Merry Christmas

I wish you a nice Christmas Eve and all the best for the New Year 2010!!!!

Although far away from my family, there is some Christmas feeling… Just look at our beautiful ;-) Christmas tree in the apartment!! It’s been the first time in my life that I decorated a Christmas tree and it’s a – well – very special decoration. Actually, we didn’t manage to buy Christmas decoration and last night (3 days before everyone is leaving for Christmas) we finally decided to decorate it with the stuff we found in the apartment. Thus we put these ugly colored lights and some Asian lanterns, and I made the beautiful star on the top… I’m glad to have a Christmas tree anyway and we even put the presents from my family below the tree for decoration ;-)

Tomorrow, I’m leaving for Rivière-du-Loup as my friend Marie-Claude invited me to spend Christmas with her and her family… I’m really happy about it, I’m going to experience a typical Christmas Eve hoping not to miss you too much. To contribute something to the Christmas dinner, I made some more Christmas cookies last weekend…

Apart from that, I’m enjoying the freezing cold Canadian winter. I went ice skating at the Vieux Port last Friday and made a trip with snowshoes on the Mont Royal yesterday. The snow is amazing, like powder, you can’t make any snowballs or a snowman but it must be perfect for skiing…

Big hugs and kisses from Montreal!!! Enjoy the Christmas time

I’m missing you!
geli

* * * Première neige * * *

The winter finally arrived!! My exams, too =(

Some pictures to give you an impression of the Canadian winter... and it's only the beginning!

Never seen this before, the easy way to remove the snow...





Cold greetings!!!

geli

It's Christmas time

... but unfortunately it's also examination time =( Still one presentation, one takehome exam and three more exams!! So, there is not so much to tell but it's nevertheless a little bit of Christmas feeling and it started to snow finally...

These presents are on their way to Germany... Incredible, I've got all my presents on December 5th!!

I wish you an excellent Christmas time!!! Everytime you're having Glühwein, drink one for me please ;-)

Take care,

geli

Roadtrip en Gaspésie

Finally another post! There’s a lot to tell you but I didn’t find the time to write it down… Today, I had to hand in two assignments and I’ve been travelling the last two weekends.

Thus, only two assignments and three exams left, yeah!! For one of the assignments, I had a meeting with the professor last week. I met him in his office in the hospital and I can tell you that people are crazy here because of the swine flu. Securities control that you disinfect your hands before you enter the hospital and patients younger than 18 years are not allowed to receive visitors… Well, I didn’t catch the flu and I was really happy after the meeting because I discussed a scientific topic in French – something I wasn’t able to do before I came here.

Mainly, I want to tell you about my crazy road trip to Gaspésie. This trip really deserves to be called road trip as we drove 2000 km in two and a half days!!! I guess that most of you have never heard about the region Gaspésie, so maybe you like to have a look on the map to orient yourself: http://maps.google.de/maps?hl=de&tab=wl



We rented a used minivan at a company called “rent a wreck”, doesn’t sound very trustworthy but we had no problems although a little warning light showed us that the car should soon be checked by a mechanist. I really enjoyed driving after three months without a car and made 800 km. I’ve been driving an automatic car for the first time but apart from one full braking because I mistook the brake for clutch, everything went pretty well.

We left Montreal at 1 pm on Friday and reached our first motel at 10 pm. Thus we drove many hours in the dark and passed deserted villages where we couldn’t see a single person on the street. We stopped just in time at McDonalds to buy our “dinner” before it closed at 9 pm. You see, we were in the middle of nowhere (Rien sur 6 km) and were curious about what we would see the next morning.

The waitress in the motel told us the that the most beautiful part of the Gaspésie starts right there, so we had not missed very much while driving through the dark. The road we took on Saturday followed the coast and the landscape was amazing.

After all the hours in the car, we did some hiking in the national park of Forillon.

We spent the second night in Gaspé, the metropolis of the Gaspésie with 15000 habitants. As it’s already complete dark at 4pm there, we wanted to go to a restaurant (not only fast food) around 6. We could not eat in the restaurant that was recommended in my guide book because all tables were booked. Hallo, at 6 pm!!! It seems that people there have supper at 6 and go to bed at 8 what explains why we couldn’t see anyone on the streets the night before. Finally, we found a very nice and low priced restaurant where I nearly stole a knife. After leaving the restaurant, I put my hand into the pockets of my jacket and found a knife in my left pocket! Don’t ask me how this could happen?! For a moment a was hesitating if I should just go away or bring it back what would be kind of embarrassing… but honest as I am, I went back and explained the situation to the waiter ;-) As we didn’t know what to do the whole evening in this hick town (there is a cinema but the only film was the Micheal Jackson film) we returned to our motel after dinner and adjusted to the locals going to bed at 10 pm ;-)
Thus, we left the motel the next day at half past 6 but unfortunately, I observed after 20 km that I had forgotten my mobile phone under the pillow. I guess the others would have liked to chop off my head as we had gotten up at 6 to leave early… On the way home, we stopped in Percé to see the famous rock in front of the coast. Unfortunately, it was raining the whole day…

But we had a great time in the car anyway listening to the same 4 CDs for the fifth time ;-) One song will always remind us of this great trip and I won’t deprive you of listening to it too… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByV2m8kdDA8
It’s too late to tell you about my last weekend because I have to get up at 7 am tomorrow…

Last but not least (still remebering something from my English lessons at school but today I have the impression that my English is really bad), to see who is still reading my blog, I’d like to ask some initiative of you… I’m still cooking nearly every day and really enjoy it but sometimes I run out of ideas. So please send me your favorite recipes, some easy everyday meals. I’ll try all of them and send you a picture afterwards ;-)

Hope to hear you soon...

geli

Halloween and football

Bonsoir tout le monde!

