The windy city

Hi again!

After my roadtrip in Quebec I left Ontario on May 4th to move on to Chicago. Thanks to my friend Victor who introduced me to Couchsurfing and he also suggested me to stay at his friends place. Thanks here for hosting John!

I arrived by bus after a 12 hours ride at the bus terminal and had to figure out how to get to John’s workplace. I was too lazy to organize that beforehand and unfortunately the bus terminal’s wifi didn’t work for me. I had to look for the next Starbucks to get information about the transit system in Chicago.

After an hour I finally figured it out and met John at his workplace. He showed me where I have to go for 3 hours until he finished work. Here is the result of my short trip:
I think there is the tallest parking garage I have ever seen.

The Sky Bean at the Millenium Park. You better don’t have a weak stomache if you go in there 😀

For the first time I tried to walk on water, easier than I have expected 😀

I came back and we took the subway to his place. The next morning I had to buy some groceries therefore I opened google maps and see there, an ALDI, the first one ever I have seen until now in North America.
Of course I bought a lot of stuff 😀

Around noontime I went to Chinatown, my second stop in the city after Millennium Park. The weather was not as good as expected, very foggy therefore I decided to go to the waterfront not that far away from Chinatown. When I arrived there I saw a lot of people hanging out next to the Hilton Hotel. For sure I had to figure out what’s going on there and had a look. It was the Microsoft Exposition what happened during that week I’ve been there. I got some free drinks, snacks and ice cream and spent an hour at Starbucks in there.

A typical american street:

I figured out my chinese zodiac:

The expo hall and the white sox stadium on my way home:

When I came back to downtown it was already getting dark and I decided to walk through town and it paid off. I got some amazing pictures from skyscrapers covered in fog. I promise you one of these will be another wallpaper hanging on my home’s wall.

On Wednesday, the third day in Chicago I decided to visit the university of Chicago. Therefore I had to walk quite a long way from the subway to the university itself but I also took a few pictures:

The University itself looks very similar to the ones you can see in the movies all the time. The houses where the students live (unfortunately I took no picture) are old fashioned and the lecture halls are mostly new. On my way I also passed by the museum of science and technology.
The weather was still not good to see downtown from the waterfront.

The next day, Thursday my last full day in Chicago I had luck with the weather. Incredible 30 degrees Celsius, the first really warm they ever since I have been in America. I borrowed John’s bike and did a biketrip more than 30 kilometers the whole day. All along the waterfront. My first stop was the Lincoln Park Zoo. I don’t know why but I didn’t find a statue of him there, only of Schiller…. Whatever. I haven’t planned to spent any time in the Zoo but since it was free and the weather was so nice I locked my bike near the entrance and walked through it in about one hour:

I headed further to the waterfront around 3pm and I had an excellent view of downtown. For sure I had to take a few pictures. I went further to the Navy Pier, a very touristic place but I didn’t go in there, nothing for me there to do by bike.

My next stop was Willi’s tower. I arrived there around 5pm by bike and went up the tower. Fortunately Chicago is located far north therefore the sunset was quite late, I think 7:00 pm or so as I can remember. I met 2 nice girls there, both from Poland and we decided to take pictures for each other. Unfortunately I forgot to ask them for their contact information.

After that long day I went for dinner for Cicago’s most famous pizza: The pan-pizza.
It looks weird and it tastes very different from a regular one. For me it was a one time try experience 😉
By the way this one is the smallest available pizza and it was almost enough for me 😮

This was my time in Chicago, in the next post I will tell you about my visit at Brian’s place in Regina.

See ya fellas #1

PS: A short video footage about my biketrip and some other exciting things

Good Bye Waterloo :'(

We dropped Victor in Toronto and the rest of us headed back to Waterloo. Daniel, Stefan and Sebastian slept in my room but before, Sebastian, Stefan and me wanted to go out. Therefore we called a taxi to downtown. I wanted to show them Phils’ but it was closed on a Thursday so we went to a club very close to the university: Brixton, where we enjoyed an awesome last night in Waterloo. After the club closed, I had to show them the best pizza I have ever eaten: Campus pizza. They are also in the guinnes book of world records for the longest pizza ever and I think you gyus enjoyed it as well as I can remember 😉

We arrived at home around 4am and I had to get up in the morning around 7 because we didn’t pack anything yet and I had to return the car in Toronto until 6pm AND we wanted to see the Niagara Falls. For me the 4^th time at the falls but the most amazing one. Of course the frozen falls in March were amazing too but a boat tour close to the falls… that was great as well.

Have you seen the US-boat on the pictures? Everyone on that was dressed in a blue rain coat, on our side everyone had a red one 😉
It looked like Canada and US wanted to be clearly separated.

After that amazing morning we went back to Toronto and tried to return the car but it was rush hour and there was a construction site on the street where our rental company was located. Therefore it took us almost two hours just to find the return location – which was actually an underground garage only clearly signed from one direction, the other one of course L. Finally we called the company to find it and returned it just before they closed.

This night was the first of May and we slept at Taissa’s home, thank you again for your hospitality.
I hope we will meet sometime again… Austria is a nice country 😉

Due that it was Friday and May 1^st, a free day in Austria, we had to party. Therefore I texted my friend Jaya who stayed in Toronto for those days, what a good location for party is. She told me she and her friends also go out and asked us to join. We ended up being on a Rap DJ Concert close to downtown. I have to say that actually Rap is my least favorite music ever but this day it was better than I expected it – probably because of the famous DJ.

