Welcome to Kamloops

Kamloops is the third-biggest city of British Clumbia. Being here you would never believe this. I guess now that I left the big city and moved to the countryside I get to know the real Canada. The Canada you hear jokes about, from the next supermarket being 80km away and highways that don't have gas stations for 500 km. Jokes that in fact are not jokes. Well, I've got 4 huge supermarkets and 3 gasstations right next to my residence, so no worries here. I guess, Kamloops really is a big city then =)
But I'll start from the start. After flying in a very very small plane along the amazing coast of Western Canada, I arrived at Kamloops Airport which has a total of 2 (!!) gates!! I was kind of surprised by the scenery that welcomed me. While around Vancouver everything is green and the mountains are high around here everything is dry and brown. It's not flat either but the mountains are rather hills than mountains.

The City of Kamloops

So, after taxing a taxi to my new home (they don't do public transport to the airport here) I arrived at the residence. As it was a Saturday, however I had to wait for security to come at 8 P.M. to let me in. Clever as I am I didn't think of that and scheduled my arrival for around 3 P.M. Anyways, the residence has a very nice garden, and after hours of waiting I finally got to my room and met my two lovely japanese roommates. As the room is equipped with nothing (no sheets, blanket, pillow and stuff) I just dropped off by bags and went to the store to buy some basic stuff to be able to sleep. Together with three guys from Bavaria who checked in with me I went to explore the Real Canadian Superstore. And by explore, I mean explore and by super, the mean super. This store is huge. You could spend one week in there and still not see everything. And they do have everything you might need. We spent almost two hours trying to get all the stuff we need and trying to buy the right things (my English is quite good but when it comes to special terms about bedsheets and blankets my range of vocabulary comes to an end). After that, I went home, unpacked my bags and went to bed. Luckily, my roommate does already have a wifi-connection so I can just use hers and pay part of it. Luckily, my roommates also bought frying pans and things like this which I can also use. That really is quite convenient as I would otherwise have to buy everything and trow it away after four months.
So, today I went to explore the surroundings and the university. In fact, there's not much to explore, tough. There are just shops and nothing else. In short walking distance from my home are 4 big grocery stores, 2 dollar stores, at least 6 different fast food restaurants and several other smaller stores like a used-bookstore. I wonder who they are selling their stuff to because you hardly see any people around. The campus is huge and has several builing as well as a library and gymnasium and a bar (that was closed) and cafeteria (closed) and Starbucks (closed). I just have to cross a street to get there which is very convenient.
As there was not much to do outside, i went to buy some more little things for my room and went to leave my personal mark on the place. A little side note to shopping here: The Canadian Super Store is not only huge itself, the package sizes are too. It's hard to shop for one person only, because I just don't need 5 litres of milk or 2 litres of shampoo. Plus: grocery shopping really is expensive here! The only cheap things I found so far are noodles and apples. I guess that's going to be my diet for the next months. Beside that, you can find prizes like 5$ for 160g of cheese (that's the cheapest) or 7$ for a frozen pizza.
Tomorrow the rest of the students should arrive and on Tuesday, the orientation weeks begins. I hope that by then there will be more people around. I still haven't been to the "city center" yet, as the university is a bit outside of town, on a hill. Let's see, maybe that's where the real life happens in Kamloops.

By the way, for all you people who want to send me love letters and presents, here's my address:
Susanne Guidassoni
401B-704 McGill Road
Kamloops, British Columbia
Canada V2C 6N7
So, write me maybe!

My room, part 1

My room, part 2 (also known as the messy part)

The kitchen I'm sharing with my 2 roommates

And the bathroom