Still Holding Down the Fort Out Here!

So, I might have done that thing where I don't blog for a really long time again. Oops. I've been up to a lot though, between Sparks (we went to the firehall and the library!), school (been doing lots of 41X and have finished marketing, I believe, successfully!), work (I coordinated the building of a can sculpture and we had our Christmas party on Saturday night, which was awesome!) and adventuring around Vancouver (the aquarium, Science World and this crepe place that I found!) with the boyfriend.

Just to make things easy on you, I'll post lots of pictures, so those of you who are writing exams can save your brainpower for that.

The Vancouver Aquarium

We just really love it here. We probably should have just bought season passes because this is the third time I've been here since May and the fourth time this year. We saw the penguins (who never swim, ever), sea otters (they were feeding them shrimp treats!), the dolphin show and a sloth. The jellyfish exhibit was also on, so we had fun looking at that!

Science World

We hadn't made it to Science World yet, so we thought we would head over there one weekend. We went through and explored all of the exhibits (I might have also been very sore the next day from trying to beat the boyfriend in a jumping contest) and saw a movie in the IMAX dome, which was at the top of the facility. We had to walk up this long and winding ramp to get there, which was pretty cool! I created some energy in the running machine (which lasted about 10 seconds) and saw conveyors (I think work is getting to me) and a Pelton wheel (applied fluids and thermodynamics will never let me forget because this is the second Pelton wheel picture I've had in my blog!). We also saw a dinosaur (skeleton) and played with some fun machines.

Trixi's Crepes

I found this place one evening on my way to Sparks and have been going every week all month. I sit in there and have a crepe dinner between work and Sparks, since I don't have time to go home, and I work on the crossword or sudoku (usually I'm done this already because I've become a sudoku master while commuting to work) or read the newspaper. So tasty!

Can Sculpture

I coordinated and executed the building of this can sculpture at work during the airport's big charity blitz for the same food bank that we volunteered at earlier in the year. I drew up the design (the airport logo), selected the cans (which were actually not all correct when delivered, darn it grocery store!) and helped coordinate volunteers to build it on the day of the event. That's (almost) 800 cans you're looking at!

So, that's been most of my adventures lately! I've got less than two weeks left out here, so it will mostly just be packing and wrapping things up. My last Sparks meeting is this week and I should probably get around to my work report at some point.

Kundalini Yoga

So, after being on a yoga hiatus since Sparks started up again, I decided to suck it up and buy some yoga classes (it also helped that there was a sweet Groupon deal on at the time). Normally, I believe that I do hatha yoga, which is what most people think of when they think of yoga. Well, with my new fancy pass, I could go to ANY and ALL yoga classes I wanted (up to 10 classes). I heard about kundalini yoga and thought that I might as well give it a try . . . just because I can. Also, it started later than the hatha yoga, so I had a chance to have a snack after work. Priorities.

I got my brand new pass all set up and was quite surprised to see how many people were coming into the lobby for a 7:30 pm class on a Friday night. Oh yeah, this was all after I couldn't find the studio because it's hidden inside the lobby of some sort of office building. One of the employees showed me around and then asked if I had ever tried kundalini yoga before. When I said that I hadn't, she told me that it would be a lot of fun and there would even be a dance party! Um, what?

So, the other class finally let out and we could go into the huge studio. It had a water cooler with fancy reverse osmosis water (whatever that means) and there were so many yoga mats. We probably all could have had 2 to 3 if we really wanted. It was also pretty dark in the studio, partially because it now gets dark at practically 5:30 pm and partially because the room was mostly being lit by candles. Everyone got settled and ALL the lights went off. We were literally going to do this by candlelight.

Here's the highlights of how it went down:

- There was chanting

- You talked every single time you did a movement (I guess this helps to control your breathing?)

- It hurt a lot because there was a focus on muscle endurance (as in "let's not put our arms down for 5 minutes straight" or "let's repeat this a hundred million times without stopping")

- I had a lot of shaky positions

- There actually was a dance party

- There was singing

- It was maybe kind of "cult-y"

- I was sweating buckets . . . salty buckets
- I smiled a lot, it was pretty fun!

