Vancouver: Week 13

Well, what did I say?! Monday was officially declared a Snow Day here in Van. That means school is cancelled (it ACTUALLY happens!), our power went out [meaning no drinking water for us, as we couldn’t heat water to boil – the water advisory that has been in place for a week now is still in effect!], and we froze in our rooms (the heating also died). It was certainly an interesting experience – waiting ages for the bus, which has been rerouted to avoid falling trees – watching everyone just wander around aimlessly, and all the poor kiddies who’d come to school not realising it had been cancelled.

The next two days it continued to snow, although not as heavily as before. It started to melt on Thurs and now it’s just a big brown slush. Apparently it’s going to stay like that for a while! Yay! Snow still excites me in all it’s form. Did I mention this is the first time I’ve been around in fresh snow? I guess that’s apparent, eh?

Wednesday was the FINAL Pit night for the term. It was really sad to realise that this was the last time I’d see a whole bunch of people, but everyone came and they played awesome music! It’s funny, this term has been encapsulated by three artists: Fergie, Justin Timberlake and Nelly Furtado. For the first half of term we had London Bridge, Sexyback and Promiscuous Girl on high rotation EVERYWHERE. Now it’s changed to Fergilicous, My Love and Maneater. How things change, eh?

Friday was the first day of December (scary, huh?!) and also the day of the official Exchange Farewell Party. It was awesome fun, although we were fairly intoxicated before we arrived, which made the bus ride fantastic fun, but we didn’t keep it up, so soon into the party itself we were all tired! Old age has set in already, clearly! Thanks Dheera for organising it – it was so much fun!

Saturday was awesome! I got SO much done during the day (study-wise) and celebrated by going to the Panic! At The Disco gig. I really had mixed expectations of it. Originally it was meant to be P!ATD and Bloc Party, which would have been awesome. I’m a P! fan, but I just didn’t know what to expect from their live shows, since they sound so polished on the album. The two support bands: Cobra Starship and Jack’s Mannequin were fairly good. Cobra are known for the Snakes on a Plane song and performed fairly well, and JM are the side-project for Something Corporate. To be honest, they sound exactly like Something Corporate, so I don’t really know why they changed the name and line-up!

So, onto the P! show itself. It was AMAZING! I’m talking contortionists, fire, strippers, cages, stilts and the band themselves. It was the musical equivalent of a trip to Disneyland! SOOO much fun. They re-jigged the order of the songs on the album to form a story of a couple growing up, meeting, (nearly) marrying and dying. All the time, 5 actors were acting out the songs in true Vegas over-the-top style. Definitely one of my favourite gigs ever!