Final Thought

I like to finish my blog with my final thoughts about my stay in Canada. I am living here for three months now and I have just one more month to go. After that I will leave Canada for good. Maybe I will visit parts of Canada when I am older, but I am not sure of that. Every thing is possible so even the option to once live her for the rest of my life can also happen, but at this moment I am glad that I can go home. I really miss my family and friends but also my culture and the language. I noticed the last few weeks that I sometimes accidentally speak Dutch to my classmates. I don’t think anyone ever notice but I feel it as a handicap. At the other hand, I do think I have improved my English. Not really because of the program, it wasn’t always that interesting, but more of the force to speak English to everyone. I like to thank you all for having nice lessons and the conversations I had with you. Sometimes it was really interesting and I also learned here a lot about different cultures. I hope I also learned you something of mine. I whish you all the best with the next level and your studies!

Banff

I am so tired! But I had a nice day in Banff. I had to wake up early to take the bus to Banff, where we arrived after a short ride. The night before it had snowed everywhere and also today it was very cold. After a short look at the huge hotel and some shops downtown, it was time to go up the mountain for a nice view. To bad for us it was a cloudy day, so when we arrived with the gondola it wasn’t very exiting. After a short look and some pictures it was time to go to the upper hot spring; water that comes from the inside of the mountains so it is very hot. After half an hour I was almost cooked because it was so hot. Luckily we had to catch the bus to the downtown of Banff so we had a good excuse to leave the water. The only negative thing was that we didn’t knew what to do anymore. We already had seen the shops and except of a few museums wasn’t there anything to do. We decided to get some food and after that we played some games to have something to do. Finally we could go to the bus to go home. I was so cold and tired after a hole day of activities and I was getting a headache so I was happy to come home. Now I am sitting in my warm room and I wished I didn’t had to go to school tomorrow.

Eastern Weekend

I enjoyed my Eastern weekend so much that I wish to have Eastern again. A friend of mine her birthday was last Thursday and because of the long weekend she wanted to go home for these days. She lives in Lloyd Minster, on the border of Alberta and Saskatchewan, east of Edmonton. Her sister also lives in Calgary but my friend, Sarah, also wanted some friends to come with her. Therefore she invited me and her roommate to go to her parents house. I love to travel and see new places so I couldn’t wait to go. It would take us six hours to drive with the car but it was worth it. We left Calgary on Friday round noon and arrived when supper was ready. After a lovely meal, much better than the dining centre for the people who know it, we went downtown to celebrate Sarah her birthday with some of her old friends. The next they Sarah showed us places where she went to school and other places she used to come very often. In the afternoon we went riding on a quad in the snow, the best thing I have done here! After so much fun it couldn’t be better, but also the evening was awesome. We made a fire at her house and some friends came to join us. The next day we already had to leave but I will never forget this weekend. I hope you also had some lovely days.

Edmonton

Wow! This weekend I experienced the most really Canadian culture events I can imagine. I will start at the begin of my story, that will make more sense for you.

Last Saturday I went to Edmonton. After a 3,5 hours ride, we arrived at the biggest mall of hole North-America. I have been to a few malls in Calgary, so I knew a little bit what to expect. There is only one big difference, this Edmonton mall also includes a rollercoaster park and a swimming pool. I was prepared for a huge mall with a lot of nice shops to go ánd a lot of people walking around. When I arrived, I was so exited to be in Edmonton. Not because of the beauty of the city but just to be somewhere else; in fact to discover a new place. The market mall was overwhelming. Not in the first place because of the people but of all the attractions; for instance there was a singing contest, a cheerleaders competition and a sea lions show. I made some pictures but it felt improper to do that, so I limited my number. Still I have to make a lot of pictures of everything I am doing here for my family, they want to know how everything looks like in my life here. I am doing my best for them!

Creativity

We are talking about creativity in the lessons on school, yes the students call it school over here, so I made up a poem. I normally never write story’s or poems or express myself in other creative way. Although, it was a sad day for me because I had to drop of my boyfriend at the airport because he had to go home to the Netherlands. So when I walked to my home it just happened. I was thinking about a lot of things; what I should do when I came home, what I wanted to discover during my stay here in Canada, or I would pass EAP2, and suddenly those sentences came up in my mind.

My legs are walking, but I don’t notice it.

My ears are listening, but I don’t mention it.

My eyes are looking, but I don’t see anything.

I have emotions, but I don’t feel them.

It sounds really sad now I am reading it, but I thought I just have to write it down. So here it is. You don’t have to like it and don’t expect more creative outburst of me. I will express myself on other ways, like in sport or playing on my flute. That makes me happy and at the same time releases me from all my thoughts.

Vancouver

My reading week was in one word awesome! I enjoyed it so much because my boyfriend specially come over for me from the Netherlands, to join me during the reading week. He has family living in Vancouver and I always wanted to go there once. The choice to go there was easily be made. The way up we took the bus trough the Rockey’s. I hadn’t seen the mountains before so close, it was beautiful. It took the bus 15 hours to go from Calgary to Vancouver but we loved the trip so much that we didn’t cared that it took such a long time. When we arrived, the family was waiting for us to bring us to their home. We stayed in Vancouver for five days, every day was full of adventures. We went skiing at Whistler, cyclic in a park, walking through all the shopping area’s, attending a hockey game, making a lot of pictures, etc. etc. By the time we had to got back to Calgary I was exhausted. I got a cold and felt so tired that I thought I was getting sick. I also was depressed about the view of Calgary compared with Vancouver. Over there it is so beautiful, it already looked like summer. Al the threes are green and the sun made it nice and warm. I whish I was in Vancouver now, but it also learned me to travel a lot to discover more of such magnificent places. I hope I will find one during my stay here in Canada.

