Sascha's Canada Log

24. 02. 2005 - 27. 02. 2005: Algonquin Park 2

2005-05-31T10:59:00.000-05:00

Being granted 4 free days within the term, we took our chance to visit Algonquin in the winter. We were afraid of already being too late, but it was still -20°C here and we had about 60cm of snow.

We had rented some kind of large apartment for 12 people including a kitchen providing us cheap food during our stay.

After cross-country skiing on the first day, we went snowshoeing on the second.

Since the park was almost deserted, we hardly met anybody and found more trails of animals than of humans.

The last day was the highlight of the trip: dogsledding! 6 dogs and 2 people made up the crew of each sled. We had to find the dogs for our sleds in a large yard with several hundred dogs, take them to the sled, and harness them.

The dogs are really keen on running and don't like stops. When you want to make a stop, you have to step on the sled's break and throw out an anchor or tie the sled to a tree, otherwise the dogs would just go on and on. And they are really fast!

17. 03. 2005: German Banquet

2005-05-30T11:05:00.000-05:00

Today all German exchange students were invited to a banquet in the Transylvania Club in Kitchener. The Braunschweig group proved their professionalism by showing up completely and exceedingly well dressed.

The Transylvania Club is one of several German Clubs in Kitchener. The city was founded by German immigrants and used to be called Berlin until World War 2.

And they even have food almost like in Germany! This was the first Schnitzel I had since several months...

22. 04. 2005 - 25. 04. 2005: New York

2005-05-29T11:07:00.000-05:00

Since we had 10 free days between the terms, we took our chance to finally visit the USA. After being asked about our involvement in the Holocaust at the border and 10 hours of driving, we reached New York City. Our first destination here: the Empire State Building. The picture shows the entrance hall.

Unfortunately, the clouds descended while we passed the security checks inside, and when we finally reached the top we saw just fog to each side but the one protected from wind by the building itself.

So we had no chance but to pay and wait again on the second day... But this time we were rewarded a very nice view over the skyline. The Empire State Building itself was built in 1931 and was the world's highest building for over 40 years with a height of 449m.

And yes, I've really been there!!!

The Chrysler building was completed two years earlier, being the worlds highest building (318m) for just a very short time. But it's still one of the most beautiful ones, with it's tip decorated with large replicas of Chrysler car parts.

The Time Square is basically a triangular place with very special building regulations: every building must have illuminated advertising!

Many storeys in the Times Tower are unrented, but the owner gets several million dollars each year for the advertising.

The heathen god Atlas is placed ironically directly in front of the St. Patrick's cathedral, one of the largest churches in North America, inaugurated in 1879.

And yes, there are a lot of taxis in New York!!

The famous Grand Central Terminal was completed in 1913. Over the years, many movies had a scene in this station.

The headquarter of the United Nations is also located in New York City. Taking the tour, you can visit most rooms, for example the one the security council is holding it's meetings in.

Since 9/11, the Empire State Building is the highest skyscraper in New York again, since everything that is left from the World Trade Center is this excavation pit. Some of the buildings surrounding Ground Zero are still damaged.

The Brooklyn bridge was the world's largest suspension bridge when completed in 1883, connecting Manhattan and the then independent city Brooklyn.

Statue of a bull on Wall Street, sign for rising stock prices.

Our final goal: the staue of liberty. Facing the ocean and being pretty chubby, it was built on a very small island south of Manhattan in 1886. The statue was financed by France, the Americans just had to build the socket (which took them very long).

The good things about our hotel: we found a free parking space and it was very cheap. The bad thing: after waking up on the first morning, our food looked like this. After heroically blocking the mousehole in the wall with a carrot, we felt quite safe until we discovered the second hole in the last night. At least, we got 1/3 of our money back for this, making this the cheapest hotel we've been in on the whole trip (still not really recommendable...).

26. 04. 2005: Philadelphia

2005-05-28T11:11:00.000-05:00

Our next stop on the tour was Philadelphia. The city was much cleaner and friendlier than New York, you just had to take care not to enter the wrong streets, otherwise you ended up in a ghetto very easily.

Philadelphia is the birthplace of the American independence and constitution. On July 8, 1776 the Liberty Bell rang and people gathered to hear the declaration of independence from Britain. The bell was bought from England in 1751. It cracked soon and several attempts to repair it failed. It also sounded terrible, but that didn't keep the Americans from declaring it a symbol for freedom after 1776...

Inside the Pennsylvania State House, later renamed to Independence Hall, the declaration of independence (1776) and the constitution (1787) were prepared. At first, the congress' goal was just to be recognized as equal British citizens, but as this failed, they switched over to independence. Pretty lame start for a nation, overall.