We got wasted of course and tried to get up early the next morning so Sebastian and Stefan can at least go up the CN Tower to have a great view. I skipped that part this time because I have been up there already 2 times. They took my camera with them but I forgot to tell them how to turn on the flash therefore they weren’t able to take good pictures of themselves, sorry for that.

When we were around the Yonge-Square – a small kind of Times-Square – we saw a lot of people dressed in orange. Of course we knew where they have to be from: Netherlands. I think it was a national day or something.

After the short sight seeing tour I took them to the Airport and said good-bye.

The next day – I knew Victor was still in the city – I called him to meet up to go through Toronto where I haven’t been yet: The castle and the university district.

In front of the University there is a big park located where we saw a lot of squirrels. Of course I had to take out my other lens and ‘catch’ a few of them.

To the end of the day Victor and me went to the cinema to see the new Avengers movie. It was the first time for me that I went to a cinema here on that continent and it was also my last night in Ontario. My bus left at 1am in the morning towards Chicago where I arrived around noontime.
But that will be in another post 😀

In the end a video about my last post: The Québec roadtrip:

See ya fellas #1

Visit from Austria #2 – Québec Roadtrip

Greetings!

During my last exam on April 24^th my brother and a friend arrived on campus therefore Victor took care of them and showed them downtown. When I finished I called him and we met at SLC all together – including Daniel. Stefan was already on his way to Chicago. It was the night prior our road trip so we headed out for our last big dinner. We called Peter (mentor of Victor), Nolan and some more of my colleagues.

On Saturday we picked up our car – fortunately the guy at the rental company gave us a bigger car, almost a van for the same price as a small economy car. We packed our stuff and picked up Victor from his place, he had to take all his luggage with him because he wouldn’t come back therefore our car was filled up to the top, very uncomfortable. Before we started Sebastian had to take a selfie with a real canadian goose:

But Victor knew that and he dropped his luggage on our way to Ottawa in Toronto at his friends place. Good for the back row they had more space then.
The ride itself was more than 6 hours and we arrived late in the night around 10 o’clock – 9 was planned. We had a lot of stops on our way and Daniel drove almost all the time.
In Ottawa we checked in our hostel, a very special one, it was a former jail. I liked it, very nostalgic but also a bit scary.

On the next day, Sunday we checked out and rented a bike for the day. After an hour or so Daniel had some serious problems with his one and we had to change it at the station.
We took the bike across the whole town to see the most important buildings, it was very interesting.

The canadian courthouse looks like a fortress

In front of the museum there was the ‘first’ Notre-Dame we saw on our way – I think there was at least one in every city on our trip. The church looked like a video game texture, the white top was weird.
After that we went to the politic buildings, the parliament and few others. On the way Victor lost his glasses, we were shocked because we thought his real optical ones which are very expensive of course but actually he lost his sunglasses – 10$ worth right?
I was fascinated, there was that one ‘fountain’ with all the provincial emblems around it and a fire in the middle of the water:

The next church, not far away from the first one, was special. When we drove buy we figured out that the old church was built in – or visa-verse – into a new glass building which looked quite good that way.

For lunch we went to the Mill Street brewery which Daniel and me already knew from our NYE trip in Toronto. We got some awesome food and good beer there.
We arrived back at the hostel in the afternoon and made our way again more than 6 hours to Quebec City. This time I drove all the way and everyone was sleeping in the car. I actually liked it and wasn’t tired at all. I like driving during night when it is silent in the car and there are almost no cars on the highway. When it already got dark and we were in the middle of nowhere they woke up and told me that we have to stop for a toilet. Unfortunately there was none around so I stopped in the pampa right after some random exit I took. It was dark as hell and it remind us of a horror movie. Noone around and no lights at all on the street.

We arrived in Quebec City very late around 11 – 10pm was the plan. We checked in and wanted to go to bed but we had an American roommate. He asked us what we will do tonight therefore we told him that we probably have a short look around to see what’s going on. In company we wandered around and found some nice pub for ‘pre-drink’. Just around the corner there was a club where a live band was playing, on a Monday night which was very suspicious but yeah good for us. We went in and had an awesome and funny night. As an Austrian tradition, we had to be the last ones who left the club. The door closed behind us around 3pm – only Sebastian, Stefan and me have been there until that time, Victor and Daniel already left. In front of the club we met some more random guys. When we were standing there we realized that there were 3 cop cars standing on the other side of the street. We made fun of them because they tried to hide and watch us. After 10 minutes they got bored and left all together 🙂

On the way back to our hostel we stopped by a Poutine fast food restaurant where I had my best Poutine ever. Unfortunately I can’t remember how the place was called, probably it was that good because I was a bit drunk J.

In the next morning we headed out early around 9am and checked out. We walked around the waterfront to see the peer. It is one of the biggest in the area because the Quebec river gets very wide after Quebec city and goes into the sea.

Then we headed to Oldtown, in my opinion the best place on our roadtrip. Very old fashioned with the biggest chateau in the middle of the town I’ve ever seen. The view was amazing high above the city.
We also went shopping there and Sebastian found some nice hats.

In front of the Chateau we met Jean-Sebastienn. We thought we won’t make it to see him but we did. Also we could have met him in Ottawa already but forgot to text him. We got dinner in the middle of Oldtown where I had my first Steak in Canada, very good actually but also expensive, 30$ almost.
After we did a small hike around to see the big fort which is built into the hill behind the chateau. Furthermore one of the pictures is in front of the Quebéc Parliament.

