I love electronic music and ice hockey

My dear friends,
it’s time for another post!!

Well, this time I can’t write about something as spectacular as my recent trip to New York ;-) Thus, I’ll just tell you about my daily life…

On Wednesday, I finally found out (after asking three times to different persons) that I’m full time student (what is required by immigration Canada) independent of the credits I’m taking. Thus, I decided that I’m going to have a relaxed term and quit one of my courses ;-) This enables me to take advantage of the vast choice in sports and cultural activities offered at university and have some rest before the final year of my studies that will be lots of work. By the way, I organized everything that had to be organized for my studies in Munich. I’ll be doing an internship “Rechts der Isar” in June and July as well as my master thesis starting in October in Klaus’ lab =) (No more Garching!!!) And in between it’s unfortunately not vacation but my final exam…

But back to UdeM (Université de Montréal). For the next four months, I’ll be doing “Biostatistics 2” (a bachelor course but really useful), “Neuropathology” and “Scientific and Technical Writing” (what will hopefully be reflected in my blog writing as well). Two exams per course, maybe the six last written exams ever ;-)

What else happened since my last post?
Last Saturday, I went to the Igloofest with some friends. This is a festival of electronic music taking place during three weekends. Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, fans of electronic music and people that are just curious about this event (me for example) are meeting at the old harbor and dance to the sounds of various DJs. Actually, it is quite surprising that this open air festival takes place in January regarding the usually pretty cold winter in Montreal (at the moment it is much too warm here). As photos can only demonstrate part of the atmosphere, I recommend you to have a look at this link as well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXeSUd9Frhc (It’s even from the night I went there)

On Sunday, I was invited to Ilona and Arnaud’s place for a special evening. Everybody was asked to dress in an unexpected manner. Therefore, I transformed myself in a supporter of Montreal’s hockey team (Les Canadiens) for one night. Unfortunately, I didn’t win the price with this dress but regarding that the price was chocolate imported from France, I was not that sad about it ;-) The winner masqueraded as grandmother (it was a guy!) with crutches, makeup and grey hair.






To prove that I’m actually not studying too hard: this week I slept at my place only two out of four nights because it was too late to take the last metro. On Tuesday, I went to a Jazz Club with a friend from my music course where they have jam sessions every Tuesday and stayed in his apartment as I missed the last metro. On Wednesday, I went to the karaoke again and again we stayed till the end. As I always go there with my French friends, I’m singing French songs with them and I’m starting to know the lyrics as I’ve been singing some songs for the third time now. Anyway, I’m good enough to be part of “Les filles françaises”. But my favorite song is “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen.

I took some more pictures of my apartment, les viola:

Hugs and kisses from Montreal,
geli

ALLES NEU

First of all, I want to wish you all the best for this new year!!! The last months of 2009 passed by so fast for me and suddenly May 2010 is so much closer! I’ll be back in Munich on May 18th at 5:35 am and I’m looking forward to seeing all of you again =)

I couldn’t write earlier as I was kind of homeless during the last two weeks. As I maybe mentioned in the beginning, my accommodation was only for the first term and thus I had to leave my room at the end of December because Caroline who used to live there came back from her journey to Europe.

Well, a very tempting offer from a friend to take over her room when she leaves in January (what finally didn’t work out) made me celebrate the end of my first term and Christmas kind of relaxed without searching for a new apartment.

So let me talk about Christmas first: As many of my friends left before Christmas (some of them came back after the holidays, others unfortunately not as they did only one term in Montreal) and those who stayed here received their parents in Montreal, I was very happy when my Canadian friend Marie-Claude invited me few days before Christmas to spend the holydays with her and her family!! Going there was the best thing I could do (except maybe going home to Germany) as I experienced a very familial and hearty Christmas with lots of typical food, secret Santa (in German: “Wichteln”) and games and I could go to the Christmas Mass as well. I even got a cup with my name and “Noel 2009” written on it… And once again, thank you so much for the presents you sent to me!!! It made me really happy to know that you were thinking of me on Christmas although I was so far away =)

After these marvelous Christmas days I came back to Montreal to pack my bags which I could leave at Anja’s place until moving to my future apartment wherever it would be. As it was still not sure if I could move into my friends room, I started to look for rooms on internet but as I was leaving for New York the next day, I could not visit any apartments. During packing I realized that I accumulated so much stuff! I’ve got no idea how to bring it to Germany when I’m leaving in May…

But there is still enough time to worry about that, let’s focus on New York…
I was kind of overwhelmed by all the impressions, the size of the city, thousands of tourists on times square and in queues in front of the museums, all these colorful screens on times square… But there were also some beautiful and more quiet places like the huge Central Park or Soho where we went more than once for shopping and dining…

Times Square

Soho

Contrary to Montreal, New York is not a city you can get to know in few days. We only managed to visit few sights but we did lots of shopping and because it was freezing cold, we had to stop for a hot coffee/tee/soup quite often. The first day, I was walking around a lot with Anja (we walked 100 streets from Central Park to Downtown) and then we went to the airport to pick up Kathi who arrived from Germany. The last time I saw her before was at the airport in Munich the day I left and it was great to see her again!! The second day, we went on the top of the Rockfeller Center and happened to see the sun set behind Manhattan – awesome!!!

On top of the Rockfeller Center

The third day, we went to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and to Ground Zero.

MoMA

The 31th, I met Hae Jin who did an internship in Munich last summer. We spent some hours together walking around in Greenwich and Soho and crossing Brooklyn Bridge in the dark. And then at night – tadaaa – Kathi, Anja, some of her friends and me went to the PACHA to celebrate New Year’s Eve! Don’t ask how much we paid for this party, but it was worth the money as we had a great time till 7 in the morning. After one of the most expensive breakfasts I ever had (what do you expect after the most expensive party I’ve ever been to), we picked up our luggage in the hostel and took the bus back to Montreal…

After a relaxed day with Anja and Kathi (it was so weird that Kathi was in Montreal ;-)) I started my search-for-a-room-marathon on Sunday… After looking for rooms on Craigslist and Kijiji for some hours and writing many emails, I arranged to visit six apartments the same day ;-) At half past nine I returned from my visiting tour, really exhausted, but I had found my future apartment =) Not the one in the basement with a strange Italian guy wearing a pink sweater, not the one with the teacher who wants first of all that all roommates are calm and preferably don’t leave their rooms, but the one with three really nice girls from Canada, France and Ukraine who immediately told me that they like me… Thus the decision was made the same day, I called them the next morning to confirm that I’d love to move in and signed the lease one day later. Having solved the apartment problem, I could focus on my take home exam that I had to finish till Wednesday. As I only answered one question before Christmas, I had to spend ten more hours on Monday and Tuesday to finish it. In between, Anja and me went to different restaurants and cafés with Kathi.

Kathi and me in Montreal

Wednesday was already the first day of the winter term and Thursday night, I moved to my new apartment. I was so happy to be “at home” again after living out of the suitcase during the last two weeks… Unfortunately, once all the stress was released from me, my cold got much worse but I’m getting better after sleeping a lot last weekend…

My new room

I’m not sure yet about which courses I’m going to attend, but besides my regular courses, I want to take advantage of the vast choice of activities at university. I plan to continue my music course and I already registered for a photography course and an aerobic course. My agenda is already filling up with exams, homework, courses etc. and the next four months will pass by quickly as well!

Greetings from Montreal!!
geli