Review Nov/Dec 2007

Thanks for keeping an eye on the blog, although nothing happened for a long time. Finally I'm publishing the review for November and December 2007, but the descriptions are much shorter due to lack of time ;-)

Toronto
We visited a lot of sights including CN-Tower, China Town, Kensington Market, City Hall, Eaton Center (Shopping), and the Royal Ontario Museum. We also checked out all kind of food, for example the Korean barbecue during a visit of my brother Klaus.

Trips
Before the exams started in December, there was some time to visit Canada's Wonderland for the Halloween weekend. This trip was very nice, as we were able to both ride some rollercoasters and enter haunted houses with frightening clowns! Another trip we joined lead us to Niagara on the Lake, which is quite nice this time of the year. We continued to see the colored falls and to have a look at the entertainment district of Niagara.

Campus Life
During the first term, a couple of exchange students met quite often on Wednesday to play pool and foosball at the Phoenix, which is the on-campus bar of McMaster. This photo album also contains pictures of some Halloween parties, the Christmas dinner of the International Office and a "German Food" party. We prepared traditional "Wurstnudeln" for this event, which were called "Nudelsalat" by the Germans...!

That's it for now, I'll be back with more news from Canada soon!

Scholars Education Centre

On the 22nd of October I started with my work at the Scholars Education Centre. It is a private highschool and in the afternoon a tutoring centre. I have nice co-workers with whom I have lots of fun, sometimes we eat together our lunch- by the way most of the time sandwich or pizza.

The first week was a little bit chaotic, because the last Education Coordinator quit the job and so the new one started the same time as I.

But in my third week I developed an even rhythm. In the morning I update the binder of the tutoring students, check the teachers’ comments and make a plan what the student should work on next. When I'm finished with this, I help the education coordinator with her work, make the timetable, talk to parents, and copy some sheets especially for SSAT preparation, a special test for the students who would like to attend a private high school instead of the public one.

I also have to answer the phone, which I first thought would be quit difficult to understand the people, but after some talk, I have now no problems any longer to understand them.
At 4 pm the tutoring students come and I mostly tutor some of them, most of the time for one hour, but sometimes two hours. I mostly tutor them in English, which is sometime quit challenging for me, because they are native speaker. At first I was a little bit afraid, but now I really enjoy it and I learn a lot in English, but also for my later job as a teacher. I also help them with there problems in Mathematic and Science and I also do some SSAT preparation.

Montreal/Quebec

The McMaster Outdoor Club offered a Montreal Trip over the Thanksgiving Weekend. We always wanted to go there and so we joined them. On Friday afternoon our journey began, again in our beloved yellow school buses. It took us almost 9 hours to arrive in Montreal, because there were lots of traffic jams due to the long weekend.

After the long bus tour we all went for a Cider and afterwards into our room, which was by the way very big and nice, except the bed. You can see the reason in our photo album. But we had luck, because Andi and I we got a room just for ourselves whereas most of the others slept in a 6 or even 10 beds room.

The next day we visited most of the famous placed in Montreal. In the morning we went up to the hill, where we had an excellent view over the city and in the afternoon we went to see Vieux Montreal. We also wanted to take a short look into the basilica of Notre Dame, but there where 5 weddings on that day. I forgot my dress and Andi his suit and so we weren’t allowed to have a look inside. In the evening we went to see a movie and the famous Underground City. However, we were a little disappointed, because it just consists of some connected shopping centers.

We also behaved like Chinese people, but somehow the Chinese guys looked astonished about us - you can also see that in our photo album.

On the next day we decided to rent a car and then travel to Quebec. One of our group members, Soeren from Denmark, joined us. When we arrived we were fascinated by this city, it’s such a lovely city with narrow streets and little houses. It was also a beautiful day and so we had lots of fun, discovering Quebec. Again, we visited a Fairmont Hotel and even sneaked into the magnificent washrooms, which are usually reserved for hotel guests. At the end of the day we ate crepes in a restaurant and afterwards drove back to Montreal. The next day the yellow school bus brought us back to Hamilton, which took us the whole day and caused a lot of pain for our bodies.

Niagara Falls

On Sunday it was a beautiful day and so we decided to visit Niagara Falls. We took the bus to the village Niagara on the Falls, went out of the bus and looked for the falls, but there was nothing! See the last picture in our photo album for the nice view ;-) We had to take another bus, which took us the falls.

They were really spectacular, but to be honest we both thought that they were bigger. We took a lot of pictures from both parts, the American and the Canadian.

It was a sunny day and so we saw a beautiful rainbow over the falls. We also decided to visit the journey behind the falls, where we went down to a lower level (by the way, that’s where Superman rescued Louise). We saw the Canadian falls from close up and experienced the mist, but we first got very stylish yellow raincoats, so we were safe and stayed pretty dry. There was also a small trail and from there you could really see the waterfalls from the back, but actually we just saw a white wall out of water.

After visiting the nature spectacle we went to the entertainment district of Niagara on the Falls, which is 5 min on foot away from the falls and a real tourist city. Please add some comments, we’re always glad to read them!