African Food

This time I am not going to talk about the Canadian culture but about the African! This is because of my experience today with African dishes. I live on the campus in Residence where are no possibilities too cook for myself. Therefore all the students go to the Dining Centre to eat there. If the Dining Centre would give us the same meals every day, we would get crazy. That is way the Dining Centre came up with a very good idea; special dishes from different cultures. This day was ‘African day’. I was thinking what kind of food they eat in Africa, what special African food would be like. I thought I knew a lot of international dishes but the most comes from Europe or North America. So when I was ready to get my dinner, there were a few things I could choose of. My instinct told me what to get; couscous with meat. It looked really good and I was wondering how it would taste. When I sat down at a table, the meal already smelt a little bit weird; like monkeys at a zoo. Nevertheless, I ate everything. But after a few seconds I thought if it smells like monkeys, maybe it is meat from a monkey! That thought didn’t made me very happy so I kept on eating as quick as possible and I also don’t want to know the answer of my thought!

Cold weather

Before I went to bed yesterday, I already knew that it would be cold today. Most of the days I check the temperature. The last weeks the temperature changes from plus 4 degrees till minus 20 in the evening. But it never felt that cold. It actually felt just like in the Netherlands. In the winter there, it is like plus 10 degrees. Only when we have very strong winters it could become minus 4. For the last time it was that cold, it was a few years ago. They say because of the global warming our climate is changing. So it is getting warmer and warmer. We used to skate the hole winter on nature ice when it was that cold. They think that it will never happen anymore.

So when I walked outside to day, I was well packed with warm clothes and I didn’t found it that cold. Only my nose hairs were freezing, that is a really strange feeling. You also don’t must walk outside to long, because than it will get to could. A negative point about this all, is that my heating on my room isn’t is working very well. I hope they will fix it because when I woke up this morning, it was so cold that I wouldn’t get out of my bed. But the experience to walk outside in minus 49 is a cool idea.

My trip to the market mall

After a few weeks being in Calgary, I wanted to go shopping with a friend. We heard from a girl how to get by the mall so we prepared us to go and our adventure to the mall has started. It was already 4.00pm when we took the bus. It was also very cold outside which we weren’t prepared for. After ten minutes waiting in the cold, finally the bus came. It was nice and warm in the bus and we were amazed by the bus driver because he did a very good job on the icy road. We thought we knew how the mall would looks like so we could quickly let the bus stop if we saw it. After a few minutes driving, we thought we were arrived. So we got out of the bus and walked over. But it appeared to be a place with restaurants and other shops. We went back to the bus stop but we had to wait another 30min. We were almost frozen when the bus finally came. Meanwhile we looked to a map so we would know were to get out exactly. This time it went okay and we were glad to get inside. The way home was much easier to find because we knew where to get out. But for the next time, we know where the mall is!

My reason to come to Canada

In August, I started a orientation year to discover my interests and capacities and my weak points and dislikes. After four months joining lectures and making assignments, I got the opportunity to go to a foreign country. I could chose to go to Mexico (Pueblo), America (Montana) and Canada (Calgary). In Mexico I would learn Spanish but I am not very interested at that. So I could chose between America and Canada. I have once already been in America for three days, and for some reason I just wanted to go to Canada this time. So that was a easy choice for me. To get accepted to the University of Calgary, I had to write a letter in which I explained my reasons I wanted to go. Also that wasn’t hard. Than I had to prepare me for this cool trip. I had to buy warm clothes, get my papers organised, book my flight etc. Sometimes I could over see it anymore and went crazy. But after all, I did a really good job. I learned how to prepare for a trip. So next time I can do it all by myself without the help of my mother.

Me, myself and I

I would like to tell you some things about myself, my family and my home.
I am the middelst child in our family. I have a brother (19 years old) and a sister, she is 14 years old. We also have a dog at home, her name is Choucke.

Last year I finished my high school. It took six years to finis it and during that time I had a lot of nice times with my friends. I also used to sport a lot, three times in the week. I played field hockey, I don't know or everybody is familiar with that sport. It is kind of the same as ice hockey but than on a field outside. My other passion is playing flute. I even brought it with me here to Canada. You never now what kind of opportunities there are. I used to play in a orchestra with who I travelled to the Czech Republic and France. That were great trips. It is strange that you had a life with some regular actions you did every day or week. Now I am going to study, this all will be totally different. But it is also exited to explorer new things, so I am looking forward to that.

English blog

Hi everybody,

This is the second blog I create since I began my trip to Canada. But the first one in English, so that is totally new for me! I hoop I am going to love writing new posts every week, actually I just have to. But it is a great way to write a lot in English and practice with it. And it is a great possibility to get know my classmates better by reading their blogs en comment on it.
I just have finished my first week of the EAP program. It was a very interesting week and I almost know everybody's name of my lecture, lecture 2. But don't try me out!
I am in Calgary for 2 weeks and a few days now. But I actually have not seen very much of the city yet. The first two days after I arrived at the airport in Calgary, I stayed at a hotel. It was very close to the center, we could even walk to it. So I have been to the Calgary Tower and had a nice view over the city. That was the last time I have seen the Rocky Mountains. Before I came to here, I thought I would see them every day. But unfortunately it isn't how I hoped it would be. Next time, more about me and my reasons to come to Canada.