And I'm back :)
Before the big snow storm, Daniela, Maike and I met to bake some christmas cookies - German ones, of course! It was fun! We made "Buttergebäck", obviously, and "Kokosmakronen"... oh, and Schoko Crossies as well, when we found chocolate and cornflakes in the cupboard. And then I made some others on my own as well... it's safe to say we had the cookie situation more than covered.




And the cookies turned out to be life savers: Maike got "snowed in" during the winter storm, she survived on the cookies she took home. Good thing we made so many!
On Christmas, Kaela's parents invited James and myself over to their house in Bracebridge (which is a couple of hours up North). But James had to work and Sara and Thorsten were coming over, so Kaela went to her parents' house and James, Sara, Thorsten and I spent Christmas at our place. Thorsten is working on his thesis in Detroit right now. On Christmas Eve, we had spinach lasagna, salad and dessert - and Matthias joined us, too, since he was in Toronto, spending Christmas (at least parts of it) with his girlfriend's family. Oh, did I mention I got us a tree?! A real one! But then we ended up not having a lot of things to decorate it with, so now it is bare, exept for the candy canes James put on... still, I love it! We bought it at a grocery store at 1 a.m. at night, and used Kaela's new car to transport it back to our appartment.
Since James told his mom that I wasn't getting any presents for christmas, his mum got me little tacky things for my stocking for christmas morning (and socks as well!), and Kaela's parents gave me tea.. so I did end up having a few things to open over the holidays. That was really sweet. And James's mom got my the most annoying present ever (everyone else thinks so, I love it, though... and the dog goes crazy for it!): a singing snowman! and, since I just realized I can also post videos on here, I'm going to give it a try and post the snowman!

the tree!!!!

Our table set on Christmas Eve... and the tree in the background :)

Thorsten, Sara, Matthias, Rocco and James.. stuffed with food and content.

Our stockings, left to right: Rocco's, then Sara's and Thorsten's shoes, James' stocking, and mine - isn't it pretty? Exept that I gt a potatoe in it, when everyone else got an orange!! So unfair - I swear I've been a good girl this year! ... hihi...
And here's the snowman video - I hope it works:

And Sara, Thorsten and I went downtown on Boxing Day (dec 26th) - that was an experience! Everything's on sale, so EVERYONE is hitting the stores... Thorsten and I saw a man and his daughter sitting on the floor in a mall, surrounded by shopping bags... I think they were still breathing, but they looked exhausted! And people get in line to get into stores! Crazy North Americans - what can you do.
Okay, that's it for now. Merry Christmas everyone!! And a happy New Year!! You'll hear from me in January '08!!!!

hahahahahahahahhaahahahahaha... okay, I know I wanted to come back and write about Montréal and all that... turns out, the Winter Storm that passed over the GTA (Greater Toronto Area) had something else in mind. So let me jump ahead real quick:
last night a Winter Storm Warning was released for the GTA for saturday evening and sunday... which is why Kaela didn't risk driving back here yesterday, but rather stayed at her parents' house. Yesterday it was pretty much just light snow through the whole afternoon and evening... then, when I got up this morning, I discovered that the power must have gone out overnight, because clocks were off, my computer was turned off etc... and as the day proceded, more and more snow fell, the wind picked up a lot, so we decided to stay indoors. Then, around 4:15p.m., the power went out again. So James and I took Rocco for a walk (or rather, a swim, because he is so small he almost drowned in the snow, and I was literally up to my knees at some point)... when we came back the power was still out, so we lit some candles, played Yahtzee and made tea with the still hot water we got out of the tab. The power was turned back on after about 2 hours. So, lessons learned: the grocery store closes when the power's out. I can still get in and out of my building despite the electrical lock system, because they have an emergency generator that keeps it running. And lastly, - and this is quite important if you consider that we live on the 19th floor - ONE of the 4 elevators still runs even when the power's out (on said generator). That was reassuring.
By the way, this is our living room (and Rocco, our - or rather, James' - dog) while the power was out - romantic, isn't it?! ... not really.
Okay, so that was that... when I go out tomorrow, I'll take my camera, so you guys can see.

