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!