Tonight I went to see a film called "Fierce Light". It was pretty sweet. I could maybe explain it but it might just be nicer for you to watch the teasers. I would really like to see the first part of the trilogy too, and the third comes out in 2012.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqhyBdb9JKA
do enjoy.
Petra
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Friday, October 15, 2010
Weekend of WHAT?
For Thanksgiving we took time off. Because it is a stat holiday it was the only time we could extend our 48 hours off time period to a 72 hours off. Considering we've been cooped up in this little 4 bedroom house for the last 5 weeks it was nice to get a break.
SO! here's a great story for you, little Rossland.
We decided we didn't want to spend our coveted $20/week allowance on an expensive hotel in town when we could have free accommodation at the house while in town. So we did a little research :)
We found an International backpackers hostel about 40 minutes outside of the city. We booked ourselves some rooms and had plans set by Monday of the previous week.
Saturday morning Jessie and Eric and I went out and got various body parts pierced. bellybutton, ear and eyebrow. We make a nice set of silver triplets. Dalandrea and Millie also got piercings that morning and ever since then we have had saltwater cleaning parties in the bathroom which gets quite cramped and odd. We are sure not to double dip, we're champs.
After this exciting experience six of us jumped in a taxi and cleared out of 32 Dalton. Sophie, Antoine, Eric, Jessie, Sam, and me. We are definitely the six that give the group energy so the house must have been quite dull without us.
After a brief stop thanks to our incompetent taxi driver we arrived at the Thunder Bay International Hostel.
Seriously here.. quite a site. (I'll have pics up soon)
Outside on the road were three big sign posts with literally hundreds of different directional signs to cities all over the world.
We went inside and met the owner who appeared to be a nice woman in her senior years. She takes all around the place and then out to the building where we stayed. It's hard to describe a place like this one. One of those sort of.. dodgy looking on the outside, musty smelling on the inside, not quite sure what's on the carpet, no matching furniture, 8000 encyclopedias stacked in the corner, multiple afghans lying all over the place, cats running free range, knitted place mats, doors that don't lock- let alone close, bathtub painted green, lots of old newspaper clippings all over the walls kind of places.
Not two seconds after we'd begun to relax a nice looking old man (don't be fooled though, stay tuned) tells us that he is taking us to the dump. I had not exchanged a handshake with this man, he did not know me from a hole in the ground and yet all six of us jumped in his mini van and off we went.
To the dump.
This man, whose name is Lloyd, is a big fan of taking photos.. of art.. So he had us create art, at the dump, out of dump materials. This experience included us picking the dump, and creating a smiley face... yes, interesting. It gets better yet.
We took photos at the dump and someone (probably Lloyd) found an unsuspecting stranger to take a photo of us at the dump with Lloyd.
Picture one shows a nice picture of our friendly group. Please note man in plaid shirt with hand around Eric's waist. Clearly visible to any passersby, any person viewing this picture. Nice and appropriate, PG13 if you please.
SO! here's a great story for you, little Rossland.
We decided we didn't want to spend our coveted $20/week allowance on an expensive hotel in town when we could have free accommodation at the house while in town. So we did a little research :)
We found an International backpackers hostel about 40 minutes outside of the city. We booked ourselves some rooms and had plans set by Monday of the previous week.
Saturday morning Jessie and Eric and I went out and got various body parts pierced. bellybutton, ear and eyebrow. We make a nice set of silver triplets. Dalandrea and Millie also got piercings that morning and ever since then we have had saltwater cleaning parties in the bathroom which gets quite cramped and odd. We are sure not to double dip, we're champs.
After this exciting experience six of us jumped in a taxi and cleared out of 32 Dalton. Sophie, Antoine, Eric, Jessie, Sam, and me. We are definitely the six that give the group energy so the house must have been quite dull without us.
After a brief stop thanks to our incompetent taxi driver we arrived at the Thunder Bay International Hostel.
Seriously here.. quite a site. (I'll have pics up soon)
Outside on the road were three big sign posts with literally hundreds of different directional signs to cities all over the world.
