December has been the month of parties...it's as if I had to catch up with all the parties that I missed the last months due to my travels.
This marathon of celebrations started with the beginning of December and the Chrsitmas party of all the members of hill's gallery.
Dot, our boss and owner of the gallery, generously invited us to an all-you-can-eat-and-drink dinner party at the ANZA-Club (Australia New Zealand Association) where we gathered, drank, played, ate and exchanged "Secret Santa" gifts (German: Wichteln). I got a calendar with street photographs of Vancouver, a project of the homeless people of the city.
The evening was marked by tons of pizza and of course free beer!!! ;)
Moving on: the Vancouver Christmas Market - a long tradition over here during that season. Trying to copy an original German Christmas market as best as possible, it provides most of the drinks and food that you find in German cities including mulled wine/gluehwein, bratwurst and sauerkraut as well as feuerzangenbohle and candy.
I went there with a German-Belgian "delegation" of my friends: Carmen, Mieke and Mark.
After facing the ridiculously expensive prices though, we quickly decided to stay with two mulled wine and a bratwurst (a total of 20$).
More than three cups of wine per person and evening were prohibited anyway...welcome to mommy Canada who takes care of her babies at any minute and in any imaginable situation in their lives.
But this is another issue that I might come back to at a later time.
For now let me just tell you that the wine as well as the bratwurst were much better than expected and even made us smile about the cheesy north American band in Bavarian dress look singing English songs with south German melody!
Funny for all my German friends out there might certainly be the fact that every visitor has to pay an entrance fee of 5$! I received irritated looks when I told Canadian that in Germany the food stands pay for selling their stuff on the market. Anyway, the market was for sure a great experience and a glimpse from back home!
Going back in time on Dec 10 at Maai's Time Traveler Party. While some just went back for a couple months or years (I have been dressed as on the day of our hiking trip to The Chief in summer, short pants, lumberjack and sunglasses - fucking cold!!!), others went back in time for thousands of years.
So we spent that evening with drinks, snacks and great people.
Next stop on the party mile: the anniversary party of the ShouYu Liang Wushu Taiji Qigong Institute, Dec 19.
Most of the students of the school - no matter what style they attended - trained and practiced long in advance for the several shows and presentations at this event. No wonder, the party was a huge success. The presentations of wushu styles (forms, sword, speer, tripple staff), taiji and Liu He Ba Fa/Water Style were incredible and the students as well as the instrustors did a great job.
Since we were not allowed to make a video, let me show you three former presentations of water style by Master Helen Liang, taiji by Master Chenhan Yang and from the opening ceremony of the annual Can-Am West Coast Championships in 2009:
Definitely one of the highlights of that evening has been the overwhelming speech of Grandmaster Liang which lasted for 10 seconds: "Good evening! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!"! HAHAHA! He is so hilarious.
After the presentations we were served 10 courses of Chinese food. We were so full in the end that we had trouble to get back home. ;)
Another thing that I noticed was the incredible popularity of Grandmaster Liang among the Chinese or Canadians with Chinese ancestry. They also showed a video of a recent wushu championship in China. Grandmaster Liang was welcomed by students of the largest wushu school in China, they even organized a whole show for him. I got the feeling that he is kind of a superstar over there!
I definitely need an autograph of him! :D
Christmas came quickly in 2010.
Carmen, Rob and me were organizing an international Christmas party at our house on Dec 24. The idea: A get-together of friends with special Xmas food and drinks from all over the world that are provided by everyone. We asked our guests (most of them couchsurfers) to bring the most common meals, snacks or drinks from their home country. We were serving Canadian and German Xmas cuisine with cookies, potato salad and wieners and made delicious mulled wine - for some reason the latter didn't last long! We ended up being 25 people with tons of food from Germany, Canada, France, Spain, Belgium, Italy, Korea, England and Cambodia.
It was great to have all our friends over all together. A perfect party!