Nothing special happened during the last week, I had my last midterm exam on Monday, and the lack of events and work made me feel a bit homesick… Actually, I do miss you!!! I already met lots of people here but sometimes, I’d like to have a real good friend by my side…

As you all know, last night was Halloween… well in Germany you usually go to normal parties but in North America, Halloween is much more important. It’s the only occasion in the year for costume parties (like our carnival). Unfortunately, I didn’t have the opportunity to go a private party of Canadians (as the party I intended to go to finally didn’t take place) but nevertheless I had lots of fun.
Friday night, the other exchange students from Munich came to my place and we had a pumpkin cooking evening. Pumpkin cream soup (excellent recipe) , another pumpkin dish (quite difficult to describe), homemade mousse au chocolat (I loved it although I don’t like sweet things that much), wine cooler with pineapples (lot’s of alcool; German: Bowle, I’m not sure if the translation is right) and beer(not as good as German beer)… Yummy!!

Yesterday I watched my first football match, one of the must-sees as it is part of the university culture and a really big spectacle. I went there with a French girl a know from one of my courses. The first picture shows the team of “my” university – Les Carabins - entering the field. By the way, the building in the background is the music faculty.

No football match without Cheerleaders…

Well, that’s me enjoying the football match. You’ll have to get used to this appearance, it’s my winter coat that makes me look like twice my normal size ;-) Yesterday, it was only to support our team by dressing in blue but sooner or later, I’ll have to wear this coat every day…

Last night, All Hallows’ Eve, I went to a theatre showing the Rocky Horror Picture Show!! Quite spontaneously, I decided (or maybe I should say that I was persuaded) to try to get a ticket immediately before the show. Thus, I had no time to go shopping for a costume (suspenders etc) but I tried at least to adapt a little bit to the costumes of my friends what meant neither jeans nor skirt… Those of you how know the film will recognize Frank on the left.








That afternoon, I enjoyed the nice autumn sun and walked along the “Canal de Lachine” that allowed ships to bypass the Lachine Rapids in former times and was important for the shipping traffic to the great lakes. Thus, an important industrial site developed in the surroundings but the canal was closed to shipping in 1970. Today, you find ruins of corn silos and factories in that area…

Another strange thing observed in Montreal to finish this post:
All night clubs and bars have to close at 3 am and there are only illegal clubs that are open from 3 am till the next morning. Nevertheless, clubs are quite empty if you go there before midnight what means that you have only two or three hours for dancing. Party till the first train is not possible here =( And although all club close at 3, there is no metro at that time. You have to know people living next to the club or you have to take the taxi. Fortunately, I can walk home from the Plateau (the “Schwabing of Montréal”). After two months, we accepted that there is no party till dawn but last night the discussion about it rose again. Contrary to Europe, we changed to winter time last night what means that we gained one hour last night. This could have been the only night that clubs close one hour later but actually that’s not the case. Anyway, I didn’t find yet a club where I would really like to stay till 5 am but I continue searching ;-)

Bonne nuit!! Miss you
geli

Music and a trip to Canada's capital

Hey all!

I’m still alive but the last weeks have been really busy because of university... We are writing midterm exams at the moment and in addition, there are lots of assignments to hand in. Yesterday, I wrote a whole exam (9 pages) in French for the first time =)

Nevertheless, there are some more interesting things to talk about.

My music course started three weeks ago and I really like it. This week, we really started the improvisation, before we were only singing and discussing theoretical stuff - quite hard to understand if you never learned the music vocabulary in French. I had not thought about that ;-) There is a very nice and cooperative guy from Cuba who showed me where I can practice at university. So now I’m going “à la Faculté de musique” to practice the clarinet. Sounds great ;-) And I really like being there, you can hear so many different instruments and styles of music while climbing the stairs to the 8th floor (where you have a beautiful view over the city). I think I’ll go there tomorrow after my course…

I finally had the possibility to see my flatmate Gabriel and his band on stage last Saturday. It was by chance that I got to know about it. I asked him if he knows a cocktail bar and he told me that he never drinks cocktails but that he knows a great show taking place that night… As I couldn’t convince my friends to go there, I went there alone. Thus, I happened to talk to a teacher who pretended to love German culture and literature ;-) And I enjoyed the show of the second band together with Gabriel, I even talked to the guy playing the saxophone and got their CD :-)

Last week, I had a cold and was freezing all day long as we haven’t started heating our apartment yet and it’s already quite cold. We had the first snow today, but nothing compared to Germany… the snow is melting as soon as it reaches the ground as it’s been much warmer the last three days.

