Goodbye Canada

too many goodbyes for us

This is it, this is goodbye. Last friday I left Kamloops after checking out at UCH, packing all my stuff in one suitcase and one backbag (I made it!) and saying goodbye to way too many people. I went to Vancouver with Ester, Mariona and Phil where we spent my last weekend in Kamloops. We visited the Vancouver Christmas Marked, had some Glühwein and Leberkässemmeln and walked around the city.

Vancouver Christmas Market

On monday we left for the airport in the morning because Mariona's flight left at 2. Phil and me said goodbye to her and then waited for some other friends who left as well. Basically we spent 12 hours in the airport before I left.
I had an amazing time in Kamloops and I already miss the place and the people I met there. However, nobody said I won't come back one day and people can be visited =) I am also super-excited about going home and seeing everybody and everything again.

Canadian Flag - and everybody signed it!

I decided to keep this blog, as I like writing about my trips (and as I already have lots of travel plans for the next months.) So if you wnat to know something about New York, London, Nepal, Germany, Spain; .... just check this website from time to time.

Last weeks in Canada

The countdown on the side of this blog keeps running and suddenly it's only 24 more days before I get home. 15 days in Kamloops.
Once again, I find myself wondering about the concept of time. On the one hand I feel like I just left home, on the other hand I experienced so much in the last few months that they feel like years. Doing this semester abroad was so far the best decision of my life and I am forever thankful to have to opportunity to be here. In the last few months I got to see a lot of places and meet a lot of people. I can't even put in words how happy I am to have met all those people. With some, even though I have only known them for a few months it seems like I knew them forever. Because we are all on this special journey here together we've grown to a big community where everybody likes each other. I tried to use every minute of my time here in the best way possible which is why I can now look back on many trips, movie nights, dinners, spontaneus bacon and egg cooking sessions at 4 am, parties, endless hours in the house of learning, ...
Tomorrow I will have my last class here in Kamloops and then there is only the exam period and that's it for my exchange semester at TRU. I see all of these events with mixed feelings. I am, in a way, really looking forward to coming home and I miss a lot of people and things from home. Then again, I don't want to leave because I'm having such a great time here. However, nothing special can last forever, it would just become ordinary after a while. I am happy for the time I had here and I am already looking forward to the future.
After my exciting time here life just goes on a good as it is right now. First, I will go to New York for a few days before coming home. New Year's Eve will probably be celebrated in London and in the end of February I will go to Nepal on a field trip with my university. In summer I plan to go back to Canada to work. My life is awesome!!!

Today I found this in my mailbox =) I can't wait to see you again!

Victoria

Time is flying, which means we have to use it the best we can. Last weekend I went on another trip, to Victoria, the capital of British Columbia. Instead of travelling in a big group, I made this trip with just Mariona, which was really nice. After my last trips I have to say, that I really like travelling in a group because it bring together people and you enjoy it. However, planning a trip for up to 11 people can cause many problems, as there are so many different opinions and interests that it is difficult to plan activities that everybody likes. This trip instead was very relaxing and problem-free =)

As renting a car for only two people is pricey, we decided to take the Greyhound (bus system that offers transfer all over Canada) to Vancouver and from there the ferry to Victoria, which is on Vancouver Island. All together, the journey from Kamloops to our hostel in Victoria took us 10 hours, involving changing 5 times. I know, this seems like a long time and most of you probably think it's not worth travelling so far for just a weekend trip. However, here in Canada distances are different and the journey was definitely worth it.

Mariona and the smallest Hostel room on earth

As we arrived quite late on friday, we didn't really do much, except stay in our hostel room (which is for sure the smallest hostel room existing) and do some homework (Mariona) and skype (me). On Saturday morning we then started early and after getting breakfast at a nice bakery across the street we started our city tour in Chinatown.

The Chinatown in Victoria is the oldest in all Canada and one of the most famous streets is Fan Tan Alley, a really narrow street.

