Holidays!

What really makes me home sick is being this close to the holidays, but still being far away from home. BUT I did try to make the best of things! I decided to make some festive plans! Both my roommate and I are from Ontario, and we were in that "missing home" downward spiral, so I went out to Zellers and purchased a 4.5ft Christmas tree!

He was quite happy actually. I bought some ornaments but they were sold out of those hooks to hang them on the tree. Luckily, Matt (my roomie) remembered that we had a lot of those complimentary sewing kits from hotels lying around in the house (he goes on business trips a lot and stays in hotels) so we used the needle and thread and threaded loops through the ornament holes. He poked himself a few times. I also bought some garland from the store and decorated our fire place too! I'll include pictures soon. Sadly I left my charger in Ontario...and so I've been taking pictures using my cellphone.

I also decided to organize a Holiday send off amongst a small group of my friends here in town. Most of them are from BC or Ontario. Since we're all going home or away for the holidays I decided to organize a festive Saturday. It all started with waking up and going to a place called Heritage Park. It's a place where it's designed to make it feel like a flash back in time. Like the the west really was in the old days. We're a late bunch of people so by the time we got to the park (and was done getting lost on the road), we had an hour left. IF we arrived earlier, we could've saw Santa, his reindeers, made ginger bread cookies, etc...but we weren't so oh well.

I did go into the ice cream store of that village and try some wicked apple cider. I decided to pickup some raspberry cider mix for later that night! We also had a chance to buy some fresh baked cookies and enjoy a wagon ride pulled by some sweaty horses!



The town is filled with some fun little things for the kids too, like old school games. There was this one game where you're supposed to flick these circle blocks into the centre and knock people out of the way. Well someone, *cough* my roommate missed and flicked it at me...and it hit me. If someone knows the name of that game, please let me know. Picture of game board can be seen below.


The village had it's own ferry rides (summer only), train rides (summer only), and vintage homes, hotels, and shops, including this Asian laundry mat!

It also has this mini automotive museum that they call, Gasoline Alley. It has a bunch of old vintage cars and vintage gas pumps of various companies. It's a gorgeous venue hall for Christmas parties. My roomie had a Christmas work banquet there earlier that week. I went with him and had the chance to see it for free (originally a $10 admission fee)!




Back to the Christmas festivities, after that we were supposed to go to Zoolights - a zoo which has a bunch of Christmas lights all over. But... we got hungry and food >>> lights in the cold. Maybe I'll do it next weekend?

Anyways that's all for now. Tree pictures to come soon!

Final Thought: If you are allergic to horses or any other animal, do not go on a wagon ride pulled by horses...You'll be severely irritated by it. Also, friends make being homesick more bearable <3 :)



EDIT:
My friend notified me that the game is called Crokinole.