Back to... where was I? Oh, right. Montréal. So, Sara and I left Toronto early last friday, got on the bus and off we were to Montréal. We stayed at this guys place who Sara found through couch surfing, and he said we could sleep on his couch. Sébastien, really nice guy, kept trying to speak German and understand what we were saying... but apparently I was too fast for him... how shocking, never heard that before, hihi. Anyways, we stayed on his couch with NINE blankets (and we needed them... WITH them though, it was quite cosy). While we were there, temperatures were around -9 to -16°C... which is what we have here in Toronto now, one week later with the storm coming in. Freezing if you don't wear sufficient layers of clothing. Was a good test for my stuff I got, and I LOVE my new winter boots (my feet weren't cold ONCE through the weekend, and even stayed dry after 5 hours of walking through the snow... so I'm happy), and my scarf... and turns out my coat I brought from Germany is actually warm enough... at least so far. But you can layer... actually, in Montréal you HAVE to layer, because they heat the subway stations up to more than 20°C, so you are freezing outside, come in to take the subway, and start sweating even if you take your coat off! I saw a man walking around in a short-sleeved shirt! Such extreme temperature changes can not possibly promote your health. It's kind of the reversed situation of what we had in August, when it was 30°C outside and about 17°C inside... and about 3/4 of the exchange students got a cold in late august / early september.... I know I did.
Anyway. Friday night Sébastien let us tag along when he went out with some friends of his (all anglophones, so I could actually follow the conversation... turns out, the Québec accent is a LOT harder for me to understand than the French they speak in France), and he made us eat the one food that's typical of Québec (according to him, and Sara's travel guide): poutine. Which basically consists of French Fries, curd cheese, and gravy. Sounds disgusting, tastes awesome! Apparently that got invented when it was really cold and they wanted to come up with a dish that had as many calories as possible, to keep their energy up... so there you have it.
Saturday, we pretty much just walked around Montréal... "downtown", if you will. We had breakfast in the Quartier Latin, walked down to Vieux Montréal, did a little walk recommended by one of the travel guides... oh, and walked into the wrong direction for about 30 MINUTES!!, because when I asked Sara where on Rue Ste Catherine we had to pick up the tickets for the show she wanted to go to, east or west, she said "it doesn't say". We walked West. Turned out, the place was East. That was a LOT of walking in the cold!! :) I teased her about that for most of the time left, hihihi. Anyways, we walked through Vieux Montréal, they had some nice Christmas decorations, there were horse carriages (we didn't take one, though)... some nice Roman churches (which makes it a little more European, I guess)... in fact, they are very big on copying things: they build a copy of Notre Dame, of the "Petersdom" in Rome... just about everything. Why they can not just come up with something if their own is beyond me. But that's how it is. Then we went down to the harbor and saw the St. Lawrence river (St. Lorenz Strom), which we thought was pretty cool... as a matter of fact, we found a part that was frozen and STOOD on it. So I stood on the St. Lawrence River! ... we thought it was neat. Oh, and this Swedish guitar player / singer that Sara was playing at a club, so we went - that guy knows how to play, let me tell you! Plus it was a cute little old theatre, so that was nice, too.
On sunday, we went up to see this huge cathedral or church or whatever where apparently people pilger to... up the 99 steps to the church. Nice church, quite modern though, since it was only built in the 1920s. But it's almost up on the Mont Réal, so you can see it when you drive into Montréal - it's quite big. After, we walked up the Mont Réal, did some tobogganing... exept we didn't have a toboggan, so we used a plastic bag :) And we made snow angels. And of course got a gorgeous view of Montréal from up there!! When the sun went down and it got a notch colder, we went back down, took the subway to Little Italy and had dinner... after we had a quick look at one of the little indoor markets right before it closed.
On Monday, we pretty much just tried to find appropriate winter boots for Sara, and combined that shopping trip with some more sight seeing by walking through the underground city... about 32km worth of shops and paths etc. And Sara didn't fall, since we were indoors, so that was a nice change ;)... all weekend, she slipped and tripped and... well, she really fell only once, but down 4 stairs, and right after I almost fell and had warned her... it was really funny... only because she never got hurt, obviously. We think that either her shoes' profile wasn't as good as mine, or that, somehow, I have more experience walking on ice and other slippery surfaces. We don't know. Oh, and we went to one of the original Bagel Shops, because apparently, Bagels were invented in Québec. At 3:30 p.m. our bus left for Toronto, and we arrived early, at about 10p.m.
Sara used the time to study for her final exam that she had the next morning, and I read, slept, listened to music, watched the world go by... the things you do when you are on the bus for 7 hours. After we arrived in Toronto, Sara continued on to her home in St. Catherines, and I took the subway home. It was a really beautiful weekend, we had lots of fun, saw some nice things... and all this even though we decided to take the trip very short notice. And since I worked, Sara was so kind to look up the buses and find us a couch to sleep on and to get travel guides and do some preparation - so I was very grateful!
So, here are some pictures of Montréal - enjoy!
This is our couch... or rather, proof of the many many blanket we used to keep us warm at night!
That's Sara enjoying GOOD COFFEE (*sigh* such a rare thing...) in a beautiful, cosy little place in the Quartier Latin, where we had breakfast.
Um... one of the churches we saw... actually, a cathedral. The Cathedral Marie-Reigne-du-Monde... really nice buiding, inside and out.
Yes, yes - lots of snow on the streets of Montréal... quite handy if you want to take a break and sit down, hihi.
Um... down by the harbor.
Vieux Montréal... and it is almost dark.
Sara standing ON the St. Lawrence River!!!
We're making snow angels!! .... or drowning in the snow, whatever :) Yay!!!
Oh, yes, in case you haven't noticed on the other pictures... I am Little Green Ridinghood ("Grünkäppchen")!! ALL the way :)
The huge church built in the 20ies that all the pilgrims come to... including the 99 steps.
... aren't those stairs awesome?! And a nice building, too.
Okay, I wanted to bring this up to date today (there's still one thing missing), but now it seems like I'm leaving for a trip tomorrow... so I have things to do! But that was Montréal for you - hope you enjoyed the pictures!!
And yes, I realize i haven't answered Emails for almost 2-3 months... I will get to them around Christmas, I promise!!!