We went inside and met the owner who appeared to be a nice woman in her senior years. She takes all around the place and then out to the building where we stayed. It's hard to describe a place like this one. One of those sort of.. dodgy looking on the outside, musty smelling on the inside, not quite sure what's on the carpet, no matching furniture, 8000 encyclopedias stacked in the corner, multiple afghans lying all over the place, cats running free range, knitted place mats, doors that don't lock- let alone close, bathtub painted green, lots of old newspaper clippings all over the walls kind of places.
Not two seconds after we'd begun to relax a nice looking old man (don't be fooled though, stay tuned) tells us that he is taking us to the dump. I had not exchanged a handshake with this man, he did not know me from a hole in the ground and yet all six of us jumped in his mini van and off we went.
To the dump.
This man, whose name is Lloyd, is a big fan of taking photos.. of art.. So he had us create art, at the dump, out of dump materials. This experience included us picking the dump, and creating a smiley face... yes, interesting. It gets better yet.
We took photos at the dump and someone (probably Lloyd) found an unsuspecting stranger to take a photo of us at the dump with Lloyd.
Picture one shows a nice picture of our friendly group. Please note man in plaid shirt with hand around Eric's waist. Clearly visible to any passersby, any person viewing this picture. Nice and appropriate, PG13 if you please.
Now take a look at picture numero deux.
Lloyd's hand is missing from Eric's waist.
Expressing great concern and angst Eric came up to me after our little photo shoot and says in a strained voice "The old man just grabbed my ass!"
Sorry Eric. But this is even funnier than the time Scott got arrested.. (will come in future blog posts) The fact that this event has been captured with pictoral evidence just makes the entire event so much funnier!
Our dump experience was amusing and I met a nice dog and scored a sweet jaguar kitten backpack circa 1997. I gave it a wash when we got home even though it was still in the packaging but I haven't taken it out on the town yet..
Lloyd got us to take many things from the dump back to his home, which made us question what else from that house was from the dump... mmhmmm..
Upon arriving back at our home away from home away from home we had to kindly explain to the perverted old man that this was our time OFF from the program and that we weren't expected to be doing any physical labour or activities we didn't find entertaining over the next 24 hours.
He got very offended. He spent the next 4 hours editing his new photos and "catchin's up" with all his pals on facebook. We left and took the bikes the hostel provided for a little spin around the countryside. Good thing these bikes weren't any better than the sh*t bikes the Katima-house has otherwise we might have actually had an efficient trip.. and that would never do. I got stuck with a 12 year old boy's green bike, possessing very sloppy full suspension and a lack of the ability to shift out of first gear. Ontario may be flat.. but it is still necessary to pedal in order to get from A to B so by the time our little journey was over my legs were fully exhausted. For the last leg of our journey though Eric fixed my bike with a piece of bark so that it would stay on the second gear wheel. We found an amazing old railway bridge and a cute little stretch of river. Good thing we took pictures! I'll have them up soon!
Back at "home" we tried our hardest to avoid our new crazy homestay. After eating some dinner and wasting some time around the house we went back to our building hoping Lloyd would be in bed.
He wasn't.
After having previously thought that our adventures of the day were the way horror stories begin I was a little creeped out that he was going to be hanging out in his makeshift office five feet from the door I was supposed to be sleeping behind.
(I may be exaggerating here a bit. This man did not threaten me in any way nor make my stay uncomfortable. I am not intent on cutting him and his ways down, but the entire weekend was such a peculiar experience and he played such a role in it I feel the need to expand on each small detail. Had I been a backpacker or someone staying at this hostel if I had been a road traveller I'm sure I would have enjoyed his company a lot more. But as it was our only time off and about on our own we were all hoping to have the privacy of a place out of the way. He is an incredibly interesting man - a die hard Catholic who writes essays by the thousands. He has had Cambodian boat people stay with him, has four kids of his own and has adopted another two. He is able to stay incredibly devoted to his faith and still have an open mind to accept life's difference [we noted specifically, homosexuality] and keep his various human service projects non-religious. He has had quite an interesting life and him and his wife have traveller all over the world, as we could tell by their hundreds of photo albums.)
Okay back to the juice. He was serious deranged.
