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

 

Ski trip #2

This post will be very short about my second ski trip – actually I went snowboarding because I have no skis and the board costed the same.
We started at 3PM from the university and drove about 2 1/2 hours to Mount St. Louis, located in the Northwest of Toronto. As we arrived it was becoming dark. I had to rent the board and boots, the employee behind the desk was wondered that I didn’t rent a helmet. Of course it is dangerous but I never had a helmet when I went on the slope and that for more than 20 years. I hope my streak will keep going 😀

My friends Stefan and Matt also had to rent their equipment but Jaya had not to and waited for us 😀
As we headed to the lift it was already dark and the lights were on:

That was the first time in my life I went real night skiing and it was colder than every skitrip I ever did. It was about -25 degrees and terrible windchill. An ice chamber is warmer than that and I had only my sunglasses with me :O
Good that the slopes were really short so I was able to warm up in short periods of time. Also I had to put on the snowboard after every ride with the lift.

I did this picture from the top of the hill, you also can see the buildings down there, that is where the slope ends but there were also a few longer ones on the left side. I was happy that there were not a lot of people therefore I was able to improve my boarding skills over the whole slope 😉

We did one break to grab something to eat and a second to warm up because it kept going colder and colder. In the restaurant the really served „Sauerkraut“, I couldn’t resist to grab one with a hot dog and actually it was quite good 😮

In the meantime I lost Stefan and Matt further I went down the slopes with Jaya who also boarded this night. At our last ride we took, we unexpectedly met them again and I did my fastest ride down the hill. I should mention that I didn’t fell on this ski trip one time, in contrast to my first one if you watched the video 😉

We left Mount St. Louis around 9PM and arrived at midnight in waterloo. There were no busses going anymore but Jaya was so nice and drove me home, thx! A walk would have been about 40 minutes and as you can see, there was a lot of snow 😮
Oh and her car was the only one on the whole parking lot as you can see xD

I hope I have given you an impression about night skiing in Canada – probably I should say Ontario because it should be quite different in British Columbia (Vancouver).
My next post will come soon, don’t miss it. It will be the most exciting one 😉

See you fellows #1

Kelso Caves Hiking Trip

Hey again gyus!

Now I want to talk about the most amazing trip I did in January (ok actually it was on February 1st, but I count it as a January trip 😉 )

We started at 10am in the morning with 3 cars to the Kelso conservation area for a hiking and caving trip. As we arrived after one hour, we realized that all the parking lots were closed due to bad weather conditions, so we had to drive down the mountain to the slopes. That meant that we had to go up the hill, but of course, we went there to hike 😉

By the way the weather was not too bad in the morning, around -15 degrees but unfortunately no sunshine (ok for caving not really necessary). We put on our ice cleats / snowshoes and start walking up.

After we passed by the lift of the slope, we kept walking and reached the top of the plateu, we had a great view there and took a few pictures. As Jonathan (our organizer of this trip and passionated hiker) mentioned, photographs are one of the most important parts of a trip. By the way these pictures are mixed from all people who joined the trip, thanks to all at this point.

Further we passed a nice rock complex where there was one which stood out a few meters, we all tried a picture on it, but Behzad wanted to know it and creeped to the edge to take some more pictures.

We kept going forward for another 15 minutes and passed by a lot of places with a great view but unfortunately the weather got worse and we were’nt able to take more awesome pictures of the landscape. As we reached our final destination – the vertical cave, yes this IS the entrance under the planks – we dropped all our bags and prepared for it. Take off as many clothes as you want, grab helmet, light and camera and go for it 😀

We crawled down the entrance, which was really narrow, I almost got stuck there but fortunately the cave got wider but also deeper. As we went down we always shouted for the others to be sure nobody got hurt or lost. After about 20 minutes and ONLY 10-15 meters vertical climbing we reached the easy part where we only had to „walk“ for a few meters to have a nice spot for a break.

After a few minutes break we started to head back. We already knew the way so we splitted up. As you can see in the next pictures, it was quite narrowed there. Nadia also wanted to try a short climb up without any safety precautions. I am not sure now if it was in this cave or the other one, but does it matter at this point?

By the way I took these pictures with my phone because there was really no space for my DSLR =O
We started to head back and stopped at the ‚Hanging Rocks‘ as Jonathan called them (as I can remember, you know it’s one month ago already 😉 )
It was quite an easy climbing session but we had a great view and an awesome place for a second break. Never forget to take pictures wherever you are 😀

After this amazing trip which lasted about 4 hours hiking and climbing, we took one group picture to remember (unfortunately 2 of us already left at this time). Also as you can see the snowstorm reached us and the weather was becoming worse and worse. We went for dinner about half an our away from Kelso area where we got very good burgers. We splitted up the gas costs, all in all the trip costed about 10$ (excluded the ice cleats I bought).