When you come to Victoria, the first thing you can think of is England. While you can't really see the remains of being a British colony in the rest of BC, in the capital you feel like in the United Kingdom. First of all, unlike Vancouver, there are no skyscrapers in this city. Somehow it feels like time stopped 100 years ago. There are a lot of small streets and little shops (way too many, ask my wallet) and also old churches which you can't find a lot of here in Canada.
One of the most beautiful spots in Victoria is the inner harbour, where you can find the Parliarment Building and The Empress, which is not only one of the main sights but also a Fairmont hotel. (This is the kind of hotel I want to work in!)

Parliarment Building

The Empress <3

We continued our walk by exploring Beaconhill Park, a city park that lies between the city center and the coast, which is why we could walk back along the coastline afterwards.

In the park you can also find Mile '0', the place where the Transcanada Highway starts. This highway crosses all 10 provinces of Canada and ends in Newfoundland, in Eastern Canada after 8400 km.

As we felt so British in this city, we planned to have afternoon tea at The Empress. However, as we arrived there at 4.45, the tea house was already closed. Still, we had our tea in a tea shop, even if it was in plastic cups instead of fancy porcelain and without scones. We're still in Canada, after all. 

Tea time

After a quick stop at the hostel to drop of all our shopping bags and change our shoes (we had really British weather, as well) we went to have dinner at a nice restaurant at the harbour.
On the way there we stumbled upon a Santa Claus Parade. Yes, in November. We already wondered all day long because the whole city was decorated with Christmas lights. As we then saw the parade in the evening we still were a bit surprised.

After dinner we went for a drink at a bar and then we were so tired from walking around all day that we went straight to bed.
On Sunday we had a really nice breakfast at a diner and then started our journey back to Kamloops.

Eh?!

This video is amazingly accurate =)

Seattle

Last moday was a holiday which meant a long weekend for us. We used it to go on another trip - this time to the States. It seems so fancy to go to the States for just one weekend, however it is only about 6 hours driving. Nevertheless, the US is still the US, which means we had to cross a border to get there, fill out a lot of stuff and pay 6 dollars to get into the country. It's not like in Europe, where we are spoiled by being able to just enter another country without anyone even noticing. We left Kamloops at 2 am so we arrived at the border at around 7 in the morning which meant that at least we didn't have to wait at the border. We filled out our forms, gave our fingerprints and answered all the questions we were asked (Where are you going? What are you doing there? How long will you stay? ...) and then we made it. We were in the United States!
The first difference we found was, of course, al the flags changed. Instead of the maple leaf we saw the American flag everywhere. Second, gas prizes were suddenly shown in gallons and temperature in Fahrenheit. And third, somehow it seemed more civilized. In Canada, you can drive on the highway for hours without seeing any houses and hardly any cars. As soon as we entered the States, it seemed as if we entered cicilization. First of all, there was way more traffic and there was also more houses and farms and "life" around us.
Out first stop on friday was an outlet center about an hour before Seattle. We bought some stuff (not too much, you know, I'm not this kind of label-person) and then went on to the hotel. We lived in a nice 4 star hotel a bit outside Seattle but we got a really good deal and unfortunately we had some problems with our first booking and had to take the only thing that was left for the long weekend.
In the evening we went to the city where we had a nice dinner at the cheesecake factory and walked around the city center for a bit.

Cheesecake - It's impossible to eat one of those alone

On saturday we were really lucky with the weather, considering that it is supposed to be always rainy in Seattle. We went to the Space Needle first thing in the morning where we took the elevator up to the top to get a wonderful view over the city and the harbour. Then we went to a glass museum right next to the Space Needle. Later, we went to the city center and visited the Pike Place Market and the Original Starbucks. In the evening we had dinner and then we went back to have some wine at the hotel while 4 of us went out. (Legal drinking age in the US is 21, so no bars and clubs for me.)

Mariona and me on top of the Space Needle

On Sunday the weather wasn't that good which is why we decided to visit the EMP Museum. This museum is huge and has various exhibitions about music and art. Funny thing: Jason, a friend of mine who lives in Portland (about 3 hours from Seattle) was in town for the weekend as well and, thanks to facebook, as I found out about that, we aranged to meet. He was an Au Pair in Salzburg during the last year and now returned home in Ausgust. It was really nice to meet him again.