We said good-bye to Jean-Sebastienn – I hope we will meet soon somewhere in France, probably I stop by in Marseille sometime – and drove to the highest Waterfalls in Canada I guess. I can’t remember exactly but I think they were about 90 meters:

Then we headed to Montreal which was only 4 hours away but we started quite late in the afternoon therefore we arrive just 5 minutes before they would have closed. It was rated the second best hostel in whole Canada for years in the middle of downtown.
Sebastian and Stefan wanted to go out but we stayed in our room because we were tired of driving.
The next morning we asked what we should do in Montreal and headed out to the big hill in the middle of the city where we had a great view:

On the top of the hill we stopped by the ‘peakcross’ – I don’t know if it’s so called in English. There was a wise sentence written on the bottom of it:

Furthermore on our way back we saw the Olympic stadium from the 90s. Very huge and awesome looking.
Back in the city we went to the biggest church in town, the Saint Joseph church.

In the afternoon we went to the Olympic stadium which was really huge and spent there 2 hours just to walk once around. I think I did 100 pictures only of the stadium itself. Unfortunately it was closed to visitors because of preparations for the swimming world cup. It would have opened on the first of May, just a few days later.

Back in the hostel we prepared to go out and met a german girl. We decided to go out together and she showed us an awesome place. Such a coincident it was the same place as Sebastian and Stefan were the night before but this time it was packed and 9$ cover but therefore the drinks were quite cheap. We had a great time and went home around 3. Stefan wanted to had a picture with a policemen in front of the club but he declined it J

On Wednesday the last real day in Montreal we went to the island where we rent a bike to drive around. We saw some weird structures like the biodome and headed by the amusement park which was closed as well. That one mysterious sculpture is called ‚The Man‘

On the second island right next to the first one there was a casino but we just drove by. Around the whole island there was a race track which we drove with our bikes, it took us about 20 minutes to finish it.

Back in town in the afternoon we get off the subway in downtown and wandered around the rest of the day. We had a good pizza at an Italian restaurant and of course I shot a few pictures of some buildings.
By the way: watch out swimming in the fountain isn’t recommended.

In the evening we went to the oldest church in town and guess what it is called: Notre-Dame … number 4 on our trip.
But this time it really looked like the one in Paris, just a few meters smaller.

This night we all went to bed early and no one headed out for party. We had to drive a long way, actually the longest on our road trip about 8 hours back to Toronto therefore we decided to make a 2 hours stop in Kingston, a beautiful small town between Ottawa and Toronto. We took the ferry to the conservation area to have a great view over the town and headed back with the next one.

For a good ending of our roadtrip we went in Toronto to a concert: Simple Plan was in town at it was free entry with free drinks. That is how it works if Coca-Cola is sponsoring the female FIFA Worldcup.

That was our amazing roadtrip. We didn’t return our car because Stefan, Sebastian and me have planned another trip but this is part of the next post.

See ya fellas #1

Fotoshooting

Hi everyone!

It’s quite a long time ago that I wrote my last post. I am right now traveling through South-West-America and very busy therefore this one will be very short.
Back in April during the exam period my best friends and colleagues from my exchange term came together a last time to make group pictures in front of some important places on campus.
The first one is obviously the university sign in front of the south entrance. Our next one was in front of the SCH building, thinking it would be a nice picture in the grass but actually with all the geese there it was kinda gross:

The other 2 ones are in front of the big library which is kinda unique in its form and the main building for all not-teaching stuff: The SLC (Student Life Center) where a lot of club’s offices, restaurants, pubs, music rooms, activity rooms and the main hall are located.

We finished our shooting in front of the Davis Center and the newest building on campus – the fifth engineering building, which is quite huge. Waterloo is doing it right: More engineers make the world to a better place 😉

I hope now all of you gyus got the pictures if you didn’t get an invitation on Google drive and for all others you got a little bit of an introduction about the most important campus facilities.
As soon as I have more time I will post the Quebec-Roadtrip.

See ya fellas #1

 

 

 

 

 

 

Visit from Austria #1

Hey there, it has been quite a long time since my last post but I finally found some time to write you the next one:

Still in March (sorry I can’t remember the exact day anymore) I decided to join an outdoor event at the university. It was called the outdoor survivor workshop where a few others and me learned how to build a shelter and make fire and of course all scenarios where set up in a cold region.
The first thing we discussed was a plane crash and which items from the listed we would prefer to survive as long as possible.

After that everyone got a ‘snowbaby’ we had to hide somewhere outside for 15 minutes and it should survive, meaning it has to be still liquid after. I tried my best but my one was on the way to heaven:

Furthermore to survive in the cold we learned how to build a quinzhee. Ok it was prepared for us, because building a whole one would have taken much too long, we just digged a whole into it and took some pictures.

After all that work we rewarded ourselves with marshmallows over our self-prepared fire. By the way the best thing to lit it on is birch bark, just for the case you ever have to survive outside 😉

The night when a part of my family was going to visit me, the club in which I participated had concert. We had a fun time and I experienced to play a bohemian clarinet. It is quite different but after a few rehearsals I was in it.
After the concert I let a lot of my colleagues sign my Canadian flag and we went to the next restaurant to have a last dinner together.

It was March 29^th after the concert when my sister and mum visited me for 5 days, they arrived quite late in the night. The next day we rented a car to go to the Niagara falls – the 3^rd time for me already. This time we met some gulls and again took some pictures. We parked also at the same spot as I went there the last 2 times.

In the morning the weather was not quite that good therefore we decided to have lunch early on top of the skylon tower. Unfortunately there was no all you can eat buffet on weekdays.
After a nice dinner we went back to the falls with much better conditions, the sun was out and we saw a few rainbows

We spent almost the whole day there but I had to go back to meet Daniel on campus because unfortunately I had my English final exam that week on Thursday therefore I picked up some homework to prepare for it.