Let me just say that I MUCH MUCH MUCH prefer festivals or smaller indoor venues to the freaking huge places like the ACC is... but EVERY band seems to play in the ACC (almost), so you don't really have a choice *sigh*... okay, now I'm off to the kitchen - FOOOOOOOOOD!!!! :)

no 5

I'm back! :) After I finished the last entry, things really started to get tight at school - at some point I was convinced that I would most likely drop dead by the end of november... but, what do you know, I'm still here!
On november 9th, a couple of us went to see The Police at the Air Canada Center in Toronto... that was a pretty big thing. A really fun, great concert... even though I think Sara got a lot more excited than I did... but still, really good fun, and some great music! Apparently, Sting's son has a band of his own, so they were opening... they were really good, so 2 fun bands in one night. Oh, and we got reseated because they didn't sell all the tickets (it was their third concert in Toronto on this tour), so we ended up in seats that were a lot better than those we paid for! :) Steffen took some pictures, so I'll put one in here, just for the heck of it. So, picture number one: The Police and the ACC.

As far as school goes, I got to interview Randy who is a counselor for Aboriginal students at York, which was really interesting, because he is a First Nations person himself (what we used to call "Indian" up until 1982), so I learned a lot about their culture and history. Plus our presentation we did based on the interview turned out really well, so what more can you ask for?!
On november 20th, I had the first concert with my Jazz Choir (the second one is in march) - not a lot of people there, but we did well and our conductor Bob couldn't wipe the grin off his face, so it was a great night for us... I can't wait to do the next one!! Joining the choir was weird at first, since I hadn't been in one since... 2002?! And I had never ever been in a Jazz choir, for that matter. So it took some getting used to, but now it's really good, and fun, and hard work... and a nice change from all the psychology courses I do otherwise :)
So, for me at least, the semester ended by the end of november... which doesn't mean that I'm just lazy now, because I work three days a week, so I'm keeping busy. Plus, as I mentioned earlier, november was quite straining, so I need some time to recover... the next time I hear someone say that exchange students don't do anything for school and just hang around and party and travel, I'm going to kick them, hard! Turns out that that is not AT ALL what it's like to be an exchange student... at least not in Canada... at least not in Toronto. Although I do plan to go out some more next semester, since I've been here for four months now and have hardly seen anything of Toronto - and that's kind of pathetic. So, that's about to change :)