Mariona and Jason having a jam session

After the EMP museum we went to the city again and visited the market once more. On saturday we arrived quite late which is why most of the shops were closed already so we could see a bit more this time. For dinner we went to a really nice Italian restaurant. The place was tiny and this evening the most amazing thing of the whole weekend happened. We were having our dinner when on the table next to us five Americans in their fifties took place. As the place was so tiny, they were sitting really close to us. The first thing they said was: How's you Pizza? Are you still eating this? After that tehy started talking to us, asking us about our studies and everything. We talked to them throughout our whole dinner and we actually had a really nice conversation. They kept telling us that we are such nice people and that they are happy that we are the future. They bought us a bottle of wine and then, after we had finished our meal one man said: And by the way, your dinner is taken care of. We were stunned. We had only just met those people and they just paid our dinner for 7 people. We told them that we couldn't accept this and that it is too much but they kept on insisting and told us that they know how student life is and that we don't ahve much money and they told us that they ust want to do us something good because we are so nice people. After we left the restaurant, all of us were so stunned, we couldn't say anything for a few minutes. In our society it is hard to find some really nice people out there.
What I liked most about the city (apart from these nice people) was the street art. Seattle is one of those places where you can just walk around with your eyes open and you will find art wherever you look. So, if you ever go there: Keep your eyes and mind open and pay attention to details. 

a wall full of chewing gum

On Monday, we decided to go home right in the morning because it had snowed in BC and we wanted to avoid the traffic jam. so we came back on monday in the late afternoon after a nice weekend.

Halloween

This week was Halloween and as you might know from various tv series and movies, people over here are going crazy for that. At home, Halloween is hardly noticed, apart from some kids going trick or treating and an occasional party. Here in Canada, Halloween is not only a day but a full week of parties and events and everyone dresses up.
The celebrating started with a Halloween party organized by ISAP which took place on campus. One of the big conference halls was transofrmed in a huge scary party room including a hauted house (which was really funny because most of the actors were my friends) and everybody dressed up and went there.
Halloween costumes that you can buy here are all pretty expensive and slutty. So I decided to be very original and dress up as a grandma. =)

John Lennon's Grandma, an apple tree and a crazy surgeon

On the weekend there were various parties all over town, however we stayed in and had our own nice non-halloween evening because nobody really felt like dressing up.
We did go out on wednesday, though. It was pretty spontanious and as I was trying to find some white hairspray at the supermarked they were all sold out. So I quickly changed plans and went as a vampire. We had a little pre-party at UCH and the we went downtown. The only club in Kamloops was crowded and everybody was dressed up. You can compare this to carneval or Fasching in Austria, only that they have more creative costumes here.

Good students gone crazy

I'm still alive!

First of all: I am so sorry, I haven't been blogging for ages. Life is just so busy here at the moment and as soon as you look at the calender, another week has passed.
We didn't do any other excursions on the last weekends because we were pretty busy with other stuff. I had two midterms last week and another one tomorrow, besides there are assignments to be done and then there's the normal everyday-life to live.
I've been telling you mostly about our excursions in this blog, which is why this post is dedicated to the "normal" stuff. I've been doing a lot of activities here, which is why my schedule is pretty packed.
In the last weeks, Mariona and me attended a knitting course. She wanted to learn how to knit and I wanted to start knitting again so we went to a tiny shop downtown that is full of yarn and had two nice knitting lessons. We first knit a hat and as I finished already, I started some mittens in the second lesson.

Mariona and me at the knitting shop

Winter has come to Kamloops last weekend so I will need some warm stuff. On saturday morning, it snowed the first time, causing excitement with all the exchange students. This morning when I woke up, everything was covered in snow again. By now, it is already gone. However, temperature dropped to 1°C and the my winter jacket is officially in use. The change of the seasons was pretty fast. Last week we still had 20 degrees during the day and now it's pretty cold. 

