Last Weeks in The Loo...

After exams finally finished, Em spared us an hour before excitedly coming over, picking us up and whisking us away to the Ford family farm.

Just being in a car outside of Waterloo was like a breath of fresh air. Ontario is Canada’s flattest state; I never thought I would be so excited to drive up a hill and see a view of a lake from the top! The countryside was beautiful and seemed like a whole different planet compared to the last visit when everything was blanketed in snow. The houses all remind me of gingerbread, postcard perfect houses; each with its own red barn with a green roof.
A pork casserole awaited our arrival at the Ford’s, and was rapidly gobbled down by Pat and myself. The next few days we were swamped with delicious food, as Lib being our Canadian mum worried over Pat’s decline in weight since our last visit (6kg!). Apple pancakes, hot cross buns, Easter eggs, ham, ham, asparagus, and more ham fueled us for the Easter weekend.
We visited Em’s cottage, which is on an island in the middle of Lake Simcoe. There are about 30 cottages on the island, each surprisingly well secluded from the others. The day was sunny; perfect for a walk around the island, a glass of wine with lunch on the deck, and Pat snuck in a spot of fishing off the dock too! Aubrey showed us around his prized project, he virtually rebuilt the whole house as it was in such a bad state when the Fords first got the property.

The next day we had a big Easter dinner with 20 of the Fords’ family friends, needless to say, we went hungry that night…

We returned to Waterloo after our food filled weekend, and had to move out of our basement residence a couple days later.
After a day of ferrying things between the apartments, I think I walked almost 9km just moving things. The new apartment is on the 3^rd floor (yesss), with 3 bedrooms for 2 of us (nice….), with much faster internet (thankgod!), and 2 bathrooms (YAHOOO), Pat now gets his own bathroom!

The Canadian AFL season has just started, and the other week Pat had his first game with the Guelph Gargoyles. The boys lost, but it was a tough team and they hadn’t played together before.
The league is actually fairly big, apparently the biggest AFL league outside of Australia. There are about 12 teams and multiple divisions within them. About 60% of the guys are Canadian, so there are quite a few Aussies playing.
It was the first time I had heard an Australian accent (other than Pats or on skype) since I had arrived. Beers galore, swearing increased by 200%, aussie nicknames everywhere (digits, killa, robbo, sticks, frenchie, kerm), a bbq, even a Blue Heeler cross Australian Shepherd called Dingo was there adding to the overwhelming sense of Australian culture. It was like being around at a footy game at home, so a happy mothers day phone call to Mum, and hearing all the delicious things she had cooked while I contemplated McDonalds for dinner alone only added to the homesickness initiated by the game earlier that day.

Most recently I got back from a trip to Toronto and Oshawa. Alex, one of my friends fro kinesiology at Laurier is staying in Waterloo over the summer and was kind enough to drive me to Toronto. The speed limit over here is 100km on the freeway, but its more like a social guideline. As long as you aren’t going too much faster than everyone else or driving dangerously, the police won’t pull you over; so driving at 130km is actually pretty normal!

Initially I couldn’t check in at the hostel, so I had to leave my bags and go for a walk. That walk took me to the Eaton Center…. Uh oh, one of the biggest shopping malls in Toronto. I got some great deals, and bought a lot of stuff… But I may as well have burnt my wallet that day. Alex had a difficult task trying to get me to try on shoes that afternoon after the Eaton Center already ate a lot of my money!
That night I met up with Lisa who is working in Toronto for the summer (from Laurier), and we went to see the baseball! We met up with Pat and his footy friends who had come to Toronto to see the game. Toronto blue jays vs. Boston red sox, a great night, there’s so much going on with mascots, dancing, competitions, and crowd participation that time flew while we were there.
I started the next morning with a run along the harbor front; I couldn’t believe how a lake so big was frozen only a couple of weeks ago. Alex picked me up soon after and introduced me to her friends Emma and Wyatt (who had bee set up by Alex and had their first date the night before- nawww). The two of them had decided it would be funny to copy my accent and see how awkward they could make me feel (all in good fun), but not long after trying this they admitted they had met their match, as I found it way to easy to impersonate their accent and tease them about their second date together. The four of us continued to mock each other as we walked into greektown for spanakopita and greek honey balls… yum.
That night as I got ready for bed I realized I was in one of the most random and unfriendly hostel rooms I had ever been in. The hostel itself was really nice and filled with friendly people, but a group of English speaking Asians; 3 Germans who no one liked as they got up at 5am and took 3 hours to get ready; a very skinny girl who was by herself and never spoke; as well as a large red head who had tattoos down her arms, across her chest, nose and cheek piercings, and yelled every time anyone slammed the door as she tried to sleep in until midday… was a rather unfortunate and unhappy combination of people. But alone time didn’t worry me too much though as I spent most of my time outside of the hostel with Lisa, Alex and her friends.