This house is said to be the cradle of the American flag. The sewer Betsy Ross lived here and she sewed the first flag that looked slightly different from today's since there were only 13 states at that time.

The skyline is not as impressive as New York's is, but looks much friendlier overall.

The large city hall was completed in 1901. The statue on the top shows William Penn, who founded the colony of Pennsylvania in 1681.

The road leading from the city hall to the museum of art is lined with the flags of all countries in the world.

27. 04. 2005: Washington, D.C.

2005-05-27T11:13:00.000-05:00

The last day of our tour took us to the capital of the United States. We were quite surprised that we could get so close to the White House.

It has been the home of every U.S. president except George Washington (since most of the city still had to be built when he was president).

The inner city looks very clean and beautiful, but heavy street patrols and helicopters cycling over us caused some strange feelings.

This is the treasury department, but it could have been any other department as well, since they all look somehow like old Greek temples.

The Capitol is the seat of the legislative branch of the U.S. government.

Southwest of the White House, many memorials are located, one of the biggest being the World War 2 memorial. The inscriptions with pithy sayings of American politicians and generals of that time seem somehow misplaced here.

The Lincoln memorial is located on the west side of the reflecting pool. This picture might be familiar from "Forrest Gump"...

...especially from the other side with the view over the Washington monument. The monument was constructed in 1876-1884 to celebrate the most famous president up to now.

15. 01. 2005: Niagara Falls 2

2005-01-28T20:13:00.000-06:00

Our second trip to the Niagara Falls began with a visit of the Niagara Fallsview Casino. Everybody got $10 to play with for free. While others were so cowardly to grab the money and escape the casino, I challenged the gambling machines heroically and lost inevitably.

The falls are illuminated at night. The lights even change their color!

And finally, I got a compensation for the New Year's fireworks I missed (though I'm sure now that Canda will never win an international fireworks contest, they know only 3 different types of effects).

21. 01. 2005: Canadian Winter

2005-01-27T18:20:00.000-06:00

This was the coldest day here so far, -28.7°C this morning. And I still went to university by bike bravely, causing even Canadians to shake their heads... When I got there, my jacket was white due to my breath being frozen on it. But there are still some activities outside making you sweat even in these temperatures. For example, choose a unit in the village where nobody is home...

...and let its residents have some fun when they come back! In a group of 8 people, it took us only about 15 minutes to completely cover this door with snow.

27. 01. 2004: Real Canadian Winter

2005-01-26T23:40:00.000-06:00

This is what the weather forecast page looked like before I left the house this morning. In fact, it had even been -32.3°C this night, which was the coldest temperature here since many years.

But what I really came to Canada for (among other things, of course) is huge amounts of snow. The lucky guys in some parts of the USA, just about 150 km from here, got 1m of snow in just one night this week. We only have about 30cm, and it's so light that you can walk through it like through pieces of cotton wool. Looks quite nice, though.

Important Note!

2004-12-31T16:26:00.000-06:00

This page is dedicated to the enchanting, wonderful, cute, one and only Allison, who has her own brilliant website (see link section on the right side), definitely a must-see!

(And who actually doesn't flinch from threatening poor Blog-writers with psychic violence...)

03. 12. 2004: Reini's Christmas Dinner

2004-12-30T16:25:00.000-06:00

On this evening, our program coordinator invited us to a very nice Christmas dinner at his house. The buffet table didn't look like this for a long time...

Reini and his wife demonstrating some awkward "German rites" like drinking out of a stein full of holes.

16 students from Braunschweig and Hamburg-Harburg made this Reini's largest and surely best student Christmas dinner ever!

21. 12. 2004 - 28. 12. 2004: Mont Tremblant

2004-12-29T20:10:00.000-06:00

Directly after our last exams (i. e. after my last exam, because I finished last), we started off to our Christmas trip. We had rented two chalets for one week. This is the larger one...

... and this is the smaller one, shaped perfectly for running down the roof with snowboards, dinghies or whatever was found in the basement of the first house. Both houses are on the same property, located near Mont Tremblant, one of Canada's most famous ski resorts. They are designed to accommodate about 16 people altogether, we were a group of 24.

Mont Tremblant village, located at the bottom of Mont Tremblant. A beautiful small town, built only for accommodating the tourists of the area.

After only one day, I managed to get down the slopes without falling down (at least sometimes). Unfortunately, we had rain at 0°C on the second day and -20°C from that day on, turning the slopes into ice runs and thus making them much faster.

On top of the "mountain". It was more like a huge hill, but absolutely fine for a beginner like me.

On Christmas Eve, only the Germans stayed in the chalet, celebrating with typical German food (salmon rolls, salad and sausages) and German Christmas songs. Sven even took all his Christmas decoration along, including a fake tree.