I have also been attending a rock climbing course for 4 weeks. It was organised by the gym in our university and we went to a small climbing hall near the university. It was really funny and a good balance to all the studying. Especially last week, where I had an exam on wednesday and one on thursday, some climbing between the studying helped a lot.

 While not studying, I've been spending most of the time with my friends. I can't say often enough how lucky I was to meet such great people here. I've known those guys only for two months and still I feel so close to them. It is a unique experience to go abroad, to a new country and meet new people there. We all make this experience, which unites us but still I think it's not usual to get connected to well and so fast. I am forever thankful to have met my friends here and I already know that these friendships will last, even though we all live hundreds of kilometers apart from each other.

Mikaela, Me, Phil, Ester, Mariona

I am trying not to think about the fact that half of my time here is over. The countdown on the right side of my blog is counting way too fast and it only shows 60 days my now. 60 days is by far not enough. The time is flying so fast that as soon as I don't pay attention for a second, it will be december. I am trying to use my time as wise as possible and do as much as I can possibly do with the time I have (I quit sleeping, by the way). And I am thankful for every day I have here.

Vancouver Island

Last Monday was Thanksgiving Day in Canada. I can't really say much about Thanksgiving as I neither had a turkey dinner nor any other Thanksgiving activity. However, I had a long weekend.
We decided to spend our precious three free days in Tofino, a surfer's paradise on Vancouver Island. There's basically two things you can do on Vancouver Island. Visiting Victoria (the capital of BC) or doing holiday at the beach. As the weather is still nice, we decided to go for the beach and, to get the whole experience, camp there.
We left Kamloops on Friday afternoon, after buying a lot of supplies and trying to fit everything in a car (we made it!).

 We headed towards Vancouver where we had dinner and then went to Tsawassen south of Vancouver to get the ferry over to the Island. We arrived in Nanaimo at 1 AM and then drove for another three hours to get to Tofino. We parked our car on the first parking lot we found, unpacked our sleepingbags and went to bed. In the car.
Next morning we found out that we chose a very nice place to leave our car. After walking a short way through the forest, we stood on the beautiful Chesterman Beach. We took a morning walk, then went to wake up the others and cooked breakfast on a campfire.

 Then we did what everyone does in Tofino. We went surfing. We rented the boards, wetsuits, shoes and gloves at a local surf shop, Dennis showed us what do do and off we went into the cold Pacific. In the first 10 minutes I drank an estimated 20 litres of water. But after some time, when you manage to actually stay on the board it is really nice. (Even tough I have to say that surfing will never become my favourite sport.)
After three hours of surfing we were pretty exhausted and it was time to get ready for dinner. We made another campfire and cooked some stew (= vegetables, onions, potatoes, sand, and whatever else we found mixed together and cooked on fire), watched the sunset and had dinner on the beach. Afterwards we sat together, drank some rum and grilled some marshmallows.

We decided to keep the tent in its bag and sleep under the stars. To be entirely honest, it wasn't even cold. With my sleeping bag, sweater, warm socks, hat and gloves I slept pretty well, considering that it was on a beach in october!

In the morning I was woken up by some crows exploring our campsite. It was kind of weird to wake up while people next to you are taking walks on the beach. After a breakfast on the beach and washing our hair in teamwork with some bottled water we started our Sunday program. Some of us decided to go surfing again while Ester, Mariona and me took the car and went to Long Beach, one of the many beaches around Tofino. We were walking on the beach along the sea for hours and it was really beautiful.

In the evening after dinner it was time to leave paradise again. As we took the early ferry we had to get back to Nanaimo. We slept a few (!!) hours in the parking lot and then boarded the ferry at 6 AM. We saw a wonderful sunrise as we were heading towards Vancouver.

After a nice breakfast at the Cambie (the place I stayed in my first days here in Canada) we drove back to Kamloops where I was really glad to get into the shower and put on some clean clothes.