On our second day I took them to the Webster falls – thanks to my roommate here who recommended me this place. We stayed there again all the day and took a lot of pictures. Unfortunately it was raining a bit so it was quite muddy on the trails.
By the way those are the highest waterfalls in the area, as I can remember one was about 70 meters.

By the way, that’s how you take a selfie with a SLR camera:

Imagine how beautiful that tree would look like if it would be summer 😀

The falls from the other side of the river, the second falls which are much higher and the trail to the viewpoint:

After all when we reached the lookout point we got rewarded with good weather and a very great view. That was the time to have a tea break 😀

We still had time and we drove to the next closest park: the crooks hillow conservation area. It was a much shorter walk but it lead to a dam. It look quite nice with all the ice on that huge area. The dam itself was quite small but it didn’t matter for the great picture.

Finally we arrived back in waterloo where I prepared dinner for us – Chinese rice with vegetables. Furthermore I returned the car because we wouldn’t have needed it again.
Also I went to the last ICSN event of the term – bubble café – where I met all my friends I made during the term for the last time. We had a great time and did a final group picture together:

Our next day I had not that much time because a few classmates and me had to sit together to prepare for our final exam therefore we took the bus to a very close town near waterloo called St. Jacobs. It’s a very tiny old fashioned looking town, like a western town. When we got off the bus we stood in front of the museum and of course we had a look in there. We saw a lot of old maps of the region – look how Kitchener was called in the former years before the First World War.

After the museum I had a quick look at the block three brewing company and my sister and mom bought some souvenirs and some cookies from the local bakery. My sister told me how the people are called who worked there– they don’t use electricity at all – but unfortunately I can’t remember anymore.

After that quick trip I went back to university to sit together with my classmates to prepare for our final exam.

The next day we didn’t go out at all. We woke up late and I headed to my class for our exam around noontime. When I came back from campus we packed bags and prepared to leave the next morning.
Their plane was going at night but we still had plans for the last day: Toronto Sight Seeing.
We took the bus to Toronto downtown and stored our bags in the bus station. Our first stop was the waterfront where we bought a ferry ticket to Toronto Island. We had to wait quite a long time so we took some pictures in front of the terminal. The weather was amazing that day as you can see:

The ride was approximately half an hour and the view was awesome:

Unfortunately the water was still frozen on the west side of the island therefore the ferry was only going to the east side which is far away from the center. Furthermore we had to walk half an hour through the island to the amusement park – which was closed due to cold weather conditions – and the small zoo. The main reason to go there is in my opinion the great view of the city skyline:

When we tried to catch the ferry back we had to do some sports: We had to run because we didn’t want to miss it. The next one would have been 90 minutes later and we wanted to go up the CN tower as well. Fortunately we made it and we followed our plans for the day. I went the tower up again the second time, but only the observation deck and not the restaurant as in January. The weather turned again to very cloudy and foggy so we had not had a very good view. We were still able to see the city but this time I couldn’t see to the other end of the lake.

We wandered around in the city for an hour until we took the subway and bus to the airport. I dropped them there, said goodbye and headed back towards waterloo.

I am looking forward to show you a few things about my next trip I did: the QUEBEC-ROADTRIP !

See you fellas #1

Ice Hockey, Maple Syrup, St. Patrick’s and more

Cheers!

In this post I will talk about some common stuff in Canada: Ice hockey, maple syrup and St.Patrick’s Day.
After our Jamaica trip we had the idea to watch the true canadian sport: ice hockey. It has to be cheap and it has to be good, therefore we decided to watch a game of our neighboors the Kitchener Rangers – and yes the New York Rangers have exactly the same logo.
The game was on Friday March the 21st and we all (more information see below) took the bus from Waterloo to Kitchener.
It was in the great Kitchener Memorial Auditorium where all their games are.

Before it started we took a quick look at their merchandise shop and we almost all bought a puck but Jaana wanted to buy something more authentic for her. I think that picture did it really well eh.

Few of us bought something to eat and to drink and we head to our seats in the last row of the stadium – that happens when you buy your ticket 3 days in advance. The game started and after only 5 minutes our team (enemies were the Plymouth Whalers from USA) shot the first goal. After the whole first third Kitchener Rangers had 3 goals and it began to become boring. In the break they did a lot of advertisment and gave away a car. It seemed they do that every game!

We also asked the gyus in front of us to take a picture. I was prepared for that and brought my brand new canadian flag with me (just bought it that morning and as you can see there are no signatures on it yet).

The second third was quite a boring one with only one goal for the Whalers but not the third and ‚last‘ one: The Whalers shot 2 goals and tied the game after the official time therefore they played another third. For those who are not familiar with ice hockey rules, after a tie the teams go into a 4th third but with the rules of the golden goal: Both teams have one player less than during the normal game and the team who shoots the next goal wins the whole game. That made the 4th third the most exciting part: people were screeming and yelling! We joined them and after 8 minutes or so (I can’t read it on the picture) the Rangers shot the golden goal. You can see the Whalers (in white) leaving the field for the celebrations of the winners.

After the game I let all my friends and colleages sign my flag and we head to Morty’s Pub on King street for a pitcher and chicken wings.
It was an awesome afternoon and one of the most exciting games I have seen for a long time 😀

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Probably some of you thought I would or should do sports during that long time in Canada even the gym was completely free. You were right at that point. Stefan, Stefan and me took a Krav-Maga class for 8 weeks over the term. It was quite a new experience, funny to practice and also very exhausting – for the first 20 minutes the lessons are like a boot camp. I will definitely have a look for it when I come back to Vienna.