To celebrate (well, kind of) the end of the semester, I went to see Bon Jovi play at the ACC - one of the best Bon Jovi shows I've seen, ever... and (although usually with Betti and Ramona and in Germany, not Canada) I've seen quite a few! :) But SO worth going to, especially since the ones in Germany will be open air, so, if you get the chance and even remotely like the music, I really recommend you go!! It was GREAT!!! They played tons of old songs, of course the new ones... it was just really amazing... and even Andreas and Sara thought it was a good show, and they aren't into Bon Jovi too much, so there you go - must've been good! And of course it didn't hurt the general mood of the audience when the singer put on a Maple Leafs jersey, which is Toronto's beloved hockey team ("Eishockey", that is) - they go crazy for them! Anyway, in case you were wondering what the blue shirt on picture number 2 is... it's a Maple Leafs jersey. I really really really want to go to a Maple Leafs game (they are like Bayern München for Munich... or the VfB to Stuttgart... important, anyway), but the tickets are outrageously expensive!!! 100 dollars at least, is what a friend told me!
Anyway, Bon Jovi was fun, and Hedley opened for them - which is a Canadian band that everyone goes crazy for around here right now (especially teenage girls, oddly enough ;) ), so that was a nice treat to see them play as well - they're entertaining... but I like them better on CD (or television, rather) than I liked them live.

Hm... lots of concerts in this post, huh? Well, that's it, too, because I'm starving and need to go get food before I can finish this off. So, Bon Jovi was december 6th, and on the 7th I left for a long weekend in Montréal (after having had to turn down Maike and Magali and their trip to Québec city because I had to work on tuesday :( )... so that's coming up!

no 4

Right. So after the horseback riding, I've basically done nothing exept study... well, occasionally i sleep a few hours, too *sigh* The term is almost over, so I have lots and lots of tests coming up, papers to write and hand in, a group presentation, 2 projects I have to do and then write a report on.. in other words, I'm quite busy. Which is funny because David, the professor in charge of our exchange program, said he would be disappointed if studying for university ad going to classes would make up more than 50% of our time - ha!! More like 85%, these past weeks!!!! The good news is, I'll be done by november 27th, and then the next term only starts in january. So I should have time to recover from all the madness.
The only thing that came up was Halloween, but since I didn't have much time (or energy) for partying, I just went to see a Stephen King movie on friday (they were showing it on campus, and it was for free)... I must say, I was scared out of my mind when I watched that movie when I was 12 years old... now I just kind of thought it was funny.. and a little scary. Still, I went with Stephan, a French exchange student, and Jette, a German exchange student - we had a nice evening, away from all the schoolwork the 3 of us have to do. And then, on wednesday, the 31st, I heard the Dalai Lama was speaking in Toronto, so I got a ticket and went there... that was very interesting, he's a very smart man - I think - and very funny, too! I was impressed.
The first thing he did was take off his shoes, and then put on that funny hat because the spotlights were blinding him :) Very funny.
And that night, I went out with James and Kaela (my roommates) and Aaron and Magali and some other people, since it was Halloween. So we actually dressed up (which, if you know me, is a big thing, because I usually do not do that), and went to the Gay Village, where they had a kind of street parade. We saw some pretty amazing costumes, and had fun (AND were home by 11:30 p.m.) :)
So. I was... i don't know, an evil monk? I wore one of Kaela's masks. James was "Dead Cedric Diggory's Reanimated Corpse" (Cedric being a character from the Harry Potter books), Kaela was the crazy/sexy clown, Aaron was Elton John, Magali was... maybe the Invisible Man from a movie, but really she just put on a mask last minute, and Julie was Amy Winehouse... we all looked the part, I think :)




Okay, I have to get back to work, I want to get some more things done for school before the day is over (it's about 4 in the afternoon, now). I'll let you know if anything out of the ordinary happens!
biiiiiig hug!!!! :)

Stef

no 3

Hm... let's see. So I went to New York for a week with Philipp, Thorsten and Thomas (we met up at JFK, since Thorsten was flying in from Frankfurt, and the other 2 from San Diego). It was fun, we got to see a lot of things... my feet hurt like HELL every night... I had to study, too, because I had a test coming up... yup. So, we did a lot of sightseeing, Statue of Liberty, Time Square, Empire State, WTC site, Grand Central, Battery Park, Central Park, the Public Library, Soho, Brooklyn, Rockefeller Center by night, the UN, went to see the MoMA... all kinds of stuff. Took some pretty good pictures, too (especially the guys took millions and millions of pictures of tall buildings :p). So, it was fun! New York itself is kind of dirty... and noisy (lots of honking all the time). So not really my kind of city, but most definitely interesting to see. I'll post some pictures:










