Today I woke up early to ride into town like Santa Claus. Laila actually agreed on going with me but she did not wake up. She usually sleeps so much that every morning she is on time for breakfast only because the way from her trailer to the activity building takes like a five seconds walk.
I did my job by refilling the wood stock and grabbed the red bike. I had many layers on me because it is pretty chilly here in the morning. We are not even in the actual north, but up until 8.30am it is still cold so I was worried about that and the wind once I would have started to bike.
The ride was so long and exhausting. First of all, the red bike does can not change the gears (or the pace, I do not know how to call it in English). So, as soon as I started to get faster I would just pedal in vain. Then, the street was so plain with short uphill traits. They were so short that at my return I would have had to pedal anyway because they were not long enough to speed up downhill.
I arrived at the community centre of Magnetawan and left the bike close to the stairs that lead to the library. There were two people across the street observing and I guess it makes sense since Magnetawan is home for only 300 people and I was not one of them. They probably knew each other to the point that they could tell who is from the town and who is not.
After taking a little break to take pictures of the place, I took out my electronic devices to connect to the library’s wifi but I had a surprise. The internet connection required a password and I did not know it nor asked Jim about it. I tried everything from the different clues I could get from the surroundings. I even looked through the window just to see if there was a sign with the password inside the building even though I looked like a burglar. Nothing worked, so I packed my stuff and went back. Well, I guess that was my morning exercise then.
At my return I could meet some people from the cabins. Everyone of them should have been leaving the camp. Here in Canada the week goes from Sunday to Saturday and not from Monday to Sunday like in Italy. So, since everyone booked for a week and was going to the Veg Fest we expected them to leave soon. No one left soon.
I had breakfast when Laila, Anne and Fran left to set up our stand at the Veg Fest. I waited for everyone to get up but even after that there was not much to do since the people were not leaving yet. Me, Verena and Alyssa drove the truck around the camp twice to check which cabin we could clean, but all of them were still occupied.
Around 10am the people from cabin one went out for the Veg Fest, so we could start cleaning the cabin. I like cleaning at Lighthouse because we split into teams and it becomes more of a “clean while you chat” situation, which is cool since the people here are so awesome. Me, Verena and Alyssa talked a lot and I ended telling them about Bts because Alyssa asked me what was my favorite band. I mean, Simple Plan will always be there and they are a sweet memory that I will always treasure. However, Bts are doing such a great job of going beyond the music and spreading relatable music based on their genuine experiences. Plus, rapping, dancing and singing all at the same time is such a cool thing to me.
We could not finish to clean cabin one because it got too late and we had to bring the lunch to our friends who were already at the Veg Fest. We hopped on the car and drove to Huntsville. I fell asleep on the way which was funny to Jim and Alyssa. I woke up two times. The first one when my watch started to ring an alarm that I have never set (probably Reina and Asher did by mistake when I left them my watch). I do not remember much of that moment, but Jim told me that it was funny because I woke up to stop the alarm while speaking in Italian. However, as soon as they told me that I could go to sleep I said something else in Italian and fell asleep again. The second time was when we stopped at a thrift shop to give some stuff that they did not need anymore. I woke up with no sleepiness in me and luckily we were already in Huntsville. Seeing lots of thrift shops from there to the Veg Fest made me want to shop in one one I will reunite with my family.
As soon as we got there, we all had lunch. It was not much but I really enjoyed the smoothie. Me and Verena looked around the different stands around the festival and I felt so tempted by some food since the lunch did not fill me. However, I realized that I had no money with me. I use to keep my wallet in my camera case, but I took it out one day and I did not remember about that.
Back to our stand, Fran suggested that the workaway team should be strolling around Huntsville to see the city. We gladly took the chance because no one wanted to stay at the stand under the sun with no chairs to sit on.
We walked around King Street. We went into different shops and took pictures, but I happened to be the most patience one and the only one enjoying looking around the shops. I do not know what Verena and Annika were looking for, but Laila preferred taking pictures at a church and at the street instead of going inside the shops.
Since my mom likes having magnets from the places we visit as a family, I asked the German girls to go to a souvenir shop. We found one but we had to cross the street. However it took ages because it was never green for us. During the wait I also danced to the music of some teenagers driving with their windows down and their music so loud. They thought it was funny and I am glad I gave them something to tell their friends for the day.
When we finally crossed we went inside the shop. At the beginning I could not find anything. But it made me think about the kind of souvenirs I should bring to the people back home. Verena and Annika told me that the usual souvenir consists in socks because everyone wear socks and you do not have to worry that much about the size or the colors since you can always wear them at home or under long pants. I was tempted to buy some socks for different people but as I said I was without my wallet. I found some magnets though, so I asked Laila if she could buy me one and I would have repaid her later. I took one black magnet with two white rectangles. At the bottom there was written “Typical Canadian beaver at night”. It was a funny magnet, it fit my personality.
We went back to the Veg Fest because Fran asked us to be back in one hour. We took a little detour in a sweet shop where there was this cool mug with three different lines: the first one, at the top, said “Shh”; the second one, in the middle, said “Almost done”; and the third one, at the bottom, said “Now you can speak”. It was so funny I wanted to buy it for a friend, but I did not know if she would appreciate it since I did not know if she would use it.