On Christmas Day, Dec 25, we went to Rob's family in White Rock who invited us over for dinner. This has been the best combination with the party the night before. Carmen and me after all are here in Vancouver with our families being back in Germany. So we were glad and grateful to experience a bit of a family celebration for Christmas!
John and Eva, Rob's aunt and uncle, were hosting the three of us and the rest of the family members and provided drinks and lots of food including a 22-pound turkey for dinner!!!!
After that we exchanged presents in a different way than I know it. There was a package for everyone on the table. You pick a number from a basket and according to that number it is your turn to choose a present. You open it and pick another number. Then you have to decide whether to keep your present and make two others change their gifts or to trade your own gift with someone else. The whole thing gets pretty funny when there is a certain gift that most of the people like to have - in our case a large pack of Toblerone and Cashew Nuts!
Okay, before going on, let me explain something about Boxing Day here in Canada. Whereas in Germany and most of Europe as well, Dec 26 is a day of ongoing family celebrations, when people meet up with there friends and eat together, go for a nice winter walk, etc, here in Canada Boxing Day is THE biggest shopping day in whole North America. Most of the stores are open and start a week of big sales (I have seen sales up to 80% off!) to get rid of the goods and merchandises from the ending year.
Carmen and me thought it might be a nice experience to check it out. So we went to the big malls in Vancouver not knowing what to expect. I can honestly tell you that this is madness!! The malls are literally packed with people, line-ups in front of the stores, securities that keep customers out because they would trample each other to death.
We were shocked in the face of this high degree of commercialism of Christmas over here and I am very concerned that this will be the standard in Europe pretty soon. Needless to say that we didn't spent much time there.
However, Christmas was perfect and I don't think it could have been any better!
Finally: New Years Eve! Till that very day I haven't had a clue what to do. There were two options: whether attending a small, selected party with some of Rob's friends or going to a big party of couchsurfers.
I ended up doing both! ;)
First we had dinner at our house, played "apples-to-apples" and finally welcomed 2011 at midnight.
After that Carmen, Sunny (a Korean girl that we just met over couchsurfing) and me went to the big party. As we entered dozens of people occupied the house - most of them already hammered. This night has been crazy: beer, dancing, international people, a baby doll filled with gin tonic, etc.
Drunk as we were, we somehow found our way back and fell into bed at 4 am.
We got up at 10 am the next morning, had breakfast together and got off to watch the annual polar bear swim at English Bay. This is a Vancouver tradition when over 2,000 people jump into the cold ocean at New Years Day. Avi, a friend of mine, made a funny video that gives you an idea of the whole event:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?id=1031991687&aid=2087154#!/video/video.php?v=10150106841952090
The weather was perfect and the water temperature around 8°C. Guys, you are all bloody mad!! :D
Now, we are right in 2011 that is gonna be another year full of adventures, travels and fun but also means flying back to Germany. But that is future talk and I would rather like to quickly look back at 2010 and all the great things I have done and seen:
I arrived in Vancouver in June and stayed there for two weeks in which I spent two days in Whistler and climbed in Squamish. I met lots of fun people from Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Germany and Switzerland.
I came back to Vancouver in August, stayed another two weeks at Rob's place with other travelers with whom I enjoyed the great summer time on the beach, the park or in the mountains.
Woofing in September: two weeks with Stephanie and Amble Inn, a few days working at the Quantum Leaps Lodge where I experienced the incredible and life changing fire walk and finally a week at Golden Wood Lodge with Barbara and Andy (thanks so much for the great time I had with you).
Vancouver - my base camp - again in October. Spending time looking for jobs and a place to stay for the next few months. Found both within two days: work at an art gallery and living in Rob's house! One month marked by a certain kind of settlement.
In November a few short trips to Gibsons at the Sunshine Coast and to Victoria on Vancouver Island reminded me of my former life as a nomad.
And finally December with all the parties, Christmas and New Years Eve!
What a great year!!!!
Happy New Year !
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