The weekend recap.
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Friday
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I worked up until ten, when Josh decided he wanted to go out drinking. He invited me & John, and Paul & Jen, Adam, Laura, and some random people. John picked getting Greg to fix his car over going out. Paul & Jen picked sleep over going out. I should have also picked sleep, considering that I was intending to drive to Vancouver early Saturday morning. Whatever. Few friendly beers wouldn't hurt anyone, right?
Thanks to the fact that everyone else got off earlier, they were all pretty much partied out by the time Josh and I arrived on deck. I spent the evening trying to keep away from scary boys and trying to find josh a nonscary girl to make up for the crazy he got saddled with last weekend. There was a good deal of insanity and dancing and rabble rousing. I remember trying to set him up with Jennifer from my theatre class and arguing over whether or not he was doing a reasonable job of protecting me with Nicole from BP. In the end, no one slept with anyone (the silly man only took one phone number, even though he is reasonably good-looking).
I was taken home once I'd passed my limit, where I was sweetly delivered directly to John.
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Saturday
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We woke up at 10.00 and were off by 11.00. I had three Midol and two Gravol and a lot of water and a stomachache in me. In Merritt I added a bagel and a danish and felt a good bit better. We made it to Tsawwassen around 2.30 and drove straight to Mike's work to pick up the tickets. I was very much not feeling good and barely dressed and not pretty even a bit, but I think I managed to smile. Mike threw a map at my head trying to direct me to Burnaby.
In Burnaby, we picked the same hotel we stayed at last time by the Gilmore SkyTrain station. It's right across from where they film Stargate, but I did not see MacGuyver. Anyway, we completely fell asleep for a few hours and then took the train downtown. We found the Plaza Club and then went looking for food. We settled on crépes, because it is funny that you can get crépes from random vendors on the sidewalk in the city.
After a show filled with facial hair, Nardwuar and meeting people I love, we found a sushi place and had some dinner. Because it is funny that you can get decent late-night sushi from random restaurants in the city. It was good, but not quite as good as Sanbiki. Possibly because they take less risks and definitely because they didn't care as much about presentation.
We took the train home, and I called Tim on the way to tell him that I bought a tshirt from Nardwuar, because he was the only person I knew that would appreciate a Nardwuar story. We also ran into a lot of fancily-dressed people coming from the symphony. Apparently the VSO was performing across the street and Mike was there.
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Sunday
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We woke up and took the train downtown, intending to lunch with Mike and then go see Body Worlds 3. We got off near BC Place and called Mike, because he was going to meet us and take us to Floata for dim sum. We waited at the Tinseltown Starbucks. Mike is a Starbucks fiend, so we assumed he would be able to locate such a major Chinatown Starbucks. Well, somewhere along the way, Mike got lost and road ragey, so we made him park and then we walked to him. Past a dead rat. Yep.
After that, we went to Floata and had expensive dim sum that was good, but not quite great. I accidentally bit some pork, but that is the danger of dim sum. Good times were had and Mike did not throw anything at me. When walking back to the car, I think we had it in our heads to visit the Weird Giant Abacus, but we ended up detouring into a park. We got lost in the park and then went wandering into a bamboo forest to hunt pandas. There were no pandas, but there was a poisoned rat trap!
After that, he dropped us off at Science World.
Body Worlds was amazing. If you have a chance to see it, wherever it is, and do not find the concept utterly immoral, you should must go. We waited over an hour to get in, but there are worse places in the world to wait than Science World. We played with some sciencey toys and watched a little show on visual illusions and a movie on animation.
When we finally got in, we were just transfixed. All the exhibits are in a dark room and are brightly lit. Most of them are just on pedestals; very few are in cases. This means that you can get right up to them and check everything out. All the artfully posed ones were absolutely beautiful, their muscles all fanned out so that you could see how everything fit together. One woman had her artificial knee and hip displayed. Most had their brains (and occasionally other organs) outside their bodies so that you could see all the important pieces up close.
There were a few kids there with parents (there were far less kids in Body Worlds than in Science World in general). One child was looking at a hemorrhaged brain while her mother was explaining to her about her grandfather's stroke and why he couldn't move the right half of his body anymore. All the kids we saw were not the noisy Science World kids that were running around touching everything. They were like the rest of the crowd: solemn and curious and stunned.
My favourite pieces? There was a man standing there, with everything intact but his skin. He was holding his skin - all his skin, peeled off in one piece. He was probably the most gruesome of all of them, but he showed how fragile people were without their skins, and how clearly important and large and fragile skin itself is.
I was very moved by all the pieces that were -just- blood vessels. Everything else was dissolved away, leaving these delicate networks of red lines. There was a lamb and a rooster, as well as people. I was amazed at just how many blood vessels are in a living thing.
My impression of the whole thing was awe. I was grossed out and amazed and humbled by the whole experience.
Brains are very small. Hearts are very big.