Weekend Trips – Safari and NHL

This weekend we rented a car (Toyota by the way) and travelled to the African Lion Safari Park. There we went on a Safari, meaning that we could see all the animals in wildlife from our car. We always opened the window to take pictures, but a friendly park ranger told us to close it. After several times (we never listened to her) she started to shout at us, “Close your window!” But during the safari, we heard this sentence quite a lot and every time it was determined for us. There were lots of animal to observe, but what I liked most were the monkeys. They were so cute, especially the little ones. They also jumped on the car and took a short ride, knowing exactly when to get off again.

In the afternoon we travelled on to Buffalo, to watch an ice hockey game of the Buffalo Sabres. By the way, that’s the NHL team where the Austrian Thomas Vanek plays. We thought that we would need maximum 3 hours, including crossing the border and searching for a parking lot. But everything was different from what we expected. When we crossed the border there were not a lot of cars, so we thought that we are lucky. But then they took all our passports, because our friends didn’t have a visa. We went into the office together, there were several people waiting. After talking to them we started to say good-bye to the hockey game- most of them were already waiting for 3 hours! In fact, we had to wait so long that the game had already started and so we missed the initial 30 minutes. However, the game was really amazing and we are now dedicated Sabres fans - Andi bought a t-shirt and I am the proud owner of a Sabres finger/hand. As always, please visit the photo album.

Algonquin Park - Canoe Trip

This weekend we decided to join the McMaster Outdoor Club on his Canoeing Trip to the Algonquin Park, which is in the North of Ontario. We started on Friday afternoon and experienced the luxurious quality of the yellow school busses for 4 hours (our legs still hurt), until we finally arrived at the first campground. After brushing our teeth in the middle of the forest, we went to bed in our beloved tent.

The next day we travelled to the Portage Store at the famous Canoe Lake and after a short introduction to canoeing we started paddling around the various lakes. We really enjoyed it, but sometimes it was quite tough. We also had to do a portage, which means that we had to lift our canoe off the water and carry it on our back to the other lake, including the other equipment like tent and sleeping bags. Andi was the first who tried it, me carrying the backpacks.

In the afternoon we arrived at our wild camp place, not even self-registration - can you imagine? We decided to build up our tent on a small hill, where we had a spectacular view over the lake. You can see it on the picture beside. In the evening we cooked some pasta over the fireplace and later that night we came into contact with roasted marshmallows on the fire and warm apples for the first time. We also experienced the delicious taste of marshmallow sandwiches (marshmallow + chocolate + cookie), which is typical for America!

After sitting a long time beside the fire, we went to bed, but not so our other group members. They stayed awake for a long time and so the next morning they didn’t wake up until 11am. We are late-riser, but this was even too long for us, but we enjoyed the morning and discovered the area around our camp place. In the morning we brushed our teeth while sitting on the rocks and looking over the lake.

The only bad thing was that at the time the other group members woke up, it was too late to carry on with the original route - so we had to take the route, which we did the day before. Back at the portage it was my time to carry the canoe, but to my astonishment it was not as heavy as I expected it. We also went swimming in the lake and rock jumping which was very cold, but the weather was very warm and sunny. You can see more pictures in our Algonquinpark photoalbum.

It was a very amazing journey, because Algonquin Park is a very unique landscape, especially when there is Indian summer.

Toronto

On this day, I met my host-family. We decided to take an earlier bus to travel to Toronto to have a short look around in the city. But you know us, things always turned out differently from what we expect. At first there were no busses going from Andi’s house to Hamilton downtown. According to Andi’s roommate it wasn’t a long walk to the GoBus station, so we decided to go. But after half an hour we were still walking and finally after one hour we found the bus station. Then the bus was too crowded and so we took the other bus, which should only take 15 minutes more than the other one, the bus driver told us. To conclude, we were in Toronto exactly at that time, when I told the Homestay department of the ILSC to pick me up.

They drove us to my new home, where I’m staying for the next 3 months. My homestay family is very nice and I have my own room and even my own bathroom on the third floor. You can see my windows at the picture beside (the three windows on the top). My first evening ended like a typically American dinner, a pizza ordered from a restaurant while watching TV. My hostfamily also has two boys, at the age of 6 and 7, which are very cute. One day they taught me how to play American football and I now know what’s a spin shot and how to catch the ball the right way :-)

I go to school everyday from 9 am to 4 pm and I like it. Sometimes I feel like I am back to school in Austria. I found many friends from all over the world, Switzerland, Brasil, Mexico, Venezuela, Korea, Japan, etc. After school we often spend our time together, discovering Toronto, searching for Outlet Malls, which we by the way never found.

One bad thing is that it takes me 45 minutes or longer to get to school every day. That’s what I am missing of Austria and especially of Graz, standing up only half an hour before the course starts and riding the bike to University for only 5 to 10 minutes. But compared to others I’m glad to live very near to the school, others need over one hour each day- yes Toronto is a big city. See some pictures in my photo album.

Toronto itself is a very multicultural city, there are lots of people from different parts of the world and it is hard to find real Canadians. But everybody is very friendly and helpful.
I’m really enjoying my time here in Canada, everyday is full with new experiences and I learn a lot, not only English but also things that are important for my future life.