Here are the conclusions:

- This is NOT traditional yoga

- This is a legitimately challenging workout

- I need to wear shorts next time

- I should probably pop some sort of salt tablet next time

- With all the singing and dancing, it's kind of like Sparks

- There's a 95% chance that I will be unable to move when I wake up tomorrow

- I feel terribly sorry for anyone at the Shopper's Drug Mart that had to come within a 6-foot radius of me when I stopped on the way home to get a Gatorade (in other news, I think it's super cool that not only is the Shopper's Drug Mart open 24 hours, but the pharmacy counter is too!)

- You will need immediate access to a washing machine when you get home afterwards

- This is NOT traditional yoga

There is also a distinct possibly that I took my Gatorade into the shower because I couldn't decide what I needed more when I got home. If this did happen, it would have been quite convenient because the Gatorade had one of those nozzle things, so no water could get in.

For good measure, I'm putting in a picture of some cool leaves that I found walking home from work. Maybe my brother can identify them for me.

A Halloween Weekend

Since Halloween is on a Thursday this year, there was plenty of Halloween fun to be had this weekend, the last one before November! On Friday night, the boyfriend and I went out to a party. It was a good thing our costumes were a hit because we were both pretty exhausted from the work week and probably not that exciting to be around! Can you guess what we were?

A co-worker had told me about the Ghost Train in Stanley Park that runs every year around Halloween. Since I love trains (and hadn't ridden this one yet), it seemed like a good idea to check it out. We thought we would go for the afternoon ride (mostly because I'm a chicken), but when we got there, we decided to go for the full experience and do the ride in the dark. Since we had some time to kill, we started the walk around the Stanley Park seawall. We made it all the way out to Siwash Rock before turning around. I was super worried about missing our train!

I have to say, the people of Vancouver can be kind if gory. There was a memorial plaque at Siwash Rock that gave a fairly detailed account of how a young man died diving off of it a number of years ago. This isn't the first time I've seen something like that either. When I was out in Lynn Canyon with my parents,  there were multiple memorials for people who had drowned, dove into rocks, fallen of waterfalls and been crushed by falling boulders . . . all in fairly descriptive detail. That's one way to remember someone.

Walking around the park was a lot like being home too. The trees were all changing colour (unlike the evergreens that are very common around here . . . they really are always green) and some of the leaves were bigger than my head! We also saw ducks that would dive and swim underwater (faster than I can!) and some sort of bird that I dubbed the "penguin bird" because of their black and white colour. They would all dive underwater together and then pop back up (mostly in the same place because they were obviously not as hydrodynamic as the ducks).

Finally, it was time to head for the train. Although I'm sure I was way more scared than I needed to be, it didn't help that the boyfriend kept grabbing me and making noises to try and freak me out. It was super dark and creepy being in the woods on a train! My favourite part was definitely the little boarded up house with little skeletons having a party/barbecue/picnic/something outside. They even had little bony sandwiches! I'm pretty sure the boyfriend was way less scared, but I think he did enjoy some of the clever references.

It was a pretty fun and active weekend! I'm excited that I get to wear my costume a few more times too, once for our Sparks Halloween party on Wednesday and once to (hopefully) hand out candy to some trick-or-treaters on Thursday!

The Weather

So, it's starting to become Fall, I guess, and that is a very difficult season in Vancouver! Everyday when I leave for work, I usually have my running shoes (steep), a sweatshirt (cold), my shell coat (wet), a scarf (cold), my sunglasses (bright) AND my umbrella (wet). (I know that steep doesn't exactly describe the weather, but you try walking up that hill in other shoes . . . unpleasant.) Anyways, the point is, that is just ridiculous. The best part is, by the end of the day, I maybe need the sunglasses and the shell coat because the rained has ceased, the cold is gone and it's now blinding out . . . and maybe a bit windy. What?!

One of my colleagues sent me this video about becoming a Vancouverite and the weather is absolutely a topic in it!

In other weather news, I made a rainbow for Sparks! After unsucessfully going to two major hardware stores at my train station after work, I took the bus down to the small hardware store near my place. They had EXACTLY three pool noodles. I bought them and waltzed down the hill . . . and everyone probably thought I was a crazy lady carrying around my pool noodles in September.