That evening we met a guy named Cosmo (or so he said) who was a crazy man who worked for bell and swore a lot. He convinced us that Lloyd and Willa were millionaires and told us their whole property history. He could be right.. they pick the dump after all. Cosmo compares Lloyd and Willa to his grandparents, a statement which makes me question just how screwed up his grandparents must be - I know my grandparents are NOTHING LIKE THOSE CRAZY PEOPLE!
The hostel had probably close to 250 dvds and after critically reviewing all of them we decided on a great option... The Lion King 1 and 1/2. Beautiful.
The next day we ditched the crowd around 11 and took the bikes (this time I got one with curved handle bars and back-pedal breaks) and jumped across the highway to where a new four lane highway was in construction. We came to a half-completed bridge and scrambled down the gully and followed the little river upstream for.. what felt like way farther than it actually was. We rock hopped most of the way up to a gorgeous waterfall. Antoine found us a sweet spot of rock to eat lunch on. October 3 and all of us were in shorts and t-shirts and none of us brought sweaters. And they say Northern Ontario is cold.. what?
We spent the whole day on the river, half swimming and skipping around the rocks and bathing in the sun. Definitely time well spent.
When we got back to the hostel we painted our own sign post and of course added our signatures and hometowns. Lloyd was very grumpy that we were leaving.
Our adventure came to an end with Lloyd cornering Eric into given out his email address (a move which would eventually lead to a friend request on facebook which was promptly accepted, thoroughly creeped and then deleted) Eric is now more conscious of pedophiles and we have taught him how to make up a fake email address on the spot.
When we got back to Thunder Bay Jessie, Eric and I went skating (it took a tad bit of convincing) and then biked home the long way which ended up with us getting lost.. which was chill.. UNTIL SOME ASSHOLE DROVE BY AND THREW A POTATO AT JESSIE!!! Thunder Bay youth have serious issues.
Overall a completed unplanned, spontaneous and fabulous weekend.
BUUUUUUT it wasn't over.
Because on Monday we went to Gale and Volker's house for Thanksgiving dinner. Gale and Volker are more of Jessie's work partners from the food bank. I guess everyone cool wants to work there.
Volker is the funniest and most brutal man I have ever met. I think he hit me four times that night. He is a mountaineer so I kept thinking of my Dad and his late climbing partner Steve.. same sort of humour exchanged.
For dinner we had turkey, goose and quail. I'm getting used to all the wild game eaten in Ontario. As we are deprived of ice cream in the Katima-house we literally fought over all the ice cream they had. So embarrassing. hahah.
We do summer camp like things and wash dishes in rotations, so that's how we came to be cleaning their kitchen at 9:30pm.
(As a side note: we also make our own ketchup, mayonnaise, salad dressing, bread, yogourt, granola, fajitas, and more or less everything else under the sun)
It was really nice to be in someone else's home for Thanksgiving. I know we all missed family and friends over the weekend but no one was really out of sorts and we all had a great time.
"Wherever you go, there you are" Confucious
Petra
The worst blogger in all the land.
I'll start with apologies. I won't promise that this will never happen again but I will promise to try my very hardest to never allow such a gap in between posts again. There, it's in writing.
Now for some juice.
I'll start with where I left off.
My house manager week finished on Sunday the 3rd. Halfway through the week I made cinnamon buns to celebrate the fact that we were out of our "Probation Period" which means nothing to you and next to nothing to me so don't worry about the details.
On the weekend we caught the tail end of a cultural film festival. One of our planned activities was to watch two of these films so we all sat through the most painful movie of the Finnish peoples most common historical.. thing... It was not a fabulous time, but all the Finnish people in the crowd loved it so.. well whatever. Thunder Bay has the largest population of Finnish people outside of Finland. So the last names here.. whew, fun times trying to pronounce those! The next night however we had free time so Jessie, Eric, Sophie and I all went back and watched a movie on the history of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. It was definitely time well spent; we got to talk with the writer/producer afterwards. I'm not sure who won people's choice award but from the 5 films I saw he definitely deserved it. Wish you could have seen it Cydster.
That same weekend we went to the Food Bank where Jessie works on weekdays and helped out a food drive. While it is nice to think that loving people donate the food from their home they don't want it's actually really nothing like that.
