Perogies

There are lots of little stories I still want to tell and record about our wedding weekend.  It's cliche but honestly, it really was one of the best weekends of my life, if not the best.  But before you roll your eyes at that, what could be better than gathering all the people you love together in one place and getting to spend time with them?  How do you top that?

So anyway, this is the story of how my sister Megan and I went to Folkfest two nights before my wedding.

I generally enjoy going to Saskatoon's Folkfest and eating my way through the various pavilions, although for the past few years my work schedule hasn't left me in town during Folkfest weekend.  But!  This year, my wedding was on Folkfest weekend, and this was possibly going to be my last chance to go to Folkfest for several years until my schedule shifts.  I decided, around 4:00pm on the Thursday before my Saturday wedding, that I was going to Folkfest.

I texted Brahm and asked him if he wanted to come with me but he had already made plans to play video games or something with his friends, so I convinced Megan to come.  "All I really want is perogies and cabbage rolls" I said.  "Let's just quickly catch the bus, go to Prairieland" (where the Ukrainian pavilion was located) "and come home.  Get on the bus at 5, eat perogies at 6, we'll be home by 7."  Conveniently, one of the pavilions was located just two blocks down from our house so we hopped on the bus, hungry and ready for perogies.

Except... we forgot how freaking long it takes to use the Folkfest bus.  My brilliant idea of "we don't have to worry about parking at Prairieland!" was definitely a bad idea, due to not attending Folkfest for the previous few years and forgetting how slow the bus is.  During our time waiting to get to our destination, we planned out a route of about 6 or 7 pavilions we would patronize that night before eventually getting off the bus near our house.  We transferred at City Hall and HONESTLY 2 hours later, got so hungry that we jumped off the bus at the German pavilion (we still had not made it to Prairieland), scarfed schnitzels, and missed the next bus.  So, we waited for another 15-20 minutes, got on the NEXT bus, and were eating perogies by 8:00pm.  NOT JOKING, a full 3 hours after we got on the bus.

After the perogies, we went to the Greek pavilion (the food there is always to die for), stuffed ourselves some more, and then realized we were totally Folkfested out.  After 3 pavilions.  At 8:30pm.

After another hour on the bus, driving all over the city (and literally past our house) on a hilariously empty bus, we decided enough was enough, hopped off downtown, and walked home. 

Was going to Folkfest two nights before my wedding a waste of time, money, and energy?  Probably, although we did sell our passports on Kijiji the next day.  And it was kind of ridiculous and fun, maybe in a "you had to be there" way, but complaining about the slow bus and eating schnitzel, perogies, and Greek donuts is one of those silly wedding weekend memories I will cherish for a long time.

And a Happy Kijiji New Year

It's been a while.  My Christmas break was busy and I just didn't feel like spending time on the computer most days.  One thing I don't think I've mentioned on here yet is that Brahm and I finally bought a house.  We actually bought it a few months ago, and move in in a couple weeks.  Overall, buying a house and house hunting was a far more emotional experience than I'd originally anticipated and I decided to stop blogging about it.

But anyway, we have now begun the process of purging things we don't want to take with us - this mostly includes a few pieces of ugly, cheap student furniture, the biggest of which was an older blue couch.

You know all about my bad Kijiji experience with the monitors so I was not looking forward to trying to sell a couch on Kijiji.  Plus, looking at Kijiji Saskatoon brought up tons of couches that people were giving away for free - how could I compete?  I asked as many people I could think of if they wanted or knew anyone wanting a free couch, to no avail. 

So finally, I decided to put the couch on Kijiji just to see what happened.  I took a co-worker's advice about not putting it on for free, because free generally means "garbage".  I took a few respectable pictures with my DSLR camera and posted an ad, asking $50.

(Dude - this is the power of a DSLR.  It looks super bright in our apartment, right?  It was totally a cloudy, dreary day but I still managed to take these without a flash.)

I also put some rules in my ad, to the effect of "I hate being jerked around by buyers, so here are the rules you need to follow if you want this couch."

And wouldn't you know, I had an interested buyer in about 30 seconds.  She used real sentences (not "can u take pic thx"), told me what her name was, and showed up well on time.  I also had two more interested people lined up if the first buyer didn't work out.

The girl who picked up the couch told me that I was the only seller on Kijiji who even responded to her.  It drives me nuts when people don't remove their ads after their item has sold and just ignore emails that come in about it - come on people, that is bad Kijiji etiquette!

The moral of the story is, I think I have learned my lesson about Kijiji buyers.  My rules are going in all future ads.  I am sure I'll get burned by some more idiot buyers in the future but this experience has restored my faith that good Kijiji buyers do exist, especially if you lay down the ground rules from the start.