The next day I met up with Lisa to take the train to Oshawa (aka ‘the dirty ‘shwa) for Joelle and Bree’s birthday. As we drove into town, I was pretty surprised when Joelle pointed out the house that Billy Madison was filmed in. We then had a small tour of the dirty end of town and the nice end of town that Joelle lives in.
After meeting the family, helping set up for the party, and getting ready, it was party time! I remember I had a lot of fun… dancing in the rain, playing beer pong, having shots with Joelle and her family, and being asked about whether kangaroos are cuddly. Then, I woke up. My head hurt, a lot.
A sleep on the couch was definitely needed, especially before getting ready to go out and party a second night… yes Mum, Dad and Matt all roll their eyes. Meanwhile Shell was texting me all through the Oshawa party the night before (her day time), while I texted her the next day (her night time while she partied it up at 4 different bars), then again that night (while she was hung over eating subway and I was partying again). 3 nights of partying and texting each other in 48hrs between 2 sisters… Kind of impressive I think!

After 2 nights at home, Pat had 3 days off work, so we hired a car and headed to Algonquin Provincial Park. It’s the oldest provincial park in Canada, and it’s huge, apparently about a quarter of the size of Belgium, or one and a half time the size of the US state Delaware.
After both going to get into the wrong side of the car (stupid Canadians and driving on the right side of the road), Pat got us to Algonquin safe and sound. Before we’d even driven 15km into the park, I was pretty excited to see a male moose about 60m from the side of the road, so we pulled over and got some pictures. Another 15km down the road, we had to slow down to avoid another moose that wasn’t sure if it wanted to cross the road or not.
We set up camp and then headed off to do a 5km hike, every couple of minutes we were checking for bears and moose. We were walking past moose tracks everywhere, and had been warned of bears in the park. After seeing some fantastic views of lakes and our surrounds, beaver dams, a tree that had been clearly visited by a wood pecker, and then returning to camp, sunset came along and produced some of the most amazing bright pink and blue colours I had ever seen.
The next morning, I woke up at 5am to a rustling noise and cracking of branches; initially I thought nothing of it. Then I realized it was a beaver about 3m from our tent trying to break off a branch from a tree lying in the lake next to us. I tried to be as quiet as possible as I got up, but other than seeing the tree shaking and chips of wood floating in the water, Mr beaver was gone.
That day after a short drive, and yet again having to slow down for another moose, we did the Centennial ridges walk, lonely planet recommended it as one of the top 5 walks with amazing views. It was a 10km walk, and we certainly earned those views, as we climbed one of the best natural step masters I’d experienced in a while. The views were breath taking, to the point where they didn’t seem real. We saw plenty of lakes, chip monks (cutest things ever), squirrels, a huge 3m tall beaver dam, a frog, 3 turtles on a log, and a blue bird; the 10km effort was definitely worth it. I was in bed by about 9pm that night, as I read my book, I was listening to owls hooting in the surrounding forest, thinking about how lucky I was to experience so much wild life and a beautiful park. Then the wolves started howling from across the lake… It was really eerie, but I was like an excited little kid.
We did a short walk in the morning and took a couple more photos to add to the 3 billion I’d already taken the 2 previous days, before heading back to Waterloo for my last 2 weeks before the parents arrived.
Although hiring a car and getting to Algonquin was an expensive exercise, and used up pretty much the last of my money, it was definitely worth it. I loved it. Amazing. So different to every other camping trip I’d experienced in studying outdoor recreation the last few years. In Australia, regardless of where you are, there is generally a level of familiarity and comfort in camping. However, in a foreign country where you’re surrounded by flora and fauna that you’ve never seen or heard of before, or simply can’t recognize; it felt quite strange to not completely be able to interpret your surrounds and/or know what to expect.

So now I’m back in Waterloo, tying up loose ends, partying a bit more with Alex, Lindsay, Taylor and some other Laurier kids still in town.
It’s getting a bit stale here, I’m ready to move onto somewhere new and see the parents again. Not long now though, 11 sleeps. Not that I’m counting...

For photos, have a look at my Facebook. The flickr stream keeps running out of space, and loading photos into the blog is pretty painful.
For all photos have a look at:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150343155280402.581916.560715401&l=5247fd433a
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150460704410402.642037.560715401&l=d9bb213a20
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150612478530402.682137.560715401&l=ac237c4db5

Kin Games and Kin Formal

I'm in my last week of the semester… I've got 1 paper and 2 exams left, and that’s it!

My last exam is on the 21^st of April, Ill go to Ems for the Easter weekend, then I have all of May here in waterloo (doing a couple of weekend trips but that’s about it) to save a bit of money, then the parents arrive in june, and I fly home at the start of july!

Its been almost 4 months already! So crazy how quickly its gone!

Last weekend was the kinesiology formal, which was a lot of fun! Lisa was kind enough to lend me her dress and shoes from last year.

Everyone in our class is graduating this semester so it was a big night. Pat and I even made it onto the graduation slide show, which half of the kin kids didn’t manage…

The weekend before last was Kin games. I’m so glad the others applied to get Pat and I on the team; there are only 30 spots for each university… So we were very lucky.

It’s basically the same as uni games in Australia except fewer sports and only people studying kinesiology can go. The day we left for the games was St Patricks day, which is HUGE here, everyone dresses in green and pulls their couches onto the front lawn and drinks. You can virtually wander into any home and drink with anyone because there are so many open house parties. So after a morning and afternoon of drinking everyone got onto the bus to go to London, where Kin games was held at the University of Western Ontario (about 2 hours south west of Laurier).

As we arrived at the hotel, outfits changed from green into purple and gold while alcohol kept flowing and drinking games began…

The next morning involved more alcohol, followed by an opening ceremony for which each uni had to prepare and perform a dance which was a bit trickier after a couple of drinks… The team then split up to go play each of handball, ultimate frisbee and street hockey. I played handball with Em, Lisa and a few others, while Pat played ultimate frisbee outdoors in the cold.