Two weeks ago, I left the province Québec for the first time – I went to Ottawa with our outdoor club. The original plan was camping in a National Park but because of the weather forecast, we abandoned this project. Instead, we went hiking in the “Parc de Gatineau” which is located on the opposite riverside vis-à-vis with Ottawa. You can see Ottawa in the background of this picture.

We had the chance to see the Indian Summer on its summit, these intense colors are amazing!! (And don’t make fun of it, my dear brother!)

The second day was hardcore sightseeing ;-) We got up at half past seven as breakfast in the hostel (a former prison!!!) started at eight. We went to the parliament hill, took the river cruise, walked across the Byward Market and visited the National Gallery of Arts. Actually, Ottawa is a small city, wouldn’t be anything special if it wasn’t the capital of Canada ;-) Although it’s located in Ontario, it’s quite bilingual but contrary to Montréal, English is the main language.

It’s been a great trip as we had so much fun together. We were eight students, most of them from France, and although we didn’t know each other before, we could feel a kind of togetherness… Hopefully, I’ll see some of them again on another trip.

I finish with something that was really strange to me in the beginning:

You can find this kind of fountain for potable water in all public places like shopping centers, museums, at university, everywhere, actually as frequent as public toilets. People just take a sip of water when passing one of these fountains. Recently, I learned that they are called “abreuvoir” when someone asked me where the he can find one of these fountains. Two weeks ago, we discovered a bar called “abreuvoir” and now finally I understand the meaning of this name. It’s a cool place where you get 4 liters of beer for 30 bucks ;-)

Cheers et à la prochaine,

geli

Zwetschgendatschi and Lobster in Tokyo

SALUT!

Voilà, some new pictures showing what happened during the last days…
The 24th September was the birthday of my flatmate and therefore I decided to make a typical German cake, the Zwetschgendatschi. I spent three hours on baking as the yeast dough didn’t rise properly and then in the end the bottom of the cake was quite burned =( But anyway, Annabelle was surprised and happy and with enough whipped cream it was eatable…

The following picture shows some of my friends in front of the Olympic tower. We went to this place as foreign students got free entrance to some museums last week and visited the Biodôme (kind of little zoo) located in one of the buildings constructed for the Olympic Games in 1976. The day before, I visited the museum about Montreal’s history which was really informative and interesting.

The new way to party: Sit down in front of your computer with a bottle of vodka and watch your Moscow friends celebrating in front of the webcam… It was real fun to see you guys and talk to you but I would have loved to be in Munich that weekend. What about another reunion in Montreal?

Last Sunday, I went to Mont Orford with the outdoor club of my university. Despite the bad weather forecast, ten motivated students from Canada, France, Belgium, Sweden and Germany left Montreal at 9 am and arrived after some detours in the National Park of Mont Orford. The view from the top of the mountain was… well not available as we were in the middle of a cloud, but anyway, we enjoyed our hiking tour.

When I returned to Montreal that evening I saw Angela Merkel on the screen in the Metro station. That’s how I got to know the outcome of the elections in Germany. And here is the article published the following day in the Metro newspaper…

Finally a picture with my two flatmates Gabriel and Annabelle. It has been taken after a big cleaning in our apartment. They explained to me that they don’t have a cleaning calendar but that they clean the apartment whenever there is a party ;-)

And this was the case on Thursday evening. My flatmates invited some friends to watch the first important hockey match for Montreal’s team. Therefore we installed a second TV and served hotdogs, brezels, beer and champagne… That evening, I watched my first hockey match from the beginning till the end and observed Canadians watching hockey. It’s as popular as soccer in Germany and they are really enthusiastic about it.

On Friday evening I went to restaurant with some German friends and ate lobster for the first time in my life. It was delicious but difficult to eat ;-)

Afterwards, we went to the party of Philippe (a friend of Annabelle). This is how Canadians party…

And last night I went to Tokyo, here is the proof

One last picture, this is the park next to my metro station

I decided to present you each time one curiosity I encountered here.

Let’s start with the “Livre”. No, I’m not talking about a book but about a unit of weight. One week ago, some friends were discussing whether they lost or gained weight since they arrived in Montreal. So the next morning, I decided to use the balance in our bathroom – and I was quite shocked… 135!!! Obviously this could not be in kilograms and a closer look on the balance showed me that the scale was in lb, a unit that is called “livre”. I already knew this unit from the market and so far I believed that it was equivalent to our “Pfund” (500g) what meant that I weighed nearly 70 kg. Impossible, I went immediately to my computer to check how to transfer lb in kg. And I discovered that 135 lb correspond to 61,2349699 kg ;-) This explains also why the plums I bought on the market were not enough to cover the whole cake…

Well, take care, forget about the balance and enjoy the real Zwetschgendatschi (I’m a bit jealous)!!!
geli