Those 3 extremely handsome guys are Philipp, Thomas and Thorsten (left to right), in front of the Public Library - in case I haven't mentioned this, we had beautiful weather all week long, around 18-23 °C. The other picture is Manhattan by night, and the Brooklyn Bridge (we took the subway over the river to Brooklyn to take a few pictures :)
And here you can see Philipp, Thorsten and myself, taking pictures of the Statue of Liberty's back... well.
Anyways, so I got back to Toronto on Thursday, october 4th, and on friday I left for Waterloo - to attend the World's Second Biggest Oktoberfest! (no, I'm not kidding). That was very funny, Sara and I had tons of fun, dancing to the German version of "99 Luftballons" (strangely, we seemed to be the only ones who knew the words ;)), and marvelling at the people, who basically dressed up as if it was Halloween - with hats with pink feathers etc. The good thing is that, unlike the German Oktoberfest in Munich, in Waterloo the beer doesn't cost more than it would in a store, so that made some of the boys really happy, I think.
Sara and I had a piece of Black Forest Cake (Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte) - which was pretty disgusting. Nothing like the real thing. And Steffen (who we were staying with over the weekend) cooked for us and made sausages and sauerkraut, that was kind of funny... so we had a "real" oktoberfest with "real" German food :p Some impressions:













So, a Canadian in Lederhosen, and the place we went to on saturday...
And Steffen and Andreas, dressed up for the occasion (they actually bought those hats... and the color for the German flag Andreas brought long, I think.
I should mention that, on the 2nd day, they braided my hair and made me wear the German flag on my cheeks too...
That was Oktoberfest for you... and of course there were servers with extremely short dresses, but I guess you've all seen that before.
The next 2 weeks I didn't do anything other than studying.. had my first tests, papers I had to hand in etc... oh, well, I went to see a movie once.
Then on october 20th Sara, Andreas and I went horseback riding with the McMaster outdoor club (and yes, I know that's not my university... I'm still a member of the club :)). That was fun, and I was the only one who had ever been on a horse before, so somehow that made them decide I should get the slowest horse they had (because I would know how to make it keep up with the others). Still, it was great to be back on horseback again, and we finally got to see some of the Indian Summer (so colorful leaves)!




































Pretty, ay? :)

