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So!! And now an entry about the entire reason I'm here in Winnipeg - Sabaton's concert!

There were two opening acts - Wings of Steel first, then Pop Evil. Never heard of either of those. Wings of Steel has a very classic sound, very Iron Maiden-ish in style. It's one of the flavours that originally drew me to the genre back in the day. They did a great job.

Pop Evil are a Canadian nu metal band. Think like... Linkin Park circa Meteora, maybe. If this had come out two decades ago I would have been all over it. ...Actually I still really liked it, going to have to look them up again later.

Anyway. Sabaton!!!

The venue is a beautiful old theatre. It's kind of small, and I suspect that's why they did 2 nights in Winnipeg back to back. I went on the second night. Apparently there were several people who came to both shows! Joakim said that on this particular tour they were trying to hit some cities that they don't always have a chance to get to - hence, the Winnipeg shows, and Halifax, etc.

They opened with "Ghost Division", and from there it was banger after banger. They put on a great show! Joakim sounded great, there was a lot of positive energy, it was all awesome. They did have pyrotechnics and some props but for the most part the visuals were scaled down to fit into the small theatre, and the overall effect was close and intimate. I think it worked prety well.

This tour is partly to promote their new album, Legends, but they actually didn't play many songs from that album! They played "I, Emperor", "Crossing the Rubicon", and "Hordes of Khan". The rest was a mix of older but recent-ish stuff. I was super excited to hear "The Last Stand", as I really love that one. Also, when they played "Attack of the Dead Men", Joakim came out in a WWI-esque outfit with greatcoat and gas mask and a tank of "gas", spraying fog everywhere, haha. It was fucking wicked. I have no idea how he managed to sing in that getup, but he did an awesome job of it.

I was not expecting them to play "Carolus Rex", but they sure did, and in Swedish too!! AHH

A lot of my favourites unfortunately weren't played, but many of them are either kind of old or kind of niche, so I wasn't expecting it. Like, they usually only play "Blood of Bannockburn" when they're in Scotland, and "Coat of Arms" when they're in Greece. I am kind of surprised that they didn't play "Ghost in the Trenches", though. It's the only song they have about a specific person from Canada. (And while there are definitely arguments to be made about that one re: representing Canada, I am skeptical that it would be a consideration). WELL... okay, clearly this means that they should write more songs about people from Canada, and then they should come back to Canada to sing them. :P I kind of wish they'd write one about William Stephenson, AKA codename Intrepid. But like, who knows what the future will hold.

Anyway. Great show! I had an awesome time! Definitely would see them again. And I'm glad that I came to see them at a small venue. It was a much different experience than the metal shows I've attended at arenas (Iron Maiden in Edmonton, and Trans-Siberian Orchestra in Saskatoon).

Anyway, here's the setlist:
( Setlist )

Today I went to the Manitoba Museum. The highlight of the exhibit was the replica of the Nonsuch merchant ship. Basically, it's a full-sized and fully functional replica of a 17th-century ketch! It was built in England and sailed to North America in the 1970s, and now it's in the museum. You can actually go on the deck of it, too. Very awesome.

Then in the afternoon, I went to the Winnipeg Art Gallery. They have a very large collection of Inuit sculpture, so that was cool. Also a lot of other indigenous art. The contemporary exhibits also had some interesting things; there was this one enormous black canvas with the designs picked out in staples (like, the kind that go in a stapler). It was really hard to photograph because the staples play against the light in a very weird way.

I was very tired at the end of the day, but that's okay! In the evening, I just hung out and wrote some postcards for Postcrossing.

The Sabaton concert is tomorrow night; I'm really looking forward to it.

ALL RIGHT. So I arrived safely in Winnipeg. Hooray.

Got up at 5 AM, arrived at my hotel around 4:30 PM. Pretty standard.

Since it was somewhat late in the day, there wasn't much time to do anything particular. I'd considered going to the Exchange district, but a lot of stuff I was interested in was closed by the time I'd finished checking in and getting settled. So far the weather is good, though!

Made a miscalculation when getting my bus pass, so I'm going to need to pick up an additional pass for my final day. Not the end of the world, but I should have checked more carefully.

Discoveries so far:

- There is a cafe near my hotel that is open relatively late and has lots of space to sit down and read, or work on fic, or whatever. Nice!! Seems like it might cater to the university crowd. It's the kind of place that I miss; Fort Mac doesn't have anything like that.

- The transit system is so far relatively easy to navigate. Much like Edmonton, there is a notification at the front of the bus showing the next stop. (As comparison, Fort Mac's buses have no stop announcements whatsoever.) The online route lookup system is both helpful and convoluted. You can input your start location, destination, and what time you want to leave, and receive several route options - but there does not seem to be a way to look up a table of the stops for specific routes. It makes me appreciate Edmonton and Victoria's downloadable route PDFs.

- I didn't want to hang around my hotel all evening, so I took the bus to the mall. Figured out where the bus transfer station is, got some nice basics for work, and a few frivolous things that I didn't need (Lush shower gels, how I enjoy you).

- Had a funny discussion with a bus driver when trying to figure out which route I needed to take. I was trying to get to somewhere on Portage Ave, and he didn't recognize which street I meant. I was confused because it's a very big street and a bus driver would definitely know it. Turns out I was pronouncing it the French way, and apparently locals pronounce it in a way that rhymes with 'garbage'. (Example on Forvo). "You're not from around here, eh?" Definitely not.

The weather's supposed to be nice tomorrow, so I'm hoping to do some of the Outside Things on my to-do list.

Feeling very procrastinatory today.

I have such a small list of things that I absolutely have to do, but I just... ugh, motivating myself to get up and do them is so hard. Why is it so damn difficult to do the ironing?

Maaaannnn I really wish I didn't have to go to work today. It would be really nice to just, like, stay home. Hang out. Watch a movie. Work on some fic. Maybe take a nice walk.

Sigh.

I inked up my new Sailor fountain pen today! I really like it!

I used the Iroshizuku Asa-Gao for the ink. A nice light/medium blue; it looks really good. Not too light to be legible; it's just right.

The pen writes really well. I was worried it'd be very similar to the Jinhao 82, but no! Well, in weight it is - it's just as comfortable to hold. But the Japanese Medium-Fine line width is much much thinner than the Chinese Medium, so that alone is a significant difference.

The texture of the writing is also different. The reviews weren't exaggerating; it really does feel like writing with a pencil! Apparently the nibs have a specific texture that gives them that effect. Some people love it, and some people hate it; put me down as someone that loves it.

The colour of the pen is very nice too. A nice mellow light blue. Very calming.

I'm so glad that I decided to get it. I really didn't need another pen, but... this is kind of like, a combination of celebrating milestone birthday plus judo blue belt plus getting through a month of working alone. It's frivolous but special.