The most important topics of the last 2 ½ weeks

I haven't been in touch for 2 1/2 weeks! So it's time for a new entry.

Actually, I didn't want to write yet, but since today is a special day and I talked to my family, I came up with a few stories.

🌞The Weather⛅

Today it is no longer so beautiful and it's raining, cloudy and sometimes hailing. But the last few days have been really sunny, warm and we used our balcony to sunbathe. The snow has melted at our altitude. Only a few spots where the snow was piled up still have small traces of snow. The slopes are starting to thaw and even our 'kitchen mountain' was almost snow-free till yesterday! Since yesterday, the clouds have been hanging on this mountain and they have spread new snow on the top.

👣 Our walks 👣

I wanted to hike so much! But apparently I have too much to do in my free time, so our regular walks consist mostly of the way to the grocery store. The craziest shopping was two days ago when we drove to Whistler City. The majority of stores are closed, but the Liqour Store is open. That's the store that is only allowed to sell alcohol. I don't know if the employee wanted to be named Employee of the Month or if he is simply the Corona Sheriff.

When we entered the store and had to disinfect our hands, we were informed for three minutes that we have to keep distance: to the other customers, to the employees and to the merchandise!! As we walked through the aisles, I noticed that another customer who had paid was pressured to disinfect their hands when leaving the store. When Julian went to the checkout, he was supposed to place the merchandise at a very precise point with the barcode in the direction of the employee, and then step back behind the glass pane that separated them. Only then did the employee step back in front of the register, scan the beer. When Julian took the wallet out of his backpack and didn't touch the backpack, the employee informed him that the backpack would have to stay outside next time. And when Julian also wanted to take the receipt with him, he had to peel off the receipt himself from the device. When we left the store, we disinfected our hands again. That was the biggest corona experience we've had so far.

👨‍🌾 Job Hunt 👩‍🌾

The actual reason why we traveled to Whistler the day after was to buy a SIM card so that we can get a Canadian phone number. We need that for the job search, which is turning out to be more challenging than expected. Julian has sent so many applications in the last four weeks, but no one has replied. Only one job agency has contacted us, and we are trying to get a farm job nearby through them. Unfortunately, the farmer didn't get back to us, so we contacted the farm personally through Facebook again. As a result, we have a job interview over the phone in two days. I also contacted a horse ranch that got back to us right away. However, it is a bit further away, and here we wouldn't earn any money but work in exchange for room and board. If the conversation with the farmer on Tuesday doesn't go well, we will travel back to Vancouver at the end of April to look for jobs all over Canada from there. That means that we could potentially travel by plane to accept a job. At the moment, we have only applied in the area that we can reach with public transportation.

🐻 Bears 🐻

No, we still haven't seen any bears! I have already read all the warning and information signs about bears and how to deal with them in Whistler. We're starting to really want to see one.

📺 Netflix pays off 🎬

In the past few weeks, Julian and I have watched so many series that it could be considered our job.

🃏 Our favorite games 🎲

Before Susan flew back to Germany, she gave us games as a gift, and we had one last game night as a threesome. Julian really wanted to play Monopoly. And just like the last times, I went bankrupt first again. Even though it was so frustrating, everything was still fine. But when we played Settlers and Julian won for the umpteenth time, the situation escalated. Julian actually wanted to build a road in the spot where I wanted to build a settlement in the next rounds. After a mean 'You've got to be kidding!', he did build his road elsewhere, but what can I say: He won the game again, of course. Susan and Josh also taught us a card game called Shithead. This game is really fun (because I finally win sometimes), and we often play it as a duo. I also looked up a few instructions on the internet to play cards with just one player. That's where I found a game called 'The Clock'. I think it's really cool and I play it often. Julian finds it rather boring, so I always threaten him that he has to play 'The Clock' if he doesn't stop annoying me. It has become a real bargaining chip!

🎂 The Chocolate Cake Challenge 🍫

In the past few weeks, I have baked three chocolate cakes to find the most delicious recipe! I think I have it now. The special thing here is that we don't have a scale, so I have to measure all the baking ingredients with cups. So I had to convert my found recipes from grams to cups. The first one wasn't so tasty and a bit dry. The second cake tasted better but was a little dry again. But yesterday, I succeeded in making a really moist, chocolaty cake! Is it because I stirred in the triple amount of chocolate chips into the batter? Maybe!

Here's the recipe: Mix 200 g butter (7/8 cup), 180 g sugar (1 cup), 2 tsp vanilla sugar, ¼ tsp salt. Then stir in 3 eggs one after the other. Then add 10 tbsp milk. Mix the dry ingredients (200 g flour (1 2/3 cups), 2 ½ tsp baking powder, 60 g cocoa powder (2/3 cup)) and fold into the batter. Then gently fold in 150 g chocolate chips (1 cup). I used a loaf pan. Preheat the oven to 175 degrees Celsius (356 degrees Fahrenheit) and bake for about 50 minutes. Test with the wooden stick method. The cake must definitely cool down a bit, as it has a chocolaty core.

📸 The new hobbies 📖✍

I am now a hobby photographer and hobby writer.

One day I spent some time with my phone camera and tried some things out. Now I just need cool subjects! Little bear is coming out! 😉

And I started writing stories. Every day I search for an opening sentence and then write a story for five minutes. Today it was about a jungle adventure.

Julian started doing sports every day. I joined in one day and had muscle soreness for three days.