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The previous big event was Saint Patrick’s day on Tuesday before, March 17th. I bought a ticket for the biggest St.Patrick’s Day outdoor tent party in Canada (they wrote on their homepage but I can’t believe it). I tried to meet my friend Sujay there but we didn’t figure it out. They began to drink around 9 in the morning so he wasn’t able to communicate anymore in the afternoon when the party started. I drank my first beer at noontime and arrived at the party around 3pm. It was very cold and they had no coat check at the party so I had to walk back to the university to drop my jacket in my locker at the PAC (around15 minutes walk from the party location). When I came back I met Stefan and Matt at the VIP entrance. We waited about 5 minutes until they told us that they are not allowed to let more people in. I couldn’t believe it, I had a VIP ticket and we were waiting for an hour in front of the entrance. Finally they let us in and we spent a couple hours listening to real loud and good techno music until a live band from Ireland (or at least one who was playing irish music) came on stage. They were real good and we drank a few more beers until the tent got almost empty around 6pm. The party was made to last until 7 pm but they shut down the music around 6:30 because there were only a few people left.
So we decided to leave too and went straight to the WCRI basement. The girls went to Molly’s pub to have dinner, we joined them for a beer but decided that we have greater plans for tonight. Therefore we took the next bus to king street where the small pub Phil’s is located. It was quite full that night and we had to wait half an hour prior opening to get in. The dancefloor was really crowded but we figured it out to find a place and after a lot of drinks – the cheapest in whole Waterloo, only 2.25$ for every bar rail – we had a lot of fun

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At university I had one english class where we practiced our presentation skills. Therefore Daniel and me had a product presentation about a real or futuristic product we were able to choose or create. We picked a car which was able to shrink to carry it therefore we called it smart car. That was one of my most favorite and funniest presentations in that class even the preperations where quite a lot of work. Whatch the video if you want to see what our car was able to do (I promise you’ll laugh):

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The next weekend, the 28th of March there was the biggest Maple Syrup festival in whole Canada next to our place: Elmira. Since I have been in Canada I experienced a lot but the best thing of all was maple syrup. It’s delicious especially in combination with pancakes. The whole festival was just for that syrup therefore it was included in every food.

My friends and me went with ICSN to the festival. Thanks here to all their members for organizing the trips, I met a lot of friends and we had a lot of fun.
The festival was not the only thing to see, the town itself was build in a quite old-fashioned style as you can see in the pictures:

But one of the greatest things we did there was the pancake flipping contest. We formed a group – one wednesday before at the ICSN international night at Bombers. We had no practice and no idea how the contest will be but we figured it out very quick and made it to the 3rd place! Unbelievable we beat one of the well prepared groups. After all participating teams played 2 rounds we had the 4th most pancakes flipped into the pan out of 16 teams (or were there even more?)
Therefore we played for the 3rd place against a very good team. We tied one time and the second one we lost just because one of our pancakes swifted over the edge of the last pan, they should have used less oil xD

After the game there was a bird show with lot of different ones from across Canada. The most interesting ones were the owl and the eagle. We had no time to watch more birds because our bus left already at 1:30pm.

I hope you enjoyed reading and watching my post.

See ya fellas #1

Beamer Conservation Area + Niagara Falls #2

Hi all,

this time I will tell you about my trip to the Beamer Conservation Area.
It was Sunday March 8th 2015 when I went with Behzad for our second and last trip together this term.
But before we had to do a lot of work organizing equipment, cars and people. At the beginning we were only 3 but we figured it out with the help of social media and we got a bunch of members for our trip. We also had to rent one additional car and a few snowshoes – it was the first time ever I went snowshoeing 😀

On sunday Bezahd picked me up from my home and we went to a village near the Beamer conservation area to pick up another member. To relocate and find the second car we stopped by an IKEA to get lunch and some coffee. We finally arrived around noontime.

The first pictures were taken at a fallen tree which looked very impressive:

As we kept going we came by a observation spot where we were able to see the great ontario lake and the waterfront of Grimsby.
We asked a couple to take a picture of us:

I don’t have to mention that the weather was incredible awesome. As usual for the most days in Canada the sun was shining and it was cold, but not too cold.
I want to thank Behzad here for lending me his awesome sunglasses. Unfortunately I forgot mine but as you can see his ones are also very stylish 😀

We walked along the given path for quite a long time but we didn’t find what we were looking for: The waterfalls. Therefore we walked back all the way for signs we missed. After we asked other hikers we found the right way: down a cliff with dangerous slippery stairs. After a short walk we reached the frozen falls. They were amazing therefore we spend more than half an hour to do a short photoshoot. I played the leader and climbed up the last dangerous stepsbelow the icicles because someone had to check if it’s dangerous :D. The others followed me:

On our way back we decided to make another group picture for our short descent to the falls. Unfortunately without Behzad because one had to take the picture.