Hey! :)
Sorry I didn't post anything for so long... first I didn't have time, then our internet was down for a week, and now I just got back from a week in NY... but anyways.
Finally, today, a (brief) summary of what I've been doing since I got here, and then hopefully I will keep this up to date :p
Okay, so first few days were orientation from our exchange program - tons of fun... well, at least funny, and I spent time with some really really nice people, so there you go! We even had the Consul General of Germany over for dinner, and he invited us to a october 3rd celebration dinner... I was out of the country, don't know if anyone else went.
When orientation was over I moved in with my roommates (they let me sleep on the couch, since my room wasn't empty yet), I stayed there for 2 nights, and then we were off to Algonquin Park! "Us" meaning a bunch of German people (since none of the French had time to go). It was a little chaotic, we didn't get a car etc., so we ended up taking a bus and a taxi, camping on a lookout for one night where, apparently, you're not supposed to camp... the police were really nice, though ;) We then spent 5 days canoeing through the national park, which is AMAZING because there's NOONE there, absolute wildlife. So, lots of canoeing, camping, carrying the canoes from one lake to the other etc... the biggest distance we covered was 2,4km... quite painful, let me tell you, with all kinds of stuff on your back! We saw tons of birds, chipmunks, got robbed by a racoon and a few mice (I think they might belong to the same gang...), heard wolves... and didn't see any bears (which I wasn't too sad about, really). But beautiful, beautiful, BEAUTIFUL landscapes, lakes, forest - really nice, and we had awesome weather, so we stayed dry until the last day, when it rained a little. Well, some of us stayed dry... Sara and Andreas fell into the water (taking our tent and their sleeping bags and clothes, too) - but they enjoyed it, I think.
Anyways, the picture up there is from Algonquin... our first morning in the park, I think. And some sunset picture, of course. and a picture of our dear friend, the beaver (we had to pass some of his friends' homes in order to get to our destinations... don't think we wrecked them, though.. putting a picture of that in, as well. and a picture of me (after we finished and had taken a shower back at the outfitter before leaving the park (so without the 10 layers of dirt ;)). Alright, enough pictures.
Oh, not just yet: the two "pirates" in the boat with me are Andreas and Steffen, the two in the canoe mastering the beaver dam are Dominik and Antje... and then there's me. I just realized the only one not on the pictures is Sara.. so here you go, a picture of Sara - with Steffen and myself, at a bar in Toronto (pretty chilly night, by the way), the night after we got back from our trip.
After that we went to the world's biggest Spare Rib Festival on Labour day weekend (just Andreas, Steffen, Sara and myself), just before classes started on september 5th.
Our campus is pretty cool, LOTS of squirrels that aren't afraid of anything... yeah. I'm struggling with administration, they're giving me a hard time by not letting me into the courses I want... maybe it'll work out in winter term (january - march). Now I have some pretty good courses, interesting, AND a lot lot lot of work, but should be fun! AND I'm in a Jazz Choir, YAY!
Okay, so the first two weeks of class I didn't do much (Andreas came to Toronto and we bought him dresspants because he's at a university with a freaking DRESSCODE!!, my roommates and I had a housewarming and had some people over, we cleaned out my room, put my stuff in closets etc... went swimming in our house pool and worked out in our gym ;) (yup, I live in a nice place, have nice roommates, 2 dogs, pool AND good access to public transport and grocery shopping! :) HAAAAAPPY :)!). Got some things done for school, too.
Oh, and I went to a baseball game - the Toronto Blue Jays vs. the New York Yankees - WE WON!!!! And I got a free towel (you have to wave those on occasion - apparently baseball isn't a game where you just sit and watch, noooo sir!):















On my birthday I had some of the girls over, we made burritos and had cake (I had a hard time finding all the ingredients for a cheese cake!) and later on some of us went out... on the picture, left to right, that's my roommate, Kaela, my other roommate James, myself, Sara, and Magali, a French girl who goes to York as well. I had so much fun, was a GREAT GREAT birthday! I got some pretty awesome emails, too, so thank you for that - oh, and a present per mail, and one I had in my suitcase but had forgotten about, and I got tons of cake, and a LION!!! Here's a picture of the cake my roommates presented me with the night before my birthday, when I got home from class at 11 at night - and they'd made dinner! :)

















Okay, so... had an amazing birthday, Sara came to visit and stayed until friday, because that was the day we were leaving for our hiking trip to Georgian Bay (just a weekend this time) - also very beautiful, quite different from Algonquin, and a very challenging hike! but I think everyone enjoyed themselves and we stayed on the best campground ever, in the middle of the woods! And we met the fattest racoon, I have ever seen (Bob, and his brother... forgot his name :p).
Oops, forgot to rotate the picture... but you get the idea - he's up in a tree, and was stalking us all weekend.
We were more people this time, too (9 to be precise). But first, a picture of Georgian Bay - neat, huh? On Saturday we hiked for about 7 hours, and another 5 on Sunday. Beautiful, again. We had to do some rock climbing along the trail, that was interesting... and Steffen actually dove through a hole in a cavern wall and came up on the outside on the bay shore. Pretty neat. And some did some cliff jumping as well. And Tristan had brought his guitar, so I was happy because he played a little when we were sitting at our campfire and he even let me play some, so I finally got the chance to do that again after AGES of not playing :) :) :) Oh, and here's a group picture of us, as well:















So, from left to right: Tristan (from Spain, with an Irish mother - going to York), Julie (from France - going to Waterloo University), Andreas (German, going to McMaster in Hamilton), Maike (German, going to York), Sara (German, going to Brock in St. Catherines - yes, that's where the Niagara Falls are), Steffen (German, going to U Waterloo), Matthias (German, Waterloo), then, hidden behind the tree, Antje (German, going to Brock as well).
Okay, so, to wrap it up: we returned Sunday night (the 23rd), and on Thursday I left for New York. But I'll tell you about that one some other time (because it's late and I have an early day tomorrow).