Phew... and the travelling begins!
I'm in Halifax right now, and have been driving around Atlantic Canada (the East Coast) for the past 9 days... 5813km behind the wheel... I think I need a break from driving, hihi!
I'll be back in Toronto for 2 days (the 27th and the 28th), I'll try to put up some pictures and tell you some more details then.
Basically, we flew into Halifax, then drove down the east coast of Nova Scotia, then up the west coast, over to Moncton in New Brunswick, then to Fredericton in New Brunswick, then over to Prince Edward Island (but only for 1,5 days), then we drove to North Sydney, Nova Scotia and took the overnight ferry up to Newfoundland. We spent 4 days in Newfoundland, took the overnight ferry back, had a look around Cape Breton Island (the northern part of Nova Scotia), and then we drove back into Halifax this morning, returned the car... and now we have 2 days to have a look around Halifax before we fly back to Toronto on the evening of the 26th.
I'm doing well - I have some bruises from challenging (but awesome!) hiking experiences and a little tired from all the driving, but other than that, I really enjoyed myself!
Okay, I'll try to put up pictures soon, promise!
Donnerstag, 24. April 2008
Mittwoch, 2. April 2008
Phew... much better. A sandwich can do wonders!
On march 22nd, the international office at York offered a day trip to the maple Syrup Festival at Bronte Creek. It was so much fun (even though it was cold), and very interesting! Now I know why maple syrup is so expensive! The trees you can get the sap out of only grow (basically) in the Great Lakes region, and you can only harvest the sap for 6-8 weeks a year! One tree gives enough sap for 1 litre of syrup per season! So, no wonder it doesn't come cheap. As you can probably tell, we took a tour where they explained to us how maple syrup was made, how it was made 300 years ago, etc. After that, we walked around, looking at an old farmhouse, had some pancakes with (what else?) maple syrup, and managed to find the ONLY tree in Bronte Creek that was dripping sap!! It was just a little too cold yet for the trees to start dripping, but we found the first one (after looking into many empty buckets)! Very cool.
Our tour guide, Kip, is showing us how maple syrup was made... I think 200 years ago.
mmmmmmmmh... sugar!
Beautiful Bronte Creek Park on a beautiful winter's, almost spring, day.
That saturday evening, my two German friends (Betti & Uli) came back from their road trip. And since the weather was good, we decided to go skating on the harbourfront the next day, before they had to get on their flght back to Germany. The weather was beautiful! I ended up not skating too much, since a guy from India joined us and he had barely ever skated before, so for some reason, i ended up trying to teach him how to skate... instead of Marc, who is an actual hockey player... anyways.
The Natrel skating rink at the Toronto harbourfront. In the background, you can see bits of Lake Ontario and the Toronto islands.
Finally, it was "Earth Hour" on saturday, the 29th, so Dani, Marc and I went to Nathan Philips Square to hear some bands play (Nelly Furtado and The Philosopher Kings played a couple of songs, and the mayor held a speech) and watch the city go dark for 1 hour, as a reminder that we should conserve energy to save the world... and stop global warming... all that good stuff. Quite a few buildings went dark, so that was an unusual sight for Toronto at night, since usually it's bright as day. Also, it's weird to me that you actually seem to have to remind Canadians to turn off their lights when they leave their home - I've been doing that since I was a kid! But then I come home from school or wake up in the morning and my roommates have left at least 3 lights on in our appartment, and suddenly I think, that, maybe, Canadians really need to learn how to do that.
And that's it for now: I have my final paper I hope to hand in today, and then it's mostly organizing stuff until I leave for Halifax on the 15th. Hope the weather is good enough for us to go hiking - and I hope there won't be any blizzards, since I will be driving *sigh*
After my east coast trip i'll be heading west, and then I should be back in Toronto around june 29th... hopefully with tons of great pictures and even greater memories!
Until next time!
On march 22nd, the international office at York offered a day trip to the maple Syrup Festival at Bronte Creek. It was so much fun (even though it was cold), and very interesting! Now I know why maple syrup is so expensive! The trees you can get the sap out of only grow (basically) in the Great Lakes region, and you can only harvest the sap for 6-8 weeks a year! One tree gives enough sap for 1 litre of syrup per season! So, no wonder it doesn't come cheap. As you can probably tell, we took a tour where they explained to us how maple syrup was made, how it was made 300 years ago, etc. After that, we walked around, looking at an old farmhouse, had some pancakes with (what else?) maple syrup, and managed to find the ONLY tree in Bronte Creek that was dripping sap!! It was just a little too cold yet for the trees to start dripping, but we found the first one (after looking into many empty buckets)! Very cool.