Handball one 3 out of four games before the team re joined to return back to the hotel to get changed. We all donned the team t-shirt which says “we go all night long” to match the song we danced to… The bus picked us up for a night out at one of the local bars, where we almost went all night long.

My head was very sore the next morning, but we got up for the next few rounds of handball. At one point I saw one team call a time out, pass a drink bottle of beer between both teams and their supporters, then continue playing.

The closing ceremony involved watching half a dozen teams compete for the academic challenge, a streaker run in around the auditorium then return with her clothes on to a cheering audience and a beer which she then skulled for everyone, followed my many others who skulled beers through the beer bong while everyone else cheered… There was sooooo SOOOO much cheering. Every team has about a dozen cheers for their team, but also cheers for other teams as well. It was really different to Australia, because once you’re off the court/field, all the universities are so loving and supportive of each other; it was actually really nice to see, but it means you are cheering the whole time!

Its been almost two weeks since Kin games… I think I’m still recovering…

I'll be uploading some more photos soon, the internet is really slow, so its quite a painful process...

xo

Mid Term Break

Our mid term break had arrived. Em picked us up on Thursday to drive us to her home to meet the family. I was really excited to meet Em’s parents; they’d already made so many plans for us, baked muffins for us and somehow managed to be so hospitable without even being around in person.

We arrived in the evening to a meal in the oven, a table set for three and a note saying welcome home and telling us how to finish off dinner. The Lib and Aubrey- Em’s parents, were out for the evening at curling (a bizarre Canadian past time, almost like lawn bowls on ice), so we sat down to one of the most enjoyable home cooked meals I’ve had. Lib and Aubrey’s house is on a farm just outside of a town called Orillia (which is about the size of Hamilton). Tall trees, the smell of hay, Spitzy the dog, wooden fences dividing the snow covered paddocks and a barn all give the house a really rustic and homely feel that I didn’t realize I’d missed so much while living in the currently snow engulfed basement at Laurier.

I managed to stay awake to say hello to Lib and Aubrey before hitting the hay and having one of the best nights sleep I’d had in a long time.

Friday Em like an excited little kid at Christmas got the house up and running early for a day of skiing. We borrowed goggles and ski pants, drove 15 minutes and arrived at St Louis, a local ski hill  about half the size of Mt Buller with perfectly groomed, powder covered runs-ahhhhhh!

A 70% chance of rain predicted by the radio was non existent as we were blessed with blue skies and sunshine! Lib and Aubrey spoilt us and bought our lift tickets. Em, Lib, Aubrey, Em’s uncle, Em’s friend Courtney and family friend Anne all came to St Louis for a ski and to meet “The Aussies” that Em had frequently mentioned. It was amazing how everyone down-talked the powder and conditions of the runs; their idea of average/bad skiing conditions would be equal to Australia’s once in a blue moon best possible conditions.

After skiing for 5 hours we went home for a shower before we jumped into the car for a visit to the local curling rink for a lesson in curling from coaching extraordinaire-Lib! Basically, curling involves, standing on ice, with a 20kg piece of granite with handle attached to it called a “rock”. You hold the handle of the rock, put one foot on a wood block, and using your leg, you push off the block and extend your arm and let go of the rock pushing it to the other end of the rink; all whilst gliding on the ice in a lunged position. Easy right?! HA! Lib tried her best to help me reach my full potential in half an hour, I’m definitely going to make the Olympics soon. Aubrey’s pork tenderloin dinner was certainly polished off after a day one of the Ford boot camp.

We woke to a very cold morning, the power had gone off over night and consequently, so had the heating. It was -13C outside (-25C with wind chill), power lines were down and cars had been blown off the road earlier that morning. We couldn’t go snow shoeing to the Ford’s cottage because walking across a lake in a snow storm isn’t the smartest thing to do. Instead Em and Lib took us to the local farmers market, to a local bakery for coffee and cake, and to check out town. We then went for a walk on the lake. Drawing pictures in the snow and mucking around on the lake was really strange, the whole town was deserted because of the weather, so it was really eerie… you could see shadows of people in the distance and islands further out on the lake.  In the afternoon we went to Em’s friend Jess’ place for drinks and nibbles before heading home for some dinner and getting ready for a night out at the local bar- “The Tucks” a.k.a. “sucks”.  I had a great night with the girls, I got to meet all of Em’s primary school friends (known collectively as the rat pack) and also realize how standing in the cold waiting in line to get in at a bar in Melbourne is NOTHING. Mum often worries about me going out without a coat in Melbourne weather; you should see some of the (non existent) skirts and dresses a lot of the girls where out here. I cannot believe they don’t die of frostbite while waiting to get into the bars here.

The next morning, Aubury cooked up a big pancake breakfast complete with Canadian maple syrup. Yum!! After which Em, Lib and I jumped into the car so we could go dog sledding. Problem was, the dogs didn’t turn up. Half an hour after they were supposed to arrive the people who were supposed to bring the dogs called and said that they weren’t coming-bummer. Oh well, off we went to a rat pack baby shower. Em’s friend recently had a baby girl and it was time for the gang to meet her, so “the aussie” came along too.

