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

Back to School

After all these orientation activities and welcome parties finally the true university life began. During the last three days I had my first classes and my first impression is pretty good.
I'm taking four classes at TRU: The Tourism Industy, Human Resources Management, Organizational Leadership and Environmental Issues of the Tourism Industry.
So far I can't really say anything about the content of the classes as we just talked about assignments and the stucture of the class and other organizational things. Anyways, the classes seemed really interesting. We are small groups, from 16 to 40 people which is nice as you are more involved in the lecture and don't just sit and listen. Something that's different from my home university is that we have to do a lot of assignments. Each course requires at least 3 assignments and a midterm additional to the final exam. So I will have to work a lot more than I did at home. But the assigments also seem interesting and we have to be pretty creative. For one class, as an example, we have to create a video and a blog, in another class we have to collect travel pictures of ourselves. So, as you can see, it's not hard work, only time consuming.
Today we had a huge Back to School-BBQ organized by the student union. That meant a lot of free stuff, hamburgers and live music. (And some chilling, for a change.)

Exploring the nature

As we are in Canada and there is a lot of nature and mountains around here it didn't take long for me to go on my first hiking trip. (Careful readers might remember that I was on Grouse Mountain in Vancouver. However, I went up there with the gondola so it doesn't count as hiking.)
As already mentioned in the last post, on Saturday we went to Sun Peaks, which is a nice skiing resort about 45 minutes away from Kamloops. We went up there by bus and as soon as I was on the street I felt like I was in Austria. The same small village with restaurants, hotels and skiing lifts as you can find them somewhere in Salzburg or Tyrol. As we still had some time until the concert started, we took the chairlift up to the mountain and enoyed the wonderful view from the top. Then we took a little walk through the town and finally we watched the Matthew Good concert while sitting directly on the skiing slope. It was a wonderful day and even the rainy and cold weather couldn't prevent us from enoying ourselves.

As you might have realized, even tough we went to a mountain, there was still no hiking involved. The real sport followed on Sunday. We took off to explore the local mountains (or rather hills) on foot. Right behind Thompson Rivers University is a small park calles Kenna Cartwright Park, which is basically just a little hill. We went there and after about one hour of hiking uphill we made to a nice picnic place from where we had a wonderful view of the city of Kamloops. It was exhausting as hell but worth it!

Today the university year officially started with the First Year Student Convocation Ceremony. We all met at 8:30 and everyone got a T-Shirt with the color of their program (Tourism was purple, for whatever reason). Then we all sat down at a huge tribune. After this we heard some speeches of important people of the university and then we had to officially swear an oath to be good students. We then were divided in our faculties and went to meet some more people. The day ended with a free BBQ and a lot of booths, all over campus where we met the people from different associations of the university like the Students Union. Basically, all we did was walking around, talking to people and collecting free stuff like candy, pens, notepads, frisbees, water bottles...

I guess this was the end of the funny university life. Tomorrow classes start and the real life begins. Up to now all we did at the campus was having fun and eating free food. I guess it can't be like this forever. =)
Anyways I am very thrilled to find out how hard classes in Canada really are.