A Taste Of The Okanagan

Last Saturday we did a wine-tour which turned out to be more of a food-tour, actually.
It was an organised event by ISAP, so we took a bus at 8 am (way too early after getting to bed at 3 am) and drove to the Okanagan Region. The first stop was an apple orchard where we rode a tractor through the apple trees and heard a lot about apples and could also taste and buy some. Right next to it was a place called Planet Bee which is a apiary where we heard some interesting facts about bees and could watch the bees and taste honey and mead (honey-wine).

Mariona and Me enjoying the tractor-ride

After this we got on the bus again and drove to Kelowna where we visited a goat farm and tasted some goat cheese. Then, finally, we went on to the wine. We visited two small wineries and had the possibility of tasting some wine. All day long we could see Okanagan Lake which is a huge lake that spreads through the whole area. Before going on this wine tour, I heard a lot about the region and it's beauty. However, coming from Styria with our wonderful wine region all around I was a bit disappointed. The Okanagan Valley is pretty dry and apart from the wineries it all looks really brown. The lake is beautiful though and the food is good.
(I will upload a picture of the lake later, when I'm at home. They are still on my camera)


I've been quite busy lately, that's also why my posts are getting rare. University gets more challenging now, the midterms are almost here and assignments start being due. I spend most of my time on campus to study and do assignments as there are a lot of really nice places around here and I prefer studying with others. When I'm not studying we are ususally cooking and eating together which is why I spend almost no time at home except sleeping and taking showers. However, as I'm doing all those study sessions during the week, I'm free on weekends and we still can do trips. After all, I'm only here for about 11 more weeks..

Banff National Park

As you might have realized already, one of the most common activities here in Canada (even for me) is hiking or doing something else outside in the nature. After some one-day-trips on the last weekends, we finally made our first weekend trip.
On Friday midday we started off to Banff National Park, which is one of the oldest national parks in Canada. The trip to our accommodation took us about 5 hours (which seems like a lot for Euopeans but is nothing for here) and it was an amazing road trip due to my funny friends (Maria and Phil fighting about music taste and driving style in the front and Elis and me having a whole lot of fun in the back). As soon as we left the area of Kamloops behind us, the highway went right through national parks which is why we were just screaming all the time: "Look at this!" "It's so beautiful!" "Oh my god, it's amazing!" "There is so MUCH nature!" "Take a picture!", we must have sounded like some people who never saw a forrest before. But believe me, when you get there and you are in the middle of hectars of only trees and mountains every direction you look, it's not like anything you've ever seen before. We do have mountains in Austria, yes, and we have a lot of forrests, but they are not that big. And here we were literally driving through the nature for hours. It's not a myth that there are places where the next gas station on the highway is 200 km away.

Elis, Phil and Maria ready to go

This is a Canadian Highway!

 After driving the whole afternoon and then trying to find the hotel (which, thanks to our great navigation and communication skills we did very fast. ahem.) we arrived in the middle of nowhere near Golden. The place we stayed was a little Inn that rented out appartments as well and we had a flat all for ourself with a big living room, kitchen, bathroom and enough beds for 8 people. We had a funny evening and finally went to bed.

Funny and relaxing evening

Our chalet

On Saturday morning we got up at 8 a.m., more or less (rather less) awake and well-rested but ever the more excited, at least after a nice breakfast. We drove another 2 hours right into Banff National Park to Johnston Canyon. This (very touristic) canyon is a hiking trail as you can also find it in Austria, at least the first part. The Johnston Creek goes through a canyon and you hike along next to the water and are stunned all the time. There are a lot of beautiful waterfalls and it took us 5 hours to go up the 5.8 km walk because we stopped at nearly every beautiful place to take pictures or go down to the water and take pictures there. After about 2 km, the waterfalls end an the real hiking beginns (most of the tourists stop here). We went on through the woods and finally arrived at the end of the trail where we could find some ink pots. The water perculates through the quicksand on the ground, adding a lot of minerals to the water and making it appear greenish-blue. We had a nice little afternoon break next to the river up there and took some awesome panorama pictures. Then we made our way back down (only 2 hours) and back to Golden.