After that awesome photoshooting we went all the way back to our cars to start the second part: Snowshoeing. I grabbed the biggest pair of shoes, slipped in and tryed my first steps ever in these ones. It’s awesome if you walk on snow and ice if you have one with ice cleats on it (the old ones which look like tennis rackets don’t have them):

We took another route with much more snow – we wanted a challenge – and made our way to a cliff with an incredible view. I climbed up a cliff above the actual one – which was quite dangerous – and took some pictures of our group from above:

At this point thank you Stephanie for taking these pictures, they look awesome:

After my visit above I made my way back down to the others and discovered the area close to the cliff. I enjoyed the view and found some time to rest:

After that we headed back to our cars and stored the snowshoes in the trunks. Our next plan was to see the Niagara Falls at sunset. You may think what is special around that time – I thought the same – and you will definitely figure it out if you look at the following pictures. By the way it was the first time I saw the Falls really frozen. Only that fact made my second visit worth it:

Did you see it? Right, there are Rainbows!! I wasn’t able to catch all of them but sometimes when the water splashed very high and the sun was shining very strong we were able to see three rainbows at once! I have never seen that before :O
To never forget this trip we asked one random person to take a picture of us in front of the falls:

After the sun was almost set we went to the welcome center to warm up a little bit. As we reached the end I found some interesting statues standing alone on a bridge above the street. When I saw their expression I had to take a picture with them 😀

As we finished photoshooting we headed back to town to have dinner. Unfortunately I can’t even remember where and what I ordered but I can tell it was good food. We spent about one hour at the restaurant until it got dark outside. That was our plan. For the first and last time I saw the frozen falls at night and it was amazing. The lights made it better than I thought. As you can imagine it took me some time to take these pictures due to the bad light conditions but it was worth it waiting in the cold, don’t you think?

That was my last trip with the outers club. I really enjoyed it spending time with you gyus! I met a lot of new friends during my time here, thank you for that and maybe we meet somewhere else again. The world is smaller than it seems 😉

Time is ticking and I am still behind my schedule, it is May already and I am posting stuff about March, that’s ridiculous but I didn’t know that traveling takes so much time. Every day totally  exhausted of wandering around. Let’s see how it will be the next weeks. I hope the next post will be very soon!

See ya fellas #1

 

JAMAICA #3 – Reach Falls, Coffee farm and Goodbye!

Finally this is the last part of my trip to Jamaica and in my opinion the most exiting one, I will tell you about our trips to the famous Reach Falls, the highest moantain on the island – the Blue Moantain – and the coffee farm on top of it and a few other things.

To continue after my second post, we started heading south west from the hot water springs. It took about 30 minutes more until we arrived at our destination: The Reach falls. Unfortunately the official gate was closed but Marline had connections with locals and found one who can take us up all the small waterfalls to the big one through the bush.
The first sign we saw on our way to the river was a little bit scary:

But we kept going, we had to we already paid for it xD
After about 5 minutes walking we all had already a few mosquito bites, we forgot to use our repell spray. But fortunately Daniel and Stefan picked theirs up from the bus.
The view was amazing, it was as I imagined before I came to Jamaica. If I look at the pictures again I want to go back immediately 😦

As we reached the river which leads us to the big waterfalls our guide and his son took all our cameras, so all following pictures were done by them. He also took all of our shoes, unfortunately I have no picture of our guide carrying all the stuff and also walking up the falls, it looked hilarious 😀

Marline came also with us, but she didnt go into the water, she walked a small hidden way up the river beside the waterfalls. We were prepared and ready to go for an exciting trip. Victor was a bit afraid because at some points the water was deep.

We moved on going fall for fall up the stream over big stones and deep water. At points where the stream was too harsh we worked together to get out of the water and move on.

The first exciting part was when our guide said we should jump down the cliff (3 meters high) into the water. We were afraid because we didnt know how deep it is, therefore I jumped first and all others – except Victor – followed.

With every trip there has to be a small photoshooting too. Our guide knew this and took a lot of pictures everytime and everywhere during our trip. You can see a few ones here:
  

After about half an hour we finally reached the falls – you probably have already seen them in the pervious group picture – and we were excited again. They were beautiful, as I have seen one in movies and NO TOURISTS AT ALL, we were alone there. I thought it can’t get better.

But it got better: Our guide told us that there is a hidden cave behind the falls and we really wanted to explore it. I’ve never been behind a waterfall and that was the moment. I was really excited. His son showed us the entrance and we went in, of course I got no picture from inside it because water and camera…. you know that won’t work and we had no GoPro with us on that trip. We sat down in the cave for 5 minutes enjoying the sound of the water until we decided to go out again.

After that awesome experience we moved on to the next one. There was a second cave – not hidden as you can see – at the left side of the falls. Stefan, Jana and me decided to climb up there and as a result we got these amazing pictures:

Our guide’s son was a bit crazy, he climbed up the falls and jumped down from the highest spot. I guess it was about 7 meters or something.

After we got out of the water our guide gave us back all our stuff and we walked back another hidden path. He took us to his car where he already had some coconuts, his son cut a few sugarcanes to chew. Our guide prepared all the coconuts himself and after we drank all the water in it he cut it in half and we got some coconut meat to eat:

On Wednesday the 18th of February we had the best weather of the whole weak in Jamaica. It was beach time! BUT… only for Stefan and Jana. Victor, Daniel, Jaana and me decided to see more of the island. So we first drop off our „couple“ at the beach – it was awesome there, really nice view and water with only a few tourists – and headed to the highest possible place on the island, the blue moantain.

The road was terrible but the view was better. Awesome mountains covered in white clouds with a more than blue sky. I know we also have such things in Austria but here we are in the caribic with 30 degrees and close to the sea 😀

We drove up the road about one hour – the mountain itself is in the middle of the north/south coast – until we reached the highest possible point by car: 4000ft or 1330 meters. To reach the top of the mountain you have to hike about two days with one night in the woods. It is 7000ft or 2300 meters high which means you would have to hike 1000 height meters :O.

