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Yep, I am leaving for my vacation in Calgary today! I'll see Nu! And I'll get to see the Stampede too! But first I need to sit in a Greyhound bus for 15 hours...

I'll be back on the 13th. I won't have much internet access there, so don't expect me to update stuff in this time

Enjoy your summer! I know I will!

Last Saturday I went to Fort Langley to see the old fort and go on a walk with a few people. The walk went fine and we had some yummy lunch but right when we went over to the fort I had a little accident. I twisted my ankle! Awesome... it hurt really bad and I could hardly walk. It didn't swell up or even change color at all, so it doesn't seem to be anything that needs medical treatment. It still hurts pretty bad though, I keep bandaging it. I just hope that it'll be better by next week since I'll be leaving for Calgary on Wednesday! I want to enjoy my vacation, not limp around on one foot!

The rest of the weekend wasn't very pleasant due to my foot problem. I couldn't really get anywhere... but I worked on a few arts and crafts projects, so that's something at least!

That's all the updates I have for now... I don't dare to plan much for the weekend yet...

Last Saturday I met up with a few nannies, we had a potluck picnic on Kitsilano Beach. It was really nice, the weather was finally more sunny again and I met a few nannies that I already knew and several that I had never met before. Actually the weather was so good that I got a sunburn although I did use sun screen throughout the day! It was a little bit hazy though, so I guess the amount of sun we actually got went pretty much unnoticed.

We got to try a variety of different foods and played some fun games. We also made plans for future meet ups with hiking and maybe even a trip up the mountains with an overnight stay in a log cabin.

In the early evening Angela (the German nanny I met last Monday) and I went to grab her car and drove up to the Eagle Hall (which is pretty close to where I live). They had an event by the Métis People. Unfortunately we were late for the Buffalo soup, but we did get to enjoy the beautiful surroundings and the Loonie Auction.

The auction works pretty much like a raffle, you pay a loonie for every number you buy, then all numbers get tossed in a pot and one will be drawn as the winner. They auctioned off a few really nice things, including toys and decorative items as well as hand made dream makers and jewelry. We tried to bid on a few things but didn't win anything.

Just before we left one of the women who did win quite a lot came up to us and gave us each a dream maker (I even got exactly the one I had tried to get during the auction)! These people are really very free giving and community is very important to them! We were surprised and thrilled, such a nice gesture! She said she saw us bidding on a few items and thought no one should leave empty handed.

Oh, and dream makers are pretty much derived from dream catchers. The difference is that dream catchers are meant to keep bad dreams away from you while dream makers are meant to soak up your good dreams and make them come true. Both types are based on the same legends and even look very much alike. Another difference is that dream catchers are hung over beds while dream makers are supposed to be hanging in front of a window to soak up the good dreams before they escape outside.

My dream maker is dark red with white and green feathers and a pretty green and red wire and glass butterfly in the middle.

On Sunday I went to meet the Vancouver 9/11 Truth people for our weekly breakfast. After the breakfast we headed over to the Commercial Drive - Car Free Day Festival on, obviously, Commercial Drive. We set up our table and tent and handed out DVDs and information to anyone who was interested. The positive responses were overwhelming and we only got very few negative responses. Most people were eager to learn more and loved our information stand. It was great fun! I strolled up and down the street a few times to enjoy the street festival too. It was a very very very sunny day and I got another sunburn on top of the sunburn I already had. Oh well, it'll turn into a tan eventually...

I am trying to plan a trip to this year's Bard On The Beach festival, which is an annual event with several Shakespeare plays performed in tents right on the beach. I'd love to go see 'King Lear', which is one of this year's four plays. There will also be a gathering by a meetup group I recently joined. They'll meet up in Fort Langley next Saturday to go hiking and visit a museum, so I might end up doing that instead. Or maybe even both...

Go watch this! And then visit this website! Go!

So, I went to the Playland the weekend before last. It was fun, but for what they had it was very expensive! 30 bucks entrance fee and they just had a few rides. The bigger rides cost extra! Even the haunted house cost extra!!

I went to the Playland with the Nanny from Denmark. It was her last weekend before finishing her work here and returning back to Denmark. We pondered if we should go into the haunted house, but weren't sure because of the extra entrance fee. But while we stood and pondered, the exit door opened and two girls fell out of the door, totally frightened. We asked them if it's worth the entrance fee and they said it would absolutely be worth it... so we went in too. Right at the entrance there were two girls, probably around 10 or 12. They wanted to go in but were scared to go by themselves, so we said they could go with us. It was a haunted house you had to walk through instead of riding in a car. Of course I ended up going first in our group.

It was quite dark in the first part of the haunted house, so after just a few steps the girls just clung to us and each other. The first part was interesting, but not very scary. The second part was what got us really screaming... you enter a maze that is COMPLETELY dark, no light whatsoever! Just now and then a window would pop open with green or red or orange light, scary shadows and a laughing growl. Other than that it was dark, completely dark and I had to find my way through this with the other girls clinging to me. We all screamed and squealed while stumbling through the dark. That's how easy it is to get people really scared, just turn off the lights!

We also went on the chairoplane about three and a half billion times. It was my favorite ride as a kid and I still love it! The wooden roller coaster was great too, but the ride was so bumpy, it often felt as if you'd fall out of the car! One thing that kinda threw me off though was that on each ride they had a tv stationed at the waiting queue and they had about four or five music videos repeating over and over and over... and one of them was by Tokyo Hotel... *argh*

So, this past Sunday I started the day off with our weekly breakfast with the Vancouver 9/11 Truth Society. After the breakfast two of the members wanted to work on an information flyer for the Colin Powell Unwelcoming Event this Thursday in Vancouver, so I joined to help them. We came up with an interesting flyer that will probably bem handed out to passerbys during the event.

On Monday I met with another German nanny here in Vancouver. We originally wanted to go for a bike ride in Stanley Park, but it was pouring down rain, so we scrapped those plans and went to the Maritime Museum instead. It was quite interesting there and we met a nautical engineer from England. She is traveling around the world right now and will soon start working in Hamburg for a while! So, we started chatting about all sorts of things and ended up having dinner together too. Even though it was raining all day, we had a great time! I'm sure I'll meet up with the German nanny again, hopefully soon!

I'm also working on planning out my vacations (in Calgary, London, Wacken, Hamburg and Bonn). And it seems like I never have enough time to do all the things I plan to do! Oh, and I also recently got a Facebook account... still not too sure about it, but it seems interesting enough! So, if you're on Facebook, give me a shout!