It was pretty funny by the end of the shower how many times I had been introduced as “Kat…she’s from Australia” or “this is Kat, she’s Australian”; I started joking that it was beginning to sound like I had a disability or something when it was mentioned I was Australian. As soon as those words were mentioned everyone’s faces lit up with a smile followed by an “oHhhhhhhhhhhhh! Ok!”. Apart from making baby Amelia-mae cry, the baby shower was pretty fun; it was good to meet all the girls Em had been talking about and put faces to names.

A visit to the neighboring horse stable finished off the afternoon. Lib took me to see this multimillion-dollar facility that houses 25+ horses in winter, complete with indoor dressage arena. Our last night was spent doing washing and packing before our early morning departure for Montreal via Toronto and Ottowa.

Aubrey and Lib have invited us back for Easter; which I’m REALLY dreading. I mean they’ll probably force feed us the smallest amounts of really bad food and just leave us alone the whole time. Kidding! I’m really excited to head back to the Ford’s and hang out with my adopted Canadian family.

After 14 hours of travel, we finally got to Montreal. Everyone suddenly spoke French. People for some reason automatically spoke to me in French and in English to Pat. Peter our fellow exchange student (and token crazy Dutchman) met us at the bus station with two other exchange students Manon and Sam; both from France. Manon and Sam were our translators for the rest of the week, they definitely came in handy once we got to town we were staying just outside of (St Gabriel de Branden) where most people spoke French and little to no English.

The cottage was about 1.5 hrs North of Montreal and sits on the edge of a frozen lake. Tobogganing down the hill to the lake was really fun; you could build up quite a bit of speed, then as you hit the lake, the snow at the bottom stops you as you sink into it.

Our first day in Quebec was spent at a snow tubing park. Who knew a full park existed solely for tubing; there were over 40 different runs you could go on and lifts line with tubes that you sat in to get up the hill. Unfortunately the place was filled with young high school students, who acted annoyingly and accordingly. Then again… I don’t think 5 exchange students were that much better…constantly pelting each other with snowballs.

The next day was dog sledding! The brochure said we would be quite involved with the dogs, and that was no exaggeration. We harnessed them up, helped pull the sleds out, lined them up, sat in and drove the sleds!

The dogs went crazy! If you’ve ever picked up a pet from a kennel after a holiday and you hear all the dogs howling and barking at once, multiply that by about 10 and that was what 180 dogs going crazy all at once sound like. The French girls and I fell in love with one white husky who apparently is a smoothie with every girl that comes sledding, appropriately his name translated from French means “hug”.

It was really nerve racking standing there at the front of the sled trying to hold down the two lead dogs trying to jump up and lick my face, keep 10 dogs in line and wait for the sled master to give me the signal to run and jump in the sled.

It’s really hard trying to control a dog sled…You can put as much weight on the brake at the back of the sled as you want to, these dogs will still fly and generally average 25km/hr! We drove a fair distance to get to the sledding place and it was worth it; we travelled about 20kms in a bit over an hour, and saw areas that no cars or people can get to, just the dogs and whoever is in the sled. We went past a beaver dam, sledded over a lake, ducked and dived in between trees, up hills, down hills. I was actually pretty nervous most of the time, paddy was driving and isn’t one to enjoy using the break. We fell off three times and absolutely nailed a tree another time. My back took a fair bashing as a result. But it was definitely worth it!

I woke up with a bruised, scratched and swollen back (swollen, I know, who gets a swollen back?! Apparently you can); you couldn’t really see my spine for about four vertebrae, but I guess that can happen after 10 dogs drag a sled over your back as you lie face first down in the snow…Insert visual here…

Voltaren was my savior and got me through the next day of skiing at Mt Tremblant. Also worth the pain. Mt Tremblant has 95 runs, has been named Northeast America’s best ski resort 13 years in a row and second best after Whistler. The ski station at the bottom is really pretty, but almost too perfect. Manon and I both said it reminded us of Disneyland. I started off by taking Peter up and down the run next to the magic carpet and teaching him how to turn, along with the difference between a pizza and French fry! Which worked surprisingly well until Peter was too cool to follow me and decided to build up some speed before skiing straight into the fence at the bottom of the magic carpet-much to the amusement of the lifty at the bottom. We were a bit worried that Peter would be hurt or turned off skiing for the rest of the afternoon, but luckily he stood up straight away and yelled “That was awesome!” before heading off too his lesson.

Pat, Manon and I spent the rest of the day exploring the mountain. A lot of encouragement and careful choice of runs was used to help Manon; she bravely chose to come skiing with us after her last experience 3 years ago when she broke her leg. We even managed to get Manon to come down a black run by the end of the day with us, pretty impressive effort. As you would expect, we all collapsed in a heap that night after yet another tough day exploring more of Canada.

My last day at the cottage was spent studying. The realities of only having 5 weeks left in the semester started to hit after 4+ hours of studying and attempting to understand the notes the physiology professor has given us on protein biosynthesis-yay!

The day was finished with a walk across the lake to watch Paddy hurtle down a hill between/into trees on a toboggan.

The next morning the alarm went off at 4am for our trip back to university.

Time is flying by too quickly. I’m now into week 8 of 12 for the term, there will be 3 weeks of exams and then I’m free to travel.