On the top of a small hill near the road – the other side of the previous picture, but the same size – was a coffee plant. We decided to take a tour and drink some coffee. The plants there were amazing, these are one of my most favourite pictures of the week (no people on it, just enjoy the beauty of nature).

Our guide decided to pick up some fruits for us and tried to climb up a tree in front of a cliff. He was crazy but as he realized that the tree was to weak to carry his weight he stopped his attempt. He showed us his farm with all of its plants, mostly coffee but also a few others including pineapple ones. I was excited, never saw a pineapple plant before so I had to take a picture xD Now you can call me crazy 😉

As you already know we had to do a few more pictures from this beautiful place.

Back to his house he showed us how they do coffee out of the beans. I gave it a try and ground some beans 😀

After that whole trip we drove back the street to the sea. We were already very hungry and had to eat something, therefore we stopped by the best Jerk Chicken place in the region: The G&B Jerk Centre in Portland. It was really the best one I had in Jamaica but unfortunately I took too much spicy(more hot) sauce on my chicken, so I kinda enjoyed it xD

On our way back we stopped by Port Antonio and bought a few fruits for tomorrow’s breakfast. That were the sweetest bananas I’ve ever eaten: So small but so good 😀

In that night, there were no clouds the whole day, we had a beatiful sky you would never sea at home. So many stars and all so bright, it was quite romantic.
It took me about half an hour to get one acceptable picture out of my camera – ok it was the first time ever I did pictures of the sky at night.
The others were drinking or checking social media inside, maybe something else 😉

On our last day in Jamaica, Thursday the 19th of Febrary the weather was really bad but in the afternoon it got better andwe went again to Port Antonio, but this time to the awesome coast region where we bought ice for the first time on this island. It looked like a beach from a movie, a lot of villas, expensive cars and boats, oh and don’t forget the HUGE palm trees :O

We went to the beach and did a few pictures again, we played in the sand and we saw someone else was already here who doesn’t like Canada =O (joke ahead).

On the last day in Jamaica, on Friday, we had to get up very early, about 4am because our flight was at 8am and the drive to the airport was 2 hours. As we arrived at the airport I shot my most favorite picture of the whole trip. The sky was amazing.
Unfortunately as we went to the check in, they told us that the flight is 4 hours late, so we got up that early for no reason and we could have checked that already the night before 😦
We spent the time with drinking coffe eating burgers and buying post cards and t-shirts.

On our flight back I was able to take a picture of the Niagara Falls from above. Thanks to my tele lense I always carry with me 😀
You can also see Toronto in  the second picture.

Arrived at the airport I couldn’t believe how cold it was. It was the coldest day ever since I am in Canada and that after our Jamaica trip! From +30° to -30°. The doors at the airport were half closed to prevent the cold air to come in.

We savely arrived at home and we all will remember this amazing trip. Thank you to all of you gyus, Stefan, Daniel, Victor, Jana and Jaana for joining me. I had a great time!!
I hope you gyus also had fun with reading my posts. More canadian ones will follow soon 😀

C ya fellas #1

PS: Here a video about Reach Falls, Blue Moantain and Thursday morning/evening:

 

JAMAICA #2 – blue lagoon and hot springs

Hello again!

In this part I will show you how a trip to the famous blue lagoon (movie from the 80s) looks like and how it feels to take a hot spring shower when it’s already 30° 😀

It was the 3rd day in Jamaica, Monday 16th of February when Marline arrived at our house with fresh towels in the morning. She already had plans for us for today: The blue lagoon. Unfortunately Stefan wasn’t able to join us, he became sick. He had the same symptoms as I had the day before.

Fortunately the blue lagoon wasn’t far away, the drive was only about 20 minutes. When we arrived I was surprised: I never saw such blue water, it was more turquois.
We took a boat and Victor got a life jacket for safety reasons xD

We drove along a beach with a lot of villas. The price for one night was unbelievable: up to 1000$ but it is far away from tourism and the view is amazing.
Our guide took us to a small island – it was really small with a beach about 20 meters – in front of the lagoon about 10 minutes away. Unfortunately the weather and the sea were really harsh that day so he wasn’t able to go around the island and further out the sea. In front of the beach – the blue lagoon is in the island with a small waterway out to the beach – was a huge coral cliff which keeps the waves out of the villa’s area. It looked like in the movie robinson crusoe.

After a swim break in the sea our guide took us back to the lagoon where we went swimming and climbing! That was really amazing, swiming in the torquoise sea was gorgious and I also climbed the rope to have a better view over the lagoon and to jump down from about 3 meters. I did it 4 times xD

That was our third day in Jamaica. The next day on Tuesday, Stefan already felt better and we went for another more amazing trip. In this post I will only show you the first part of it: The hot springs.
On our way we stopped by a famous discothek on the island: The „Under di Rock“ bar where we did also a few more amazing pictures.
   

After that short break we moved on to the hot springs. 1 hour more over really bad roads – on the east side of Jamaica the roads are really bad with lots of potholes – until we finally arrived.
It was really muggy (if that is the right word) and time for a shower 😀

At the waterfalls there were already a lot of people going for a shower and a lot of locals providing massages, we decided to take one too 😀
As you can see Victor enjoyed it too xD

It was really awesome and relaxing. Btw the first massage I ever had. Finally the shower under the hot spring water, it was so hot I wasn’t able to stay directly under it:

The next and last post will follow soon
C ya fellas #1

JAMAICA #1 – party, beach and coconuts

Hello everyone!

