Vancouver: Week 11

And so 90% of conversations begin amongst us exchangies. It’s ridiculous to imagine that we came here 12 weeks ago for GALA not knowing anyone. We’ve had the best time, and now the business end of the term is upon us and everyone is stressing over finals and term papers. Which is why these blog posts aren’t as exciting as those before it. Even though I’m on pass/fail here at UBC, it feels odd to not put my best into my work so I haven’t really slacked off as much as I thought I might. I guess that’s a good thing, it’s just a shame that it will never be shown on my transcripts.

On Wednesday this week some of us saw the Vancouver Giants hockey again. This time against the Seattle Thunderbirds, which made for a much more even and exciting game. Not too mention violent – the only thing missing was blood on the ice. Ah well, there’s always next time!! The Giants are the Van youth team, and most of them are dying to get onto the A team – the Canucks, so they play hard, fast and rough. It’s awesome to watch and they are never complacent, which makes for great hockey. I’m even beginning to understand the rules and what not. I am Canadian!

Thursday we received the interesting news that Vancouver’s water supply has been contaminated by the soil erosion due to excessive rain. This means that we can’t drink the tap water until further notice. Hmmm… this is Van right? Not Bangkok!? Haha, I’m used to living in places where the water is contaminated, but I never expected it here! Everyone is a bit in shock, and has made a run for the bottled water at every possible place. The biggest shock is Starbucks has had to close, as their water isn’t filtered! What will us West-Coasters do without our daily Espressos!

The big event for me (and about 70 of my closest friends) was the Gage E13B 90s Party! Clayton, Rob, Craig, Isaac, Sebastian and I had been planning this since the day after our last one, way back in September, and it rocked out! I had SOO much fun planning it all (doesn’t that sound like me!?) – the music, costumes, decorations, etc. We emptied out the entire apartment, borrowed blacklights (UV lights) off Jess, set up the stereo system, created ice buckets – the whole deal! We’d invited about 50 people, but the word spread as people just kept on coming! Many of whom had never met us – one of the pro’s and con’s of living in Gage I guess – but everyone was fairly well behaved. There was just SO much crap to clean up on Saturday morning. I have photos of the aftermath on the web and it just doesn’t do it justice. We had to move the oven, the fridges and everything to clear up puddles of beer – great fun!

AND to top it off, Sean (from USyd) arrived to join us! It’s great to have him here, as it gives him time to sort out his plans for the next leg of the trip. Unfortunately he isn’t feeling too well, so I’m not sure how much he got out of the party, but we definitely enjoyed having him here!

After the crazy night that was Friday, you would have thought we would have slowed down, but it appeared as if we were on a roll. Saturday was set to be just as manic, with Carl’s House Party rumoured to include all four quads of South 17. As it turns out, the RAs heard the rumours too and the whole thing was shut down fairly soon, which sucked. We moved down to Rob’s place (to the complete surprise of his roommates!) and stayed there for a while. It was great fun, although I went to bed fairly early. After all, I had a Krafty Kuts gig on Sunday!

Krafty Kuts is one of the world’s best breaks DJs, and he definitely did not disappoint. He played at Bar None in Yaletown, which is an awesome bar, and quite small, so there were only about 150-200 people there. The music was great and his mixing is impressive, to say the least. By 1am though I was buggered so I headed home. SO worth it though!