Our tour guide, Kip, is showing us how maple syrup was made... I think 200 years ago.
mmmmmmmmh... sugar!
Beautiful Bronte Creek Park on a beautiful winter's, almost spring, day.
That saturday evening, my two German friends (Betti & Uli) came back from their road trip. And since the weather was good, we decided to go skating on the harbourfront the next day, before they had to get on their flght back to Germany. The weather was beautiful! I ended up not skating too much, since a guy from India joined us and he had barely ever skated before, so for some reason, i ended up trying to teach him how to skate... instead of Marc, who is an actual hockey player... anyways.
The Natrel skating rink at the Toronto harbourfront. In the background, you can see bits of Lake Ontario and the Toronto islands.
Finally, it was "Earth Hour" on saturday, the 29th, so Dani, Marc and I went to Nathan Philips Square to hear some bands play (Nelly Furtado and The Philosopher Kings played a couple of songs, and the mayor held a speech) and watch the city go dark for 1 hour, as a reminder that we should conserve energy to save the world... and stop global warming... all that good stuff. Quite a few buildings went dark, so that was an unusual sight for Toronto at night, since usually it's bright as day. Also, it's weird to me that you actually seem to have to remind Canadians to turn off their lights when they leave their home - I've been doing that since I was a kid! But then I come home from school or wake up in the morning and my roommates have left at least 3 lights on in our appartment, and suddenly I think, that, maybe, Canadians really need to learn how to do that.
And that's it for now: I have my final paper I hope to hand in today, and then it's mostly organizing stuff until I leave for Halifax on the 15th. Hope the weather is good enough for us to go hiking - and I hope there won't be any blizzards, since I will be driving *sigh*
After my east coast trip i'll be heading west, and then I should be back in Toronto around june 29th... hopefully with tons of great pictures and even greater memories!
Until next time!
Omg, things are happening fast now! So, we went out for my roommate Kaela's birthday, and we drove in a "limo"... hahaha!
When my friends from Germany got here saturday, march the 8th, I picked them up from the airport.. and didn't really do much with them after that for the next couple of days, because I was so sick I got dizzy whenever I tried standing up. Great. Anyways, so they went off to explore Toronto on their own, and by tuesday I was feeling better, so Kaela, Betti, Uli and I went to the Toronto Zoo. It was a beautiful day out - very sunny, fairly mild temperatures, and lots of snow! The unfortunate part about going to the zoo in winter, and when they're doing some construction, is, that you don't get to see all of the animals. The grizzlies were hibernating, the polar bears were somewhere in the North because their space at the zoo was under contruction, the elephants weren't on display that day, and so on and so forth. Anyway, we still saw some amazing animals, and I think everyone enjoyed it. The gorillas were awesome! And the zoo has an Orang-Utan that was born in Borneo in 1958!!!!
Apparently, they think we're just as interesting as we think they are...
Watch out! Danger!
Go for the eyes, go for the eyes!
Betti and Uli, standing on the zoo's equator... and Kaela, waving in the background
A cheetah in the snow... now here's something you don't see everyday!
Oh, and Betti and I ate crickets covered in chocolate - actually, it doesn't taste that bad.
Betti and Uli left early thursday to go on their Ontario roadtrip, I went to school to write an exam, and then headed off on my own roadtrip - to Chicago, for St. Patrick's day! It was Matthias and Sara, who did the driving, and then Ian (a British guy Sara knows) and Florian (a French guy, also a friend of Sara's). We drove all night and arrived in Chicago around 9 a.m. on friday morning. We spent friday exploring Chicago - that was a trip down memory lane. Kind of weird, but also kind of nice - I really like Chicago! And we had 10°C, plants were growing - it felt like spring! I had completely forgotten that there was anything other than winter... it was nice. Saturday we got up early, because that was the day of the St. Patrick's day celebrations - meaning there was a parade, and, much more importantly: the dye the river green!!! And when I say green, i mean BRIGHT green! So that was fun! I also went to about 10 different shops to find Converse for my sister, but it turns out none of them had the ones she wanted... that sucked. We ended up not going to any bars, because two of us weren't 21 yet, so they wouldn't let them in. We went out for dinner instead and then bought some beer on the way home. So we spent that night playing card games, laughing a lot and having a beer in our room back at the hostel. On sunday, we went up on the Hancock Building, picked up a dozen donuts at Dunkin Donuts (YAY!!) and then started our drive back. We didn't get back on time, so we ended up driving everybody home because they had missed their last bus - and I didn't get back home to Toronto until the next morning, I crashed at Matthias' place - on the up side, that way he didn't have to drive on his own for 2 hours after driving for most of the day.
from left to right: Ian, Flo, Matthias, and Sara - in the background, the Chicago skyline.