The Laurier Fun Continues

I’m almost halfway through the exchange portion of my trip and I’ve been away for two months.

I’ve been so busy trying to keep up with my social life, recovering from my social life (hangover…anyone?) and trying to keep up with studies while I’m at it.

Last weekend I had a fun night, at bit too much fun because I paid for it the next day… With an advanced physiology (of muscular metabolism and cellular physiology…piece of cake, right?!) exam looming in 3 days time, a days worth of study went out the window.

I woke up at 5am on the morning of my exam for a last minute 2 hour cram session… I procrastinated with a couple of pieces of toast followed by a coffee. As I lifted my caffeinated kick-start up to my lips, my computer started up and the wonders of living in a snow-covered town came and saved the day! My first snow day! I went back to bed and was too excited at my exam being postponed for another two days to sleep for the next hour.

The snow is good, but my knees are black and blue. I’ve fallen twice on the ice. The first time was in a secluded car park behind my apartment, the second, trotting across the road in front of traffic to make the pedestrian lights and a bus… we missed the bus, and it was night time so as I fell I had traffic lights to add act as my multi-directional spotlight.

I had my first wings experience the other night. It was worth it at the time, but the 10g of fat per wing; which we had been taught about in nutrition, hit later in a double whammy grease ball combined with chili cheese fries.

Everyone is obsessed with wings and hockey here, they go hand in hand like pies and footy at home.

I was speaking to a room mate of one of my fellow international students. Apparently he, like many others, likes his wings hot.

When I say hot, I mean hot… Its not like the lame peri-peri sauce at Nado’s or Taco Bills at home. This is sign a waiver form in front of the chef while he hands you bright yellow wings with latex gloves to wear while you eat them. Alex told me that by the fifth wing, his eyes were watering and his mouth was completely numb.

I’ve also been educated in school bus songs, uni style. So the main difference between school sing-a-longs and the uni ones is pretty much alcohol and slightly dirtier topics.

This all started on what is called a “kin tour” (the course I’m taking is technically called kinesiology here, not exercise science). Basically, you dress in flannel shirt, drink, jump on a bus together, sing and laugh, go to a random country bar 45mins away called stampede ranch and drink some more until your comfortable enough to dance to random country songs by Keith Urban, Taylor Swift and god knows who else. Drinks for the night $35, coat check $2, getting a photo with the security guard in his cowboy hat and belting out Taylor Swift with your new Canadian friends- priceless.

The Algonquin park trip didn’t go ahead L. To make up for it  Pat and I are visiting Em’s cottage about 1hr from Toronto then joining Peter (crazy dutch exchange student) and a couple of the French exchange students at a lake front cottage in Quebec about an hour from Montreal. So the week should be filled with snow shoeing, ice fishing, cross country skiing, dog sledding, ice-skating, snow-mobile rides and maybe even some horse riding.

Other than all this, there have been adventures at the club on campus, a super bowl night, birthdays and much more.

Hope the crazy Australian weather backs off a bit.

Love me. xo

And the exchange begins!

The last two weeks have been a blur...
A whirlwind of figuring out class rooms, socialising, subjects, phones, emails, furnishing the apartment, socialising, buying extra warm clothes, understanding classes, organising weekend/future travel, socialising, grocery shopping, trying new foods, seeing new places...just to mention a few.
Being "aussie" is pretty fun in Canada... Everyone loves us.
We are pointed out almost every class by the prof, offered help and friendship by everyone.
We are in a 3 level apartment building with a Frenchman and Italian man above us, and above them are two girls; a Swede and another Frenchie.
We were invited upstairs on one of the first nights. Where all of our neighbours and a couple more Frenchies were drinking and being merry... I think it was one of the first times where the most common language being spoke wasn't english (despite being in a primarly english speaking country). So it was quite weird trying to interpret what was being spoken with the little French I remember from the 5 years I learnt at Fintona.
Em has made quite the effort to make sure we are included and feel loved. She got all the girls together for a night out on the town the day after my birthday; beforehand we met at Ems for some drinks where I was suprised with a smartie-covered cake with candles.
We went to one of the local countrybars; "Dallas". Everyone loves country music here, Keith Urban is definately a favourite and we being his fellow Australians are looked at weird for not knowing/liking his music.
We took the bus and arrived at the bar to find a line of 700+ people. Lisa (Em's friend) had booked us a guest list earlier in order to allow us free entry and no waiting in line. The bouncer didn't want to hear it though, aparently everyone in line was on the guest list....
So after Em was shoo-ed away for whinging, I jumped in with my Aussie accent pleading that it was my birthday and my first night out in town etc. Which somehow managed to get the 15+ of us in past the 700+ line without paying for entry! (my thoughts "schweeeeet, I love being australian right now").
Dallas is two levels, the second being a balcony over looking the main floor below at the front of which is a stage with a mechanical bull...
Of course, me being the birthday girl and a exchange student was told I had to have a turn... 20ish seconds later, I very unspectacularly and lame-ly slid off the bull. Pat made a more impressive effort with 84 seconds.
The Canadian certainly are hospitable people....I paid for one drink that night. The rest of that weekend was spent recovering....
Last Thursday was Lisa's birthday. We were invited out to join the gang at the local Bricker Brewery, where they have "bricker tours"... aka- pay $15 for 2 hours of all you can drink beer.
It was a good night, I held back just enough to enjoy the antics of many others around me. Joelle (another of Em's close friends) confessed her love to me before telling me that her and the 6 other girls jokingly call themselves the 7 days of the weeks, and the other night she had a dream that everyone was a particular day of the week, and I as their new edition to the week was the 8th holiday! So I've recently been given the new nickname "holiday". So no shortage of love coming my way!