28. 12. 2004 - 31. 12. 2004: Quebéc City

2004-12-28T20:11:00.000-06:00

After one week of skiing, we drove on to Quebéc City, the cradle of the french culture in North America, founded in 1608. The fact that many people there don't speak English led to some funny incidents. Luckily, we had some French-speaking people in our group.

The Château Frontenac, the most famous building in Quebéc City, is just 110 years old and in fact a huge hotel, though it looks a bit like a medieval European castle

Quebéc City is probably the most beautiful and most European city in North America. This alley can be reached from the château via the "Escalier Casse-Cou" ("neckbreaking stairs").

The Saint Laurent river was covered with a layer of ice, looking like a giant conveyor belt. The city is so close to the Atlantic Ocean that the river changes its direction of flow with the tides.

The Place Royale. Canada's settlement started here.

And, of course, a Basilique Notre-Dame can be found in Quebéc, too!

31. 12. 2004 - 02. 01. 2005: Montréal

2004-12-27T20:12:00.000-06:00

For the last days of our trip, we headed back to Montréal to celebrate New Years Eve.

This is a riddle: hidden somewhere on this picture, you can find a youth hostel!

And inside it looked even worse. We had one washroom for 21 people and hardly enough beds. But the British guys seemed to be used to that...

We spent New Years Eve in a rather strange nightclub. I found out that it is forbidden to light your own fireworks in Canada, and the official fireworks at the harbour was so small that we couldn't see it from where we were.

On our last day, we climbed up Mont Réal at sunset.

We had a very nice view over the skyline. Unfortunately, we hadn't considered the fact that we somehow had to get down again afterwards, in complete darkness on steep icy ways...

06. 11. 2004: Toronto 2

2004-11-30T01:00:00.000-06:00

Today, we started our second trip to Toronto to see some places we didn't visit before. This is the BCE place, which has been a location for science fiction movies like "Robocop" or "TecWar".

Not the famous Flat Iron Building, but close to it. Not too spectacular, though.

Toronto's Chinatown is the second largest in North America, smaller only than San Francisco's and the only really crowded area in the city on that day.

We chose a Chinese restaurant for dinner. I tried to fetch the chopsticks for the foto, pretending I'd be able to use them, but I wasn't fast enough...

11. 11. 2004: Germany Presentation

2004-11-29T01:00:00.000-06:00

This was the day of the great Germany presentation. The exchange programs between Waterloo and Braunschweig/Hamburg usually attract much more German than Canadian students. Therefore, we had to advertise our program to get some Canadians to Germany next year. This is our program coordinator Prof. Reinhold "Reini" Schuster, who was awarded the German Federal Cross of Merit for his longtime care for the Braunschweig exchange program.

The presentation ran very well, thanks to 4 enthusiastic speakers and the brillant PowerPoints (that happened to be designed mainly by me...).

About 30 Canadian students came and many of them seriously consider spending a year in Germany now, hopefully keeping the exchange program alive, which has to fight for financial suport every year anew.

01. 10. 2004: Toronto

2004-10-31T01:15:00.000-05:00

Finally, we've seen the largest city in Canada: Toronto (4.7 Mio. citizens).

Toronto's landmark: the CN Tower. It is the highest free-standing building in the world with a height of 553m.

The first observation deck is nearly 350m high and contains a section with a glass floor. Pretty scary.

The second Platform is at 447m, which is the highest observation point you can reach in a man-made structure. It provides a fantastic view over Toronto's skyline. The bank owning the building at the right edge of the picture found a nice way to store their gold reserve: they metallized the windows with 2500 ounces of it.

This is the new city hall. Interesting architecture, but not very beautiful.

The Eaton Mall is one of the largest and most famous shopping malls in the world.

In the evening, we watched the baseball game of the Toronto Blue Jays vs. the New York Yankees in the Sky Dome. Though I figured out that baseball is even more boring than rugby, it was a very amusing game: Drew Barrymore was there to throw the first ball, a mad guy ran onto the field during the game, everyone in the stadium won a free pizza, and finally, the Blue Jays somehow managed to win 7:0.

14. 10. 2004: Oktoberfest

2004-10-30T22:29:00.000-05:00

Mid-October is Oktoberfest-time in Kitchener/Waterloo. These two cities stage the second largest Oktoberfest in the world. It takes place on the properties of the German clubs in Kitchener.

We've been to the Concordia club, which had a large tent right next to the club house. Of course, they had beer (only Canadian beer...urgs), steaks and sauerkraut,...

some fake Bavarians,...

a dancefloor with music from the "Black Forest Band", including "siggesaggesiggesagge hoihoihoi" and "oans, zwoa, gsuffa",...

and some people going crazy. Almost like the real Oktoberfest... And you could even order your food or drinks in German at most booths!