As we reached Waterloo the blizzard hit the town really hard. It wasn’t possible to drive faster than 60km/h on the highway furthermore it took us two hours to get home, twice as much as the first drive.
Of course I got home safely, Behzad is a good driver 😉
A lot of snow fell down in this night and the day after all schools and universities were closed, except waterloo. As the biggest university in the area it has to be open all day. That was not the most snow I experienced but it was the only blizzard until today.
It was one of the best experiences in Canada since I am here and I really want to have more like this but unfortunately spring is coming, snow is melting and time is running out.

At the end here is the video Jonathan took in the vertical cave. It is quite long so I posted it here.

I hope you enjoyed my post and I have to apologize for a lot of days with no posts. There were a lot of assignments and exams to do but it will get better 😀

See you fellows #1

Ski – Trip #1

My next trip lead me to the Blue Moantains , where I went skiing with Stefan on January 31st.
We started very early in the morning at 7am and I was the first one at the bus. On the way to the parking lot I took a few pictures of the university campus:
Of course we drove again with the typical american school bus and it was awful for me, so less space in there 😦

The ride was about 3 hours. Unfortunately Stefan and me had no skiis or boots with us, so we had to rent some.
At the rental company there were at least 100 people but they were progressive and had a rental system on tablets, so it worked well and fast for me. After 30 minutes I had all stuff I needed to go on.
To be safe, I stated 10kg more than I really have so that I can go fast without losing my skis. But I was a little bit sceptical about the settings of my binding when he went back to the storage and after 10seconds he handed me a pair of skis, he did not do additional settings. I was in a hurry because I wanted to go down the slope so I accepted it.
We had a wonderful weather with sunshine and less wind until afternoon

 

After a few hours skiing we decided to take a break at the restaurant. It is quite different to Austrian one’s: You are not allowed to drink alcohol outside like our „Schirmbars“ and usually noone drinks alcohol while skiing. I can understand it’s much safer 😀
At the lifts they don’t have lbarriers where you have to put your ticket in front of it, there is only one gyu standing and sometimes checking if you wear your ticket on your jacket. I wear my one under the jacket because I don’t like to be a G.O.R.B so the gyu asked me a few times where I have my ticket xD
As you can see, Stefan was very exhausted after skiing all the double black slopes:

Oh, for better understanding here are the types of people you can meet on the slopes:

Before the day was over, we wanted to make a video of going down the steapest slope. Unfortunately Stefan failed to open the lense of my camera when we went down the first time, so I have no video of my performance =P
Then the second time……yes……what shall I say, remember the fitting I mentioned before. You can see what happens if you rent skis the first time in your life and you don’t have a look at the settings for your binding.

In the evening they closed all the black and double-black slopes so we were only allowed to go down the blue ones (blue is our red in America)
We went down only 3 times because it started getting really cold.

We left the biggest ski resort of Ontario around 6pm. I enjoyed it and as you can imagine, I went skiing a second time, but that’s another post 😉

See you fellows #1

Snow – Tubing !

Today I will tell you about my first ICSN – Event I joined
By the way, thanks to all for the pictures 😉

It was Saturday, January 23rd:
My friends and colleagues Stefan, Daniel, Victor, Jaana, Kasia and a lot more I met there wanted to go Snow-Tubing in Canada. Due to the fact that most of us haven’t done that before and the next park was only 20 minutes away, we decided to join the trip. Unexpectedly there were two full busses of students and as you can imagine, there was not a lot of space in the bus. By the way, the common ones for such trips are the yellow school busses you know from the television 😉
When we arrived at the hill, I was joking about the small area where we were allowed to tube down. After half an hour for buying tickets and going up the hill (walk up or take the ‚lift‘) we tried for the first time canadian snow tubing. Before I could try it, Stefan wanted to go first in a five people circle:

We did a seven people circle and told the gyu he should spin us. It was better than expected, I felt like in a rollercoaster but without any safety Precautions. As in the video below you can see my impressions, I tried to screem loud to animate my friends to do the same 😉

At our next ride we went down in 2 groups side by side and wanted to see who’s faster. Unfortunately the others won, probably they had eaten more for lunch 😀

 

After that we went down in different size of groups to find out the best combination. As I can remember 4 people had the best spin/speed relation. But we wanted to try somthing different: A line of 10 (maximal amount of people together was 10). Even the start took long because our line was so long. I tried again to capture all the emotions on video:

For my last ride I went down alone to try the maximum amount of spin and I wasn’t disappointed as you can hear.
Please forgive me my choice of words =P

The spin was so strong, it was hard for me to stand straight after I got out of the tube.

At the end of this post here are a few pictures of this amazing trip:

I hope I haven’t promised too much after my last post 😉

See you fellows #1