Even the dogs get dressed up for St. Patrick's day!
Me, in front of the green river (the day AFTER they dyed it!!)
In case it doesn't come out on the previous picture: THIS is how green the river was!
... St. Patrick's day.
I got back to Toronto on monday the 17th - and my Jazz choir's concert was on the 18th. The concert went well, we had fun - it was a little sad to say goodbye to some of them, though. Afterwards, Dani and I met up with Steffen, who'd come to the city from Waterloo to show his friends that were visiting from Germany around.
The man flailing his hands in front of us is Bob, our conductor/professor. The black&white shirt, that's me.
Okay, once again, I'm getting hungry. I'll tell you about the rest of it later... meaning everything after march 18th up until now. Hope you guys are well!
When my friends from Germany got here saturday, march the 8th, I picked them up from the airport.. and didn't really do much with them after that for the next couple of days, because I was so sick I got dizzy whenever I tried standing up. Great. Anyways, so they went off to explore Toronto on their own, and by tuesday I was feeling better, so Kaela, Betti, Uli and I went to the Toronto Zoo. It was a beautiful day out - very sunny, fairly mild temperatures, and lots of snow! The unfortunate part about going to the zoo in winter, and when they're doing some construction, is, that you don't get to see all of the animals. The grizzlies were hibernating, the polar bears were somewhere in the North because their space at the zoo was under contruction, the elephants weren't on display that day, and so on and so forth. Anyway, we still saw some amazing animals, and I think everyone enjoyed it. The gorillas were awesome! And the zoo has an Orang-Utan that was born in Borneo in 1958!!!!
Apparently, they think we're just as interesting as we think they are...
Watch out! Danger!
Go for the eyes, go for the eyes!
Betti and Uli, standing on the zoo's equator... and Kaela, waving in the background
A cheetah in the snow... now here's something you don't see everyday!
Oh, and Betti and I ate crickets covered in chocolate - actually, it doesn't taste that bad.
Betti and Uli left early thursday to go on their Ontario roadtrip, I went to school to write an exam, and then headed off on my own roadtrip - to Chicago, for St. Patrick's day! It was Matthias and Sara, who did the driving, and then Ian (a British guy Sara knows) and Florian (a French guy, also a friend of Sara's). We drove all night and arrived in Chicago around 9 a.m. on friday morning. We spent friday exploring Chicago - that was a trip down memory lane. Kind of weird, but also kind of nice - I really like Chicago! And we had 10°C, plants were growing - it felt like spring! I had completely forgotten that there was anything other than winter... it was nice. Saturday we got up early, because that was the day of the St. Patrick's day celebrations - meaning there was a parade, and, much more importantly: the dye the river green!!! And when I say green, i mean BRIGHT green! So that was fun! I also went to about 10 different shops to find Converse for my sister, but it turns out none of them had the ones she wanted... that sucked. We ended up not going to any bars, because two of us weren't 21 yet, so they wouldn't let them in. We went out for dinner instead and then bought some beer on the way home. So we spent that night playing card games, laughing a lot and having a beer in our room back at the hostel. On sunday, we went up on the Hancock Building, picked up a dozen donuts at Dunkin Donuts (YAY!!) and then started our drive back. We didn't get back on time, so we ended up driving everybody home because they had missed their last bus - and I didn't get back home to Toronto until the next morning, I crashed at Matthias' place - on the up side, that way he didn't have to drive on his own for 2 hours after driving for most of the day.
from left to right: Ian, Flo, Matthias, and Sara - in the background, the Chicago skyline.
Even the dogs get dressed up for St. Patrick's day!
Me, in front of the green river (the day AFTER they dyed it!!)
In case it doesn't come out on the previous picture: THIS is how green the river was!
... St. Patrick's day.
I got back to Toronto on monday the 17th - and my Jazz choir's concert was on the 18th. The concert went well, we had fun - it was a little sad to say goodbye to some of them, though. Afterwards, Dani and I met up with Steffen, who'd come to the city from Waterloo to show his friends that were visiting from Germany around.
The man flailing his hands in front of us is Bob, our conductor/professor. The black&white shirt, that's me.
Okay, once again, I'm getting hungry. I'll tell you about the rest of it later... meaning everything after march 18th up until now. Hope you guys are well!
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