On the way back we tipped a busker with some Canadian dollars and fifty cents in Euro. It was so strange to see someone busking in a small city like that. And there were lots of money too! He was good and he was singing popular sad songs, like the one’s from Adele. The girls told me that I should have sung something but I was not in the mood.
Once we got back there was nothing much to do. The gelato stand was no working and everyone wanted some gelato. Plus, very few people would come to our stand because we were promoting the camp and selling the rocks we painted. I guess that a vegan burger or vegan products were more fascinating to the people at the Vegan Festival. I ended up picking up a totem animal at another stand. I picked the leopard. The only trait that I remember is the swiftness, but Alyssa and Fran told me that it has traits that really related to me.
Back to the stand I started playing with Asher, but at one point he asked me to go inside a bush and I did not want. It is so hard to find an excuse with children, so I asked him why would he not go inside the bush first. He told me that maybe it was not safe and it made me laugh because he was basically sending me ahead regardless of what could have happened to me.
We moved to the playground where Asher showed off how skilled he is. His motor skills are really developed for a four years old kid. Jack’s family came to say goodbye and I was glad they liked the Veg Out at our camp since it was their first time doing it.
Jim then told me to go listen to a girl who was singing on the stage of the festival. I went there and listened to her. Her voice was pretty amazing and it made me want to have a collaboration with her. I liked how she was using her voice agility and vibrato for her own song, though I thought the cover songs she sang were a little bit more standard. The Slee (Jim, Alyssa and Asher) came to listen to her too and it was incredible how Asher was mesmerized by her music. He sat next to me and spent five whole minutes to look at her in silence with his mouth open.
5pm came so fast fortunately. We divided in three cars so that Jim and his family could go back to the camp, Fran and Anne could do something around Huntsville and me with girls could go to Tim Horton’s to use its wifi.
Unfortunately, when we arrived there we found out that there was no plug for my computer. Later on I would discover that I had left my charger in my trailer, so even if there were plugs I would have not been able to use them. Even the internet was not working on my cellphone because I have a Korean Samsung and the encryption is different. I can not connect to any open wifi outside of South Korea.
So we went back home and I did not nothing of what I needed to do on my computer. We had dinner altogether in the end because it did not took us too much at Tim Horton’s, so when we arrived Jim, Alyssa and Asher were still having dinner.
Asher asked to go on the motorboat after the meal and we actually went. The original plan was going with a canoe so that we could see some animals again at the hidden lake, but Jim wanted to take us there after Asher asked him to use the motorboat. Well, less fatigue I guess. Though the motorboat is so much louder that we could only see one giant beaver on our cruise.
Asher drove the motorboat a little bit and it was funny how he would approach the shore at the hidden lake because he would take a really big curve to “get the right angle”.
On the way back Jim was driving super fast because Asher usually went to bed much earlier. At one point my hat was close to flying away because of the strong wind generated by our speed. Alyssa saw it flying a little bit before I could grab it and I was so glad that I could that we did not notice that Asher’s hat flew away. He made a strange face, like “there is nothing I can do about it” as he was holding inside the tears for losing one of his favorite hats. We all laughed because the face was so funny, but actually now it makes me think how we can be so bad at reading the situations. He got angry because he thought that we were laughing at him and honestly I think that it was our fault. It is not the kid that has to think and behave like an adult, but it is us that we have to have empathy and understand them. We drove back and saved the hat from sinking, but Asher throw it at me and went crying to Alyssa.
Once we docked, Alyssa took Asher to sleep and Jim invited us to their cabin. He asked to give them time to put Asher to bed, so we went to the activity building to prepare some tea. Here the tea is everything you drink with hot water. So for example, they consider chamomile as a tea. It was so strange to me.
So we went to Jim’s cabin and had a nice conversation. We talked about their honeymoon. They actually went to hike the Himalaya, with stops in India and Thailand. They started rough in India, going up to a freezing Himalaya and ending in a beautiful Thailand. I asked Alyssa if they had reasons why they would chose a place instead of another, and she said one super smart thing I have never thought about. She said that they would like to travel in the hardest places to travel to first because they still can do that. It is better to backpack when you are twenty, thirty or forty instead of fifty and so on. This is the reason why they are saving Europe, the US and Canada for last. It is so smart. I wanted to start my traveling in Europe, but it makes sense to keep it last. Plus, it is cool that Jim wants to keep the number of visited countries above the number of Asher’s age.
During the chat I could actually see how big the mice were because they stormed inside the house. They stayed in a corner, but I could see how they can fit inside a really small hole so it made me really scared about spending the night in my trailer. I realized that the wood that I stuck into the hole was not enough to keep them out.
We said goodbye to Jim and Alyssa around 11pm and went back to our places. The sky was not that good because of the bad weather we were getting these last days. Quick pee (unnecessary detail, I know) and then the process of falling asleep while worrying about everything started. Another night in the trailer in the middle of nowhere.
Godyl Go! 