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? :)