Language differences can be quite funny. Apart from obvious differences like biscuits/crackers, ALuminIum foil/aLoooominum foil, I reckon/eh?, about/aboot, beanie/tuque(pronounced took...and we get the weird looks saying beanie?!); the canadians are so polite that they must think we have the dirtiest mouths ever.
I think Australian swearing to Canadians is like the Irish are to Australians. I don't swear that much compared to most people at home, but over here I must have such a sailor mouth! We either get laughs for swearing or a little girly jump from the unexpected expletive.

I think Im also seen as a bit special, for some reason I've developed this constant habit of pulling doors when they should be pushed and pushing doors when they should be pulled; Pat finds it hilarious and gives me a patronizing cheer on the few occasions I get it right. As well as this we both keep walking through hallways and on stairs on the left side and almost hitting people...
I'm also highly likely (and hoping not to be) to be hit by a car at any moment. Every morning we leave the apartment for an 8.30am class; in Melbourne 8.30 isn't that bad... This morning in waterloo it was -20C before windchill. The cold hits you so hard that sometimes you forget to breathe... It's like the automatic reaction you get when you first dive into cold water and hold your breath, except every now and then I do it as I walk outside. So when you're struggling to concentrate on breathing, it's really hard to remember to look in the opposite direction when you cross the main road at 8.15 in the morning.

Hockey....is (to understate it) an obsession. I don't think there has been a class without a famous game, or player, or shot being talked about. Nutrition, Ethics, Physiology, Psychology all mention ice hockey at least half a dozen times or so in an hour long class. Everytime it's mentioned though, the prof usually then pauses, turns to the rest of the class and says... "can some please explain it for people who don't know what we're talking aboot?" as they gesture in the aussies general direction.
The profs are also really nice and complement on cool things that the Australians have going for them. Such as the nutrition prof talking about our Glycemic Index labeling on foods; or the physiology prof asking about Tasmania or the Ethics teacher saying he loves our national rugby team "the all blacks"....errr yes... It felt to mean to correct his intended complement...

Living on campus is like living in a bubble, theres a convience store, a starbucks, pub, club etc... I mentioned them all to you last time. But basically there is enough to get by living on campus and not leaving. So without a TV, we don't really get to hear much news and the campus life bubble begins to grow....

That's why Pat and I took ourselves off to Toronto last weekend to actually start seeing some of Canada. I love Toronto. It's not that different to Melbourne. Very multicultural, very friendly, not too touristy, great little areas within and all over the city.
Our first stop was the St Lawrence markets where we had a highly recommended (and deservingly so) parmigana sandwich. We then walked along the harbor front which looks across to the Toronto Islands. Half of the water surrounding Toronto is frozen. I've seen frozen water and lakes before, but its quite strange to see a city functioning around it; boats driving through it, ducks popping up from underneath it...
After a pitstop in a local favourite "Tim Hortons" (basically a cheaper version of starbucks, very average coffee and yummy but regretful doughnuts) to defrost we continued walking through the town.
After 30mins under the doona at the hostel, followed by a scortching hot 20min shower my body was still freezing cold; it took over a good hour to warm up. That night we spent a bit more money than a backpacker would normally, and had dinner at the revolving restaurant up the CN tower; which for 30years was the tallest construction in the world, so as you can imagine the view was pretty amazing. Luckily for the price we paid, the food was pretty amazing too!
The next morning I had one of my first ever sleep ins... and in a bed with springs....ahhhhh!
Back into the cold we explored the Yonge district, lots of shopping, none done by me though. I will admit to briefly entering one store for 5 mins, did a quick lap looking for shoes asked for directions from a staff member before making an emergency exit as I could see Pats mood rapidly plummeting.
A very cold walk via Toronto University to China Town followed. (I feel like you only need to see China town in one or two countries other than your own, and you've seen them all).
Before heading home we had a late lunch and coffee in Kensington Markets, which aren't really markets at all. Its a lot of small fruit stores, cafes, lunch spots etc filled with dreadlock embracing, hippy-ish, alternative hardcores. The food and coffee was amazing. It reminded me a lot of North Melbourne.
Infact most of Toronto reminded me a little bit of different areas within and around Melbourne... except with snow.
Waterloo though...
Waterloo is the town my University is in; and while being very pretty and with a couple of shops, it doesn't really have that much to it... A little bit like Launceston cross aspen...

Not this weekend but the next one we have a 3 day camping trip. It's organised for international/exchange students where we get to go polar dipping (cut a hole in the ice and jump in), sit around camp fires, snow shoeing, sledding and use the sauna. We do stay in a lodge though, so it's not quite cold as the rec trips at home staying in igloos! Can't wait! Hoping to see a moose or two!

Love me! xo

New York to Toronto

After a 2 hour flight to Bangkok, a 15 hour wait there, a 7.5hr flight to Doha, a 2hr transfer in Doha, a 14hr flight to New York, almost an hour on the tarmac, half an hour delay for bag pick up we walked through customs in New York fairly tired.

