Hey there,

Right now its my fifth month here in Canada and I’m enjoying the cold winter and the snow. At first I want to apologize to you for not writing so many reports or anything in english. I often started to write but then I did not have the passion to finish the writing. But I hope I will finish at least a short report, this time….

As most of you will know, I am in Sun Peaks right now. Here is almost nothing to do, other than skiing or snowboarding and working. I work in a hotel and the work is okay, but I am happy that I have only a few weeks left here in the middle of nowhere…

I think I did not write a lot about my trip out west, so I will tell you at least a bit about it:

My trip started in Toronto (what a surprise) and the first stop was Thunder Bay. Thunder Bay is a little town with almost as much to do as here, speak nothing. But I went into a little store and talked to a lady who worked there and her huspend happened to be from Germany (or his mother is from there) so we talked a while and April and her huspend took me to Kekkabeka Falls (sorry if it is spelled wrong) and invited me for dinner. All in all I had a great time there and it was lots of fun!!!

My next stop was Winnipeg and it was freezing cold (-30). I stayed one night in Winnipeg at a house with very nice students and I had a good time there, too. The boys showed me their city even in this cold.

And now THE highlight of my journey: Regina!!!! Okay, Regina as a city is pretty boring, but the people I met there where just awesome!!!! I decided to stay a day longer and it was the best decision ever… we had a christmasparty and it was just fun!! And it is pretty funny if you try to make a turkey if noone has any idea how it really workes. But after a few calls to grandmothers we had a very good turkey…

Just look at the photos and you will see that I had a great time in Regina.

2144 you are amazing!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, on the 11 of december (after ca. 60 hours on the road) I finally arrived in Kamloops and here I am, working at the hotel and enjoying the winter and the snow!!!! And we have lots of it.

I took a few snowboardlessons and I really like going out on the slopes and having fun in the snow.

My christmas and newyear where pretty quiet but nice. Simply very different than the holidays before.

Right now I am really looking forward to my last days in Canada, on which I will be in Vancouver and I am excited to go back home and finally to go to spain in march. Finally no more winter and just sun and sea!!!!!!!!!

Whatever, I still really like Canada and this 5 month wont be the last time I was here. I will be back!!!!

 

Bye for now

 

Maria

 

My first month in Canada:

 I arrived in Toronto on 17^th of august after about 8 houres of a tiring or boring flight. The immigration was quite easy and way faster than expected. The paperwork was done after just a few minutes and now I had the working permit in my pasport and I was ready to get my luggage and I had to find Phyllis and Gerhard who picked me up.

After I found them (or they found me) we went back to Kitchener and I just called my parents and went to bed. During the next week I had time to adjust to the new timezone and the fact that I was far away from home and more or less alone. It was quite easy for me to get used to the time but it was even harder to get rid of being homesick.

At the first weekend (18^th – 20^th) we went up to the Cottage at Lion’s Head (Bruce Peninsula, Georgian Bay). The landscape there is truly incredible: one side of the peninsula is just rocky and full of stones and on the other side there are sandy beaches. The water at Georgian Bay (Lake Huron) is unbelievable clear and so u can see all the stones and everything else in the water, just great!!!!

Whatever we drove to Tobermory on Saturday and we saw a few lighthouses and just enjoyed the nature.

On Sunday we had the first ‘christmas dinner’ with Phyllis’ siblings and it was quite nice, nice company and great food!

During the rest of my first week in Canada I slept a lot and got used to the english.

On 24^th, so after exact one week, I went to Toronto. I went from Kitchener to Toronto by bus and the 90 min were quite boring.

Here in Toronto I went to the ‘College Hostel’ and it was a really difference to Kitchener, u can tell it is the cheapest hostel in Toronto, but okay, it was more or less clean but I was happy I brought my flipflops for the shower…

So I stayed my first week nearly in the middle of Chinatown and I toured through Toronto as a tourist. Now my challenges were to find a job and even more important: a room!

Finding a room turned out to be quite exciting because I had to leave the hostel on Thursday and I did not have a room till Wednesday night. But I looked at a room in the afternoon and I told the landlady (Lena) I would call in the night but I didn’t reach her and her son told me the rooms were all rented. So I met two far relatives (Tom and Sheila) on Thursday morning and we went here. Finally I got the room and here I am! At least I had a roof over my head and I didn’t had to worry about it any more.

Now I had to find a job and it was even easier than I thought:

I met someone I knew from a internet forum (Michael) and he was in Toronto since a few weeks, so he knew the city a bit. Whatever, he told me about a jobcenter and I went there. They helped me writing my resume and it took us about one hour to create a lot of experiences out of my volunteer work. After that I went on my way through the city and I distributed almost 15 resumes at different coffeeshops and retail stores.

Finally I got a job at ‘Roots’ and the job is really nice and we have lots of fun!

Rights now I’m really enthusiastic about Toronto and I’m really looking forward to the next 2 month here.

There is allways some event happening, for example I saw a free concert of John Mayer. But I missed a free concert of Beyonce.