Tepees, Belugas And A Sketchy Magee Hotel

I haven't posted in like forever. I'm not sure why. Well I am, I just have not been in the mood to blog as of late. Don't ask me why, I don't know! I'm currently sitting in a sketchy hotel on East Hastings in Vancouver. If you don't know, it's the very rough area in Vancouver. Our Urban Plunge begins tomorrow and frankly, I am worried. We are staying in even more of a sketchy hotel later this week, and going out into the community. It's much different, well...worse than Winnipeg. Also we were staying at a lovely church downtown, here we are not. I also don't know my way around this area whatsoever....Winnipeg on the other hand I do. So this is a nerve racking experience to say the least. We had a free weekend here in Vancouver, and I went to go see the new Footloose on the first day and it was CRAZY AWESOME. I was in the musical at my high school and I LOVED reliving the story again. However it was a bit different, it was modern...not in the 80's, which I didn't mind at all. Then they changed a few of the characters...which I wasn't opposed to...it was just was different. Some people where created out of thin air, some where nice when they weren't supposed to be, and Ren's mom was dead....which was also not in original story line, but what yeah gonna do. It was great though, I loved the dancing, the acting was great, and the guy who plays Ren was nothing less than beautiful! :)  Then I spent the next day and a half with my friend Kaitlyn, it was really nice to get away from my group and experience the city with someone who knows it generally well. I got to go the Vancouver Aquarium! We got to see the BELUGAS. So crazy lookin things, their heads are so small but their bodies are huge and strong and weird and blubbery. It was great. We also went shopping and had dinner, great times. She is the best. Awesome.

To do a brief update to where we have been for the past few weeks, I'll give you and overview! After girl/guy week we had a few days of nomadic lifestyle. We stayed in a church for a night, girls in the sanctuary, boys in the youth room. They were really sweet people that invited us, they fed us and let us make a mess of their church. All they wanted in return was to hear our stories, and get to know us. Very nice,welcoming people for sure! Then we moved onto Blackfoot crossing which was like a museum/interpretive center on a reserve. We stayed there for one night and in total about one full day. We slept outside at the bottom of a HUGE hill in Tepees. That was interesting to say the least, we had a wood burning stove in each one. However that posed the task of waking up every couple of hours and re-woodifying the fire. Our fire went out around 2:00 in the morning...a couple girls got up and started it up again. It was so freezing that night, one of the ladies up at the crossing said it got down to -14. I don't know if it got there, but it was freakin' cold. One of the girl's tepee's ran out of wood during the night, they were even more cold. On top of it we had to pretty much hike up the giant hill to get back up to warmth, bathrooms, and running water. Anyways, it was interesting learning about their culture and their people for sure.
We moved on that day to Pioneer Lodge near Sundre Alberta. We spent around a week there with two speakers, a Halloween party, and free camp activities ( like archery, horseback riding). It was really nice there, we only had to share a room with one other person and we had our own backroom attached! It was glorious. I was an enchanted fairy for Halloween! It was really fun getting dressed up and pretending I was someone else :)

We also went to a church on Sunday near the camp. I loved it, we haven't been to an actual church in a long time. Usually we are away from a town to go to church or we have our own, it was nice to connect with people from a little community like that. Then we came here! Woopdee do.
I am so freakin tired, and I have to embark upon a whole new realm of scary tomorrow. Oh my Gish Gosh.

Enchanted Fairy Of The Wood!

First Snow Out At Pioneer Lodge!