Big corporate companies like Safeway "donate" all their just about to expire food and Walmart donates 8,000 dented cans they can no longer legally sell to the public. There are a lot of other companies that have sponsors who specifically want their dollars to go to charity so we'd get boxes full of peanut butter and pasta. It's an easy way for a lot of companies to write off some taxes while still being able to say they donated.
Nonetheless we filled nearly 350, 24 pack beer boxes full of food. I think it filled like 7 and a bit pallets. Just ridiculous. It was fun times. lunch provided.
Monday was our welcome party where all of our workpartners and neighbours and potential billet families came to see our tiny house and postage stamp sized backyard and oggle over how we work together and size us up by our profiles. It went well considering our advertising sucked.
Tuesday we hopped the fence to a closed catholic school and played soccer and other fun games. There is one school across the street from us that has been closed down and one down the road that has been closed down. Remind anyone of the Kootenays?
The week continued with me and Charlene going to lots of restaurants all over town to deliver caterer's packages for the ladies night I'm working on for February. I've seen more of Tbay from her little CRV than from the Katimavik van.. how sad is that?
STILL HAVEN'T BEEN TO THE TERRY FOX MEMORIAL!!!! SO RIDICULOUS!!!! UGH!!!
On Thursday we went to Lakehead Uni for a presentation from the Stephen Lewis foundation which is funding girls education in Malawi. If it hadn't been a huge sales pitch I'm sure it would have been great. We signed up for it because it was advertised as African women living with AIDS talking about their experiences with a lost generation. It's a great foundation by the sounds of it but I would rather have been sleeping that night.
That's it for this one!
aaaawwwwl my love :)
Petra
Now for some juice.
I'll start with where I left off.
My house manager week finished on Sunday the 3rd. Halfway through the week I made cinnamon buns to celebrate the fact that we were out of our "Probation Period" which means nothing to you and next to nothing to me so don't worry about the details.
On the weekend we caught the tail end of a cultural film festival. One of our planned activities was to watch two of these films so we all sat through the most painful movie of the Finnish peoples most common historical.. thing... It was not a fabulous time, but all the Finnish people in the crowd loved it so.. well whatever. Thunder Bay has the largest population of Finnish people outside of Finland. So the last names here.. whew, fun times trying to pronounce those! The next night however we had free time so Jessie, Eric, Sophie and I all went back and watched a movie on the history of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. It was definitely time well spent; we got to talk with the writer/producer afterwards. I'm not sure who won people's choice award but from the 5 films I saw he definitely deserved it. Wish you could have seen it Cydster.
That same weekend we went to the Food Bank where Jessie works on weekdays and helped out a food drive. While it is nice to think that loving people donate the food from their home they don't want it's actually really nothing like that.
Big corporate companies like Safeway "donate" all their just about to expire food and Walmart donates 8,000 dented cans they can no longer legally sell to the public. There are a lot of other companies that have sponsors who specifically want their dollars to go to charity so we'd get boxes full of peanut butter and pasta. It's an easy way for a lot of companies to write off some taxes while still being able to say they donated.
Nonetheless we filled nearly 350, 24 pack beer boxes full of food. I think it filled like 7 and a bit pallets. Just ridiculous. It was fun times. lunch provided.
Monday was our welcome party where all of our workpartners and neighbours and potential billet families came to see our tiny house and postage stamp sized backyard and oggle over how we work together and size us up by our profiles. It went well considering our advertising sucked.
Tuesday we hopped the fence to a closed catholic school and played soccer and other fun games. There is one school across the street from us that has been closed down and one down the road that has been closed down. Remind anyone of the Kootenays?
The week continued with me and Charlene going to lots of restaurants all over town to deliver caterer's packages for the ladies night I'm working on for February. I've seen more of Tbay from her little CRV than from the Katimavik van.. how sad is that?
STILL HAVEN'T BEEN TO THE TERRY FOX MEMORIAL!!!! SO RIDICULOUS!!!! UGH!!!
On Thursday we went to Lakehead Uni for a presentation from the Stephen Lewis foundation which is funding girls education in Malawi. If it hadn't been a huge sales pitch I'm sure it would have been great. We signed up for it because it was advertised as African women living with AIDS talking about their experiences with a lost generation. It's a great foundation by the sounds of it but I would rather have been sleeping that night.
That's it for this one!
aaaawwwwl my love :)
Petra
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