It’s quite a long time ago since my last post but you know things get busy to the end of the term.
All in all I found some time to write about my Caribbean experience from February 13th to 20th in the country of Reggae – JAMAICA.
A few friends of mine joined me on this trip: Stefan, Victor, Daniel, Jaana and Jana which came all the way from Austria 😀

We have chosen Jamaica because it was the cheapest way to the Caribbean from Canada. We also considered to go to Kuba as well but there you have to have a Visa, especially for Victor that was a problem.
After all our preparations including booking a whole house for ourselves (including an own cook) we were ready to go.
On Friday 13th – a very good day to take a flight – I already put on my summer clothes and headed to the univesity for our taxi to Toronto Airport.

When we tried to Check-In Jaana had problems with her vaccination-pass but after all she finally got her boarding pass and we were able to pass the security point.

Both in Toronto and Jamaica we saw interesting signs:

Our flight was at 4PM and took almost 5 hours. I got a window seat and took some pictures of clouds and the sunset above Kuba:

We arrived around 9pm in Jamaica. We were really hungry and didn’t want to wait for two hours to get home – our house was that far away – therefore our host picked us up and we went to a jerk chicken grill. That is not a official place, it was more a home grill where all the neighbours went for some food. Jerk chicken itself is the Jamaican food you can get everywhere, it is common chicken with a special sauce. As a sidedish we got a chicken feet soup and there was really one foot in there!
After my experience with food in Jamaica I can tell that everything is spicy, or more likely hot and there is no way around it if you will ever go there!

After 2 hours drive we realized it was friday night and the party was going on on the other side of the street only one minute away from our door. The music was too loud to go to bed so we decided to join them. As you can imagine they also served jerk chicken. The DJ was built up on the street and I guess it was a kind of a homeparty where the owners got free drinks for providing there place. The bar was selfmade out of a table and boxes. We drank a lot of coke rum but after 5 drinks we asked for it to know which good rum they served us. We were shocked after we saw the most famous Jamaican rum has 63% and they drink it like water xD
We also tried their beer Red Stripes which is not bad, actually quite good.

After a long night I decided to take some pictures of our nice home, unfortunately the weather was not perfect, it was raining but it became better during the week:

Our host Marline prepared us breakfast and we really enjoyed the fresh bread and fried bananas as you can see:

Our first trip in Jamaica started this day on Saturday. In the afternoon the weather got better and Marline took us to her own coconut farm. She picked up Jaana because it was still raining a little bit but there was already sunshine at the beach.

On the way to the farm we stopped by her brother’s home who is an candy producer. He makes coconut candy out of coconut meat. I also bought one :D. We decided to make a picture in front of the lovely house:

As we hiked more and more into the island the weather became worse again but it didn’t bother us because it was so warm there. Compared to Canada it was 50 degrees Celcius warmer.
There were also some cows in the middle of nowhere and fresh bananas on our way but unfortunately not ready to eat 😦

As we reached the farm Marline chopped a coconut for everyone and we enjoyed the refreshing water:

On our way back we visited Marlines former grade school principal and found a nice flower which perfectly matched with our coconut, Daniel really enjoyed that 😉

In the late afternoon we went to Port Anonio – the next bigger town – to buy water supply for the whole week. 15 Liters of water for everyone was quite a lot of work :O
The town itself is a little bit crowded in the centre where the market is. You can buy every fruit which grows in Jamaica there. We specially enjoyed the pineapples, they were so sweet I didn’t believe it. The best part was Marlines comment: „They are sour, brrr.“ She should try one in Canada or Austria, they are really sour there xD
By the way this is not the city center, I didn’t want to take out my camera in the crowd so I took a picture further away from a small food place:

It was the 14th of February and as you can imagine, we also celebrated valentines day but in the jamaican way: Dress red white as possible and party hard. Unfortunately after that exhausting day we all decided to take a „short“ nap at 8pm. We woke up at midnight but Marline was aware of that and called us a taxi. She also joined us!!
Marline was really nice, the whole week she joined all our trips, called us taxis and discussed with people about the price because if you’re a tourist they will charge you more money for transportation etc.

To come back to the party, we had already a lot of fun on our way – probably because we drank the rum we bought in Port Antonio, remember 64% 😀

The party was really awesome. They had 2 DJs which were directly on the dancefloor. All people were dressed in red and white and dancing hard. During the whole party one was going through the crowd with a camcorder and a really bright light. We were dancing, drinking, eating (ok only Victor) and having fun:

The day after was horrible for me. I became sick and had fever. I guess it was because of the ice cubes in the drinks, I forgot to take them out 😦
But the day itself was really nice at all, we went to the beach and looked around in the town. There were a lot of nice houses.
I don’t know why kids do that but it have to be fun to throw shoes on the high voltage cables :O

Also Europe is involved in Jamaica: they provide containers to store drinking water.

A picture of us (Daniel was taking it) on the street up to Rural Hill where our house was:

It took about 45 minutes to walk to the big beach, there were also 2 smaller ones before but we wanted to have the real Jamaican experience. It took not long for Victor to find new friends, they really followed him all the way to and from the beach 😀
Stefan had also fun with them digging holes deep into the sand xD He was the only one who went swimming, I would have gone too but I had fewer and were afraid to sink :O

The view was amazing, like in movies. As you can imagine we also did typical beach pictures:

Stefan wanted to know it, jumped into the waves and tried to dive them 😀
We got a bit worried after he went far out where the waves got bigger but he managed to come back after half an hour.

And of course some group pictures with palm trees. Daniel’s pose in the first jump picture is hilarious 😀

That were our three first days in Jamaica, I hope you enjoyed it and the second part will follow soon.

See you fellows #1