The next step was to get to get to the Hostel.

Outside in the line for taxis, it was like the airport had exploded with busyness and snow. The whole of New York; as most of you would’ve known, had been shut down due to the snow storms and we had arrived in post storm peak hour.

The line for cabs was pretty long, we waited 30mins before being told the airport had run out of taxis, there were still some more to come, but not many.

Pat and I decided to change to the shuttle service (of course as this happens, more taxis turned up). We waited half an hour for our shuttle, our short little Italian man turned up, called out my name and off he went rushing though and disappeared in a crowd of much taller people.

We hurried after him, jumped in the shuttle and drove. 150m down the road, he decided to swipe the front of a stationary car as he was pulling into the curb. We waited another 45mins for another shuttle while our short angry Italian man argued that the other car was moving and drove into him.

By the time we arrived at the hostel, it was 65hours between beds. I was tired, but Pat was wrecked.

Central Park

 Our first day we walked through snow covered central park, went to the North Face store to stock up on some warm clothes, visited Columbus Circle for some wholefoods for lunch (and a quick peek in some more shops) and then continued through Times Square (buying some more clothes along the way), and back up to fifth avenue where I purchased a new laptop.

Columbus Circle

Times Square

So after almost 8hours of dragging Pat around he had been quite the trooper, but had begun to be a bit tired and grumpy, so it was time to go home.

New years eve we met up with Hannah (a girl from the year below me at school who I used to row and coach with) and her family. We did a great walking tour that was supposed to be 6 hours… It turned into 8! However it was great, we covered a lot of sights and food.

Wall St

We started in Wall st, proceeded to ground zero, went to little Italy (had amazing pizza followed by a course of delicious rice pudding shared with my fellow chocaholic and sweet tooth Hannah), then onto Chinatown where live frogs, eels and many many live fish are sold.

Badges of Ground Zero Volunteers

Hannah Banana+Me+Chocolate Rice Pudding=Heaven

Stinky live fish anyone?

We saw Heath Ledgers apartment before heading to Times Square, grand central station (where Hannah and I gave into our sweet tooths yet again, Magnolia bakery has the most amazing cupcakes, featured in sex in the city), Soho and finished in Greenwich Village.

Grand Central Station

Later that night Pat and I went to Greenwich village into a small bar and had drinks before counting down with the very random crowd that surrounded us (a lady older than 60 with blue hair, a group of Korean exchange students, American footballers etc). It was a good choice considering we didn’t have tickets anywhere; we could barely walk through Times Square 2 days before and had been warned by almost everyone not to bother going there for New Years.

New Years in Greenwich Village

After a big sleep in on New years day we went to the highly recommended Katzs Deli for an amazing pastrami sandwich. A walk across Brooklyn Bridge was well worth the effort for some great views of the city and the statue of liberty.

Brooklyn Bridge

The afternoon was spent ice skating with Hannah-banana in the North end of Central Park which was a lot of fun; then in the evening we proceeded to a comedy show which I had been pretty skeptical about (a black man called John convinced us into going after approaching us in Times Square and halving the ticket price). The show was to my surprise actually really funny.

Ice skating in Central Park

Our last day in New York, Pat had a confession…. And I quote “I love New York” and “maybe we should come back for a weekend” –mwahaha I had succeeded in convincing him that New York was more than just a big city!

Our last day I spent the morning organizing airport transfers and apartment key pick ups while Pat had another extended sleep in to recover from some pretty rough jetlag. Eventually we got out and about and headed to Times Square to meet Hannah Banana, we visited the Toys r Us store where they have a ferris wheel inside the store and we all revisited our childhood dreams in the giant Barbie house, in the Jurassic Park section and then the Wonka candy section.

NY's local icon- The Naked Cowboy

Toys R' Us

Between us we had lots of Shockers, Gobstoppers and Runts before going to the M&M store to see the ridiculous amount of different colours and types of M&Ms and a leather Swarovski crystal encrusted M&M jacket worth $3000+.

M&M&M&M&M&M&Ms

I said good bye to Hannah Banana L after a drink at Hooters (yes all class I know, but you have to see it).

We headed back to the hostel for to pick up the bags and head to the airport.

Toronto is cold, very cold. But it was only -7, apparently we will get down to -20 (yes that is in Celsius).

A lovely man took us in our shuttle to Wilfred Laurier University, my home for the next few months. He was very chatty and unbelievably helpful, drove us to go pick up our keys on the other side of uni and then without being asked to drove us to our door and help us take the luggage inside; apparently after a bad incident he know walks everyone inside to make sure they are safe. He told us that it can get so cold that you are able to hear your breath freeze as it leaves your mouth.

Our apartment is great, in the basement of 201 Regina St North, Waterloo ON (look it up on Google maps for a pic if you feel like it). We have beds, desks, chests of drawers, couches, table, kitchen table, oven and stove. But no pots, pans, cutlery or dishes…

 My new room

Orientation games

Orientation day started at 9am, it was a whirlwind of information. We had a tour around the school, met other international and exchange students and a couple of people from our course, there was a group of about 35 people. The tour was great, Laurier is so big, about 5 times bigger than ACU (but its still smaller than most other unis here); it has a gym (free to use) with spin classes etc, an Olympic size pool (free use also), 3 basketball courts in a big stadium, a fast food court open till 2am (good for late night munchies after a big one), heaps of other eating areas and cafes, lots of big buildings, a convenience store, a pub, a nightclub pretty much everything you could possibly need to make this a small city in itself. One hallway has the student union emblem on the group, which no one walks on out of respect for the university. It's called "The Hawk", its even been known to have guards around it during inter-university events to stop people from disrespecting the hawk.

