Hey my friends!
I’m back home for more than one week now and still it seems weird to me that everybody around me is speaking German ;-) I’m still living with a roommate and a cat, thus the change is less severe. I enjoy spending time with my family and friends, and I’m reviving the last nine months each time that I’m showing pictures to someone.
Everything seems so far away already! And I’m missing all the people that were part of my Montreal life! Hope to see you again, one day, somewhere… And never forget to inform me if you guys come to Germany!
This is going to be my last post here, destined to complete the report of my nine months abroad. As you might remember from my last post, I travelled a lot during my last two weeks in Canada, and there is a lot to talk about…
Bine arrived in Montreal on May 2nd and of course, I went to the airport to pick her up. It was a strange feeling to be back at the Arrivals of Montreal’s airport – exactly the place where everything began several months earlier… Her visit helped me to prepare for the return to my life in Germany and I’m so glad that I could share part of my Montreal life with her – show her the places that marked my daily life, spend time with my friends… While visiting all the different places in Montreal, I said goodbye to the city. I finally went on top of the mountain at night and did the bike ride to the Lachine rapids that I had intended to do since September last year. I went to the Roquette, had another gallon of beer à l’Abreuvoir and enjoyed my last Poutine late at night… (By the way, I took some powder for Poutine sauce to Germany but I’m wondering which cheese to use)
Okay, I wanted to talk about my big trip with Bine!
Once again, I’ve been in the bus station early in the morning ready to take the Greyhound bus to the US. Several hours later, we arrived in New York where a wonderful double bed room (upgrade) has been waiting for us. Of course, we didn’t stay in the hostel that evening but went to Times Square for a first New York impression. During the next three days, we tried to experience as much as possible of this fast-paced city. We took the Staten Island ferry to see the statue of liberty, and walked through the Wall street and Battery Park to Ground Zero. Some shopping in Soho, dug in Chinatown, pasta in Little Italy. Central Park was wonderful in spring, children were playing, businessmen had lunch, a jazz combo was playing at the entrance to the park… From top of the Rockefeller Center, we had a great view on all the skyscrapers of Manhattan and enjoyed the sunset. A walk across the Brooklyn Bridge and through Brooklyn took us to another part of NYC. We even went to a Broadway show – Greenday’s American Idiot.
Another day in the bus, crossing the border again, and we arrived in Toronto. Compared to New York, the city seemed small and quiet to us – no need to use public transportation, we can walk! We had a wonderful sunny day and went from Yonge Square (kind of Toronto’s Times Square) through Financial District to the Waterfront. A small ferry took us the islands in front of Toronto that harbor parks and a nice beach. Back to the mainland, we passed by the CN tower and the stadium and continued our walk through the huge Chinatown and Little Italy… The next day was rainy, so we went to the Eaton Center for some shopping.
In the evening, we picked up our rental car and drove to Niagara Falls, had a quick look on the illuminated falls, and ate the hottest chicken wings on earth for dinner. In the next morning, we walked to the falls again to get the full Niagara Falls experience. A boat trip gave us a very wet impression of the Canadian Falls, we understood the origin of all this water through the view from a tower, and walked across the Rainbow Bridge to the USA in order to get close to the American falls as well.
The rest of our trip mainly consisted in driving back to Montreal. We stopped in Kingston to sleep in a motel and in Ottawa for lunch and a short visit to the Canadian parliament.
I then used the last four days to meet everybody again before leaving and do everything that I had planned to do for a long time. Some exhausting hours on Monday morning until I found space for all my stuff without overloading any suitcase… I had at least 70 kg of luggage ;-) We left Montreal on a warm summer day and arrived in cold rainy Munich after a flight that was not long at all compared to all these bus rides in North America!
That’s where the story ends! And they lived happy ever after ;-)