02. 09. 2004: First Trip

2004-09-30T20:41:00.000-05:00

To use the time before lectures wisely, we rented this beautiful car and started our first little trip to Montreal, Ottawa and the Algonquin Park.

Especially in the Toronto area, you can easily see that Canada is not deserted everywhere: 6-8 lines on the highway (in each direction)!

03. 09. 2004: Montreal

2004-09-29T20:42:00.000-05:00

Montreal is the second-largest city in Canada and the second-largest french-speaking city in the world. Luckily, almost everyone speaks English, too.

In this city, old and new world meet in a very attractive way.

This is the Basilique Notre-Dame, completed in 1829 and one of the most beautiful churches in America.

The tower of the Olympic Stadium is the highest skew tower in the world (175m, 45° angle). It was built for the Olympic Summer Games of 1976. Unfortunately, it was not completed before 1986...

The Biodome, former olympic cycling stadium, now accommodates a small zoo.

05. 09. 2004: Ottawa

2004-09-28T20:43:00.000-05:00

Ottawa is Canada's capital. It has only about 700.000 citizens, but is renowned as one of the cleanest cities in America.

The buildings on the Parliament Hill are built in Neogothic style. They were completed in 1857.

The tower of the main building doesn't only look like Big Ben, it also has the same chimes. Queen Elizabeth II. is still official Head of the State.

Like apparently every large Canadian city, Ottawa has it's own Basilique Notre-Dame.

06. 09. 2004: Algonquin Park

2004-09-27T20:44:00.000-05:00

The Algonquin Provincial Park is one of the most famous trip destinations in Canada and it was ours on the last day of our tour. It is a 7600km^2 large nature reserve north of Toronto.

The inner park can only be explored with canoes. You are almost more likely to meet a bear than another human being here. Braving death, we decided to stay out there in tents for one night.

(Un-)fortunately, we didn't see any bears. Trying to move the canoe straight ahead was hard enough, anyway.

We even managed to start a campfire and not to burn down half of the park.

Of course, it started to rain during the night in the tents. Luckily, the equipment wasn't ours...

11. 09. 2004: Rugby

2004-09-26T22:54:00.000-05:00

This day, I saw the first rugby match in my life. It was University of Waterloo vs. Wilfried Laurier University (from Waterloo, too).

I can't understand why so many Americans love rugby and football. It's pretty boring and I had to ask who won afterwards (UW won, of course). But I also met Canadians who asked me how the hell someone could love soccer...

19. 09. 2004: Niagara Falls

2004-09-25T22:54:00.000-05:00

Today, 150 exchange students started to a trip to the Niagara Falls. Surprisingly, 3 of these school busses were our means of transportation. Very -ehm- classy.

First stop: a vineyard, including some whine tasting. The Niagara Falls region is renowned for the best whine in northern America.

Second stop: Niagara-on-the-Lake, a beautiful small city near the falls.

The U.S.-American part of the Niagara falls, 56m high and 323m wide.

The Canadian part: The Horseshoe Falls, 54m high, 670m wide. We've been on the boat, too.

It is the famous "Maid of the Mist" boatride. Everyone gets a nice blue litterbag with arms and a hood and is carried right into the centre of the "horseshoe".

23. 09. 2004: Group Foto

2004-09-24T22:07:00.000-05:00

We finally managed to take a foto of the whole Braunschweig exchange group. From left to right: Christoph Nacke, Stefan Rosenkranz, Matthias Bujara, Sven Hansen, Matthias Gehder, Arne Reinecke, Martina Spranger, Jörn Marten Wille, Myself, Lutz Kummer, Wolfgang Haselrieder.

27. 08. 2004: Arrival

2004-08-31T01:26:00.000-05:00

After an 8 hours flight from Düsseldorf (Germany), Arne, Jörn Marten, Stefan, Sven, Wolfgang and me finally reached Toronto airport. We were the last 6 from a group of 11 students going to Waterloo from Braunschweig this year. Toronto bid us welcome with 27°C and an estimated humidity of 99%.

28. 08. 2004: First Impressions

2004-08-30T09:47:00.000-05:00

These are our houses in the Columbia Lake Village. Each house has two seperate areas which have their own entrance. 4 students share one area. My roommates are Arne (from Braunschweig, too), Lucien (from Toulouse, France) and Olivier (from Paris, France).

The upper level consists of the 4 bedrooms and a washing room. This is my tiny room for the next year (about 10m^2).

On the lower lever you find the living area and the kitchen with a fridge and an oven that are (as Phil from Australia appositely said) the size of small cars (In the meantime, I discovered why they are so huge, more on that later).