Respect "The Hawk"

I met a very funny and stereotypically wacky Dutchman called Peter, I think its already love between him and Pat. Later that evening we had dinner as a big group, Peter loves to joke but didn’t quite comprehend the cultural differences between him and a Iranian girl called Sahar. He was telling us how Amsterdam is fantastic and you can do anything and everything including “smoking, drinking and having sex all at the same time”, needless to say Sahar hopped up and walked away from that conversation in suppressed disgust.

We finished the night at one of the local pubs watching the junior hockey championship between Canada and the US; needless to say there is a huge rivalry. I’m pretty excited to see a hockey game.

I love it here, I love the snow, everything is so pretty, the people are so polite, kind and helpful, we have so much support offered to us and so much information given to us. A lot of the mentors we were with yesterday offered us spare toasters, kettles, pots, pans and microwaves.

We had our first class this morning, Em (who came from here on exchange to Australia last year) had ethics with us this morning. The lecturer, aka “the prof” was so kind, he spoke to us after class and told us he’d make sure we were properly integrated into his class and he’d help us with any problems we had.

If I could stay a full year on exchange I would (but ACU wont let me), this place is fantastic.

More to come soon! xo

Hanoi

Hanoi was great. It’s full of colour, noise, people, traffic and is somewhat volatile. The general community is really happy and never afraid to hand out complements to each other and tourists.

I feel like with my coloured hair I may as well be walking around with a giant arrow pointing at me above my head in neon lights.

 Pat and I went to the movies and as we were waiting for the film to start, I had two girls next to me repeatedly taking photos in my direction. The photos stopped after I turned around and grinned for them in the background.
At the ceramic village we visited this morning I had a couple of girls standing a couple of meters away huddled together giggling, one of them proceeded to come up to me and say in Vietnamese that I was beautiful. There's never a shortage of children seeking attention from foreigners either, saw a really cute little boy at the end of the day who showed off with staking chairs and spinning them around until he was dragged away being told off.

The Ceramic Village

We’ve done a couple of touristy things around town; seen the temple of literature, walked around the lake numerous times, seen the ceramic village, tried plenty of the local cuisine and driven around to see some of the sights. 

The Temple of Literature

More could have been crammed in, but I’ve enjoyed being able to wander around town and see Hanoi for what it is, as opposed to paying for every touristy sight that half the locals haven’t seen let alone care much about. Having said that though, being a communist country, the community is not lacking national pride; flags are everywhere, everything has a history and a story. It’s reinforced to me how Australia; as such a young country, we generally tend to only adopt a sense of national honour for sporting occasions or Australia day.

On the 23^rd Georgie and Sanaya left us. We spent the night before strolling around the Lake and taking photos of the beautiful scenery. 

The next morning we got in a taxi at 4.30am... With over 10km left to go the taxi was swerving from one lane to the other (I’ve never felt more comfortable driving in both lanes along the line in the middle), so when our driver began hitting himself in the head with his fist, it was time for Pat to start rambling off every word of Vietnamese he could. Apparently I am his girlfriend who is 22 years old and a tour guide, Georgie and Sanaya are 18 and both his sisters who teach English....The stories went on and on. Talking at the taxi driver and turning up the radio were our only two tactics available to us. Pat is able to talk in Vietnamese but struggles to interpret the questions.

We survived, made it to the airport and got through a teary goodbye from both Georgie and Pat, and now it’s just Pat and I.

Christmas eve, Pat took me out to lunch to meet one of his friends who he used to work with; well that’s what I was told at least. We drove to Pat’s friend’s new workplace at the intercontinental hotel, as we arrived I took a call from home. We proceeded through the hotel where we were to meet Mai at her room, no one answered the door, and Pat then rudely pulled out the key to Mai’s room.

“Merry Christmas!”-then I clicked, we weren’t actually meeting anyone for lunch at all. Pat booked us a room for the night. Later that evening we had a drink and cheese platter at the bar by the lake, leaving me feeling pretty spoilt. Afterward we headed back to the hostel for some Christmas carols and to help spread the Christmas cheer.

The entrance to one of the shops at the hotel was covered entirely with gingerbread.

Christmas was good; odd but good. The Vietnamese aren’t short of Christmas decorations, but they don’t celebrate Christmas, so they’re definitely a bit short of Christmas cheer.

Wearing Santa hats around town and seeing other Westerners in and around the hostel do the same helped to create the spirit.

Christmas lunch was on the hostel terrace. We were cram packed in together with free flowing alcohol and all the usual Christmas lunch trimmings, all contributed to a jolly sing-along and a some Christmas fun. Free flowing alcohol lead to an afternoon nap, which then lead to not much else in the evening.

Most recently we’ve been spending time preparing for Canada; buying warmer clothes, eating, sending off summer clothes and bulky souvenirs, eating, drinking, visiting some local sights and recovering from Christmas eve/day.

New york post will happen soon...

Hope everyone had a great Christmas and even better new years. xo