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
An Experience for life 