
Working at the farm today was not at all exhausting since my task was to watch goats poo! Their poo was supposed to be tested for bacteria so me and several other volunteers watched the goats very carefully to see when any of the goats that we needed a stool sample from pooed. However, even though the goats usually poo all day long, we were waiting forever for them to poo now and by the time I was done with my shift, we were still missing the stool sample of six or seven goats.
I took a little detour on my way home in order to walk past the harbour and check out the Chalk Art Festival. There were amazing chalk paintings all over the Ship Point area in the inner harbour. Some of them even had some kind of 3D effect.

As soon as I got back home, I took a shower. Afterwards, I relaxed a bit and got ready for the night.
I left again around 8:30 to meet Shamilla at the hostel. Shamilla was running late but that gave me the chance to chat a little was Jay. I hadn't seen him for weeks and when he told me that he'd be leaving on a big trip soon, I felt bad for not stopping by the hostel more often. After a few minutes he had to leave and I ended up chatting with some other girl from Germany who was currently doing the work for stay at the hostel. Shamilla arrived some time after 9 PM. Meg, Sarah and some other girl were also with her and together, we walked to some party about 10 minutes from the hostel on Cook Street. There were a lot of people just sitting in a small circle around a small fire, playing the guitar, singing and mostly smoking. It was a very relaxed and nice gathering but we didn't stay too long.
I really wanted to go dancing and so we walked back Downtown. We decided on some pub with a dance floor, which probably wasn't the best decision as there was not much going on tonight. Thus, we only had a drink. I tried my luck and asked for a pina colada, which they couldn't make. Instead I got some make-believe cocktail with rum, pineapple and coconut syrup, which was the closest I'd come to a cocktail in months so it wasn't that bad. We still chatted a bit but as I had just figured out that the last bus home would leave around 11:30 PM on a Sunday, we didn't stay too long.