Ink Pots

So many of us..

Johnston Canyon

We got some food at the grocery storein Golden, cooked an amazing Swedish-Italian dinner and had another nice, but tired evening.

Dinner after a long day

On Sunday morning we left the Inn after breakfast and went to Lake Louise which is also in Banff National Park. It is a very beautiful lake in the middle of some mountains and four of us rented a canoe to explore the water. The other half of us decided to go up to a viewpoint from which we could see the whole lake. And it looked so blue from up there, it didn't look natural at all!

Lake Louise

Lake Louise from the viewpoint

After coming back down and on the ground we took a small mountain road to get to Moraine Lake where we had a luchbreak next to the beautiful lake after acting like tourists and shooting some panorama pictures. Then it was time to go back home again, as the ride home took about 6 hours.

Moraine Lake

It was an amazing weekend, I saw a lot of wonderful places and I laughed for 72 hours straight.

Canadian "Not Far Away"

Some people say that Canada and Austria are pretty much the same. They are not. There are quite a lot similarities, but there are also many, many differences. The most significant one is probably the distance.
Canadian distances are not what we are used to in Europe. Seeing as Canada is the second-biggest country of the world, travvelling become a whole new experinece. While I can be from my hometown in Italy in only 2 hours, here you can drive for 10 hours and still be in the same state.
Before i came here, I used to tell everyone that Kamloops is a city near Vancouver. Well, it is close in a Canadian perspective, but for the European mind 4 hours don't seem that close.
After 4 weeks (yes, it's 4 weeks already!) of being here, you somehow get used to it. The last days I was planning a trip to Jasper and Banff, two national parks in Alberta. The parks are pretty big and right next to each other. Well, I didn't think of the fact that even tough on the map the two parks are very close, it's still 6 hours to get from the town of Jasper to the town of Banff. Because we also have to get there which is another 4-5 hours and we also want to do something when we're there, this is a bit too much for a weekend trip so we limited our trip to go to Banff only.
Besides, trips of four or five hours are totally normal, in shorter time you won't get anywhere.

Apart from the longer distances you have to overcome when visiting other places, also the distances in the city seem longer. Kamloops is a quite small town with only 85 000 inhabitants but it's widely spread out. Sometimes it seems like I'm just walking all the time I'm here. The campus is literally right next to my residence but still I walk 10-15 minutes to get to the buldings I need because it is so big. Also the shops and everything around here seem to be close but you walk and walk quite a lot. In addition, the busses here are not really reliable which is why we often walk down to the city center (and then uphill again!) So, I hope I will get super-fit in the time I'm here, all this walking has to have some purpose.

In Gold We Trust

Studying abroad and doing all of this fun stuff can be really expensive, so we decided to make some money by digging up the dust. ISAP organized a gold panning trip for international studnets yesterday and while I can't really say that I'm super-rich now, at least we had a funny day.
After a short night we took the bus to Spences Bridge, about two hours from Kamloops where we met a real Canadian Gold Panner called Yukon Dan, who showed us all of his secrets. These secrets are basically: Shake and Push!
No, let's start from the beginning: We arrived there at a wonderful place next to the Thompson River and met Yukon Dan, who told us something about gold panning in general and this area in particular. He showed us how to use the pans to get the gold seperated from the dirt shake and push) and he also showed us some of the gold he found in Australia and all over the world and also some small flakes that we could find here at Thomposn River.
After the instructions, we went down to the river and started. First we had to digg to get some really good dirt and then we took our pans and started shaking.
After three hours of shaking and pushing and searching we actually did find some gold. Not the 1 kg-nuggets we expected, but better than nothing!

Yukon Dan

Gettin' dirty

Beautiful Thompson Valley

My Treasure!! =)

Hockey

Kamloops Blazers vs. Prince George Cougars

Canada and Hockey is like the US and Football. They love it, they live it! And even tough it is NOT Canada's national sport, everyone thinks of Hockey if they think of Canada.
On friday I went to my very first hockey game. As I don't really know anything about hockey, I won't bother talking much about the game itself (just becaus I don't want to embarrass myself).

So, here's just a short description from a non-expert perspective: We went downtown to the hockey arena adn it seemed like the game was a big event in Kamloops (even tough the season didn't start yet) then we took our seats in the arena and the game started. "Our" Kamloops Blazers played against the Prince George Cougars.
After everyone sang the national anthem together (or better: after one girl sang it and all the players looked at their feet) the first period started. Yeah, without going much into detail, even tough it didn't seem like it for the first 2 periods, the Blazers won 4:3. And I have to say that I like hockey. It's a fun sport alltough it sometimes seems like people just go there to watch the players fight. Honestly, I think that's the main reason they have to wear these helmets and stuff, so they don't kill each other.
Well, it defenitely wasn't the last hockey game I watched =)
Here's a real Canadian Hockey song for you:

How to read this blog =)

Just to let you guys know about all the wonderful things you can do on this blog here are some tips:

• On the very bottom of the page you find a map (that one's brand new and super-cool!). On this map I am going to mark all the places I have been to. This way you can get a better picture of the dimensions of my journey.
• On the right side of the blog you find some strange words like "Canada" or "Kamloops". As you might have already noticed, my posts are labelled. So if you want to read about a specific topic like for example hiking, just click on the keyword and there you are.
• Also on the right side you can find all the posts in chronoligical order.
• The last part of the right side of the blog is Google Translate. As already mentioned, you can use it to translate my blog in whatever language you prefer. However I wouldn't really count on a good outcome. 
• One last thing: At the bottom of each post you find a link labelled "comment". It is recommended to use it!! I really enjoy writing this blog and keeping you guys updated. However, feedback is the best gift a blogger can get so please, just once in a while write a sentence there so that I know that people actually read what i write. Also, if I'm doing something completely wrong and you don't want to read this blog anymore because I did something super-stupid I'm not aware of, please let me know!

Thank you for reading! =)

Update: There's a countdown now on the right side as well. =)

Wells Gray Provincial Park

One of the most known and most amazing Canadian attractions is it's nature. Canada still has wide areas without buildings and sometimes it happens that you find yourself on a hiking trail without any signs and you don't know if you're lost or not.
On Saturday, we went to Wells Gray Provincial Park to do some hiking. The park is the 4th-biggest national park in British Columbia and is located next to  Clearwater, a small town about 1.5 hours from Kamloops. As public transportation is not as well developed here as in Europe, we decided to rent some cars, which isn't that easy as you have to be 25 to rent a car here. After some organizing however, we found enough drivers to rent cars for 26 people and so we drove off to Clearwater on Saturday morning. At the visitors center at the entrance of the park we got some maps and then decided to go on top of Trophy Mountain first and afterwards have a look at the waterfall. We took the road to the start of the hiking trail, which meant about 15 kilometers on a very rocky, steep street up the mountain. Anyways, Canadian cars seem to have no problems with conditions like this and we made it safely up to the mountain. Then the hike began. First it was pretty steep and I started to regret the crazy idea of going hiking. But as soon as we left the trees behind us and arrived on a meadow on top of the mountain I was overwhelmed by the beauty of the nature. Standing on top of a mountain with nothing but nature aorund you is a feeling you can't even describe. After a short break next to a beautiful lake we made our way back to the parking lot. We drove back to the main road and a bit further into the park to Helmcken Falls (the 4th highest waterfalls in Canada). Then we had dinner at a real traditional diner and finally went home. We were all really exhausted after spending all day outside and hiking for 4 hours. But it was a great excursion and even though we didn't see any bears or moose (which was actually the plan for the day). =)

Lost in the nature

Katharina, Mikaela, Filippo and Mariona still smiling

Exhausted but happy - Katharina and me

We made it to the top! - Katharina, me, Ina

Amazing view on top of Trophy Mountain

Lunchbreak

Back at the parking lot

Exhausted hikers

Helmcken Falls