Home, Duty, Freedom

Hello dear readers,

I guess it is time to share some experience again. I just recognized, right now I have already spent more than three weeks in Canada and since the last post a lot happened. Let's try to structure it a little bit with a paragraph for each topic.

Living

I have my own room now!!! :) The rest of august I was living in a room of the house of my landlord, but since the first of september the apartement in the baseground is free, so now I just share each and everything my roommate Perdeep. He is indian and doing his MBA and a quite cool guy. I am sure we will spend a good time together. Everything is furnished, we got a huge living room, a nice kitchen, a spacious bathroom and of course a very cozy room each.

University

Tomorrow my first week at VIU is about to start, so far we already had two orientation days, one only for Internationals, one for alle new students. All in all it was not too bad. In general the folks from the university are quite nice and it seems as if the semester is going to be a fun one as well as an informativ one. But like most of my fellows mentioned I will have to prepare not only for one exam in the end but also for a lot of presentations and stuff. Let's see how this is going to work out.

Travel

Since I had some days off I decided to go for a trip. Ever been to the Rocky Mountains?! If not, you should go! It is such a lovely space packed with a countless amount of mountains, clear lakes, shining green flora and as well really impressive animals. We went on the most dangerous road in North America, I did the polar bear challenge (swimming in a glacier lake, 4 degree), went swimming in lakes clear like glass, did a bear safari and saw a black bear beeing restless on his search for food (gladly he was not looking for me), saw a tiny brother of the Grand Canyon, experienced a bond fire even in pouring rain, saw some grazing elks and just had a great time out in nature. The magic about this place is its complexity, if you love nature you wll adore this little garden eden.

Before and afterwards I spend a few days in Vancouver and as previously already written I kept my impressions. I don't like this city that much. For sure there are nice places like the Stanley Park, a really big green park right at the shore of the ocean. Granville Island, an artificial Island which used to be used for the industry but now it offers nice restaurants, bars, markets and stuff right at sea. Gastown, somehow the old town of Vancouver with a lot of interesting, small shops.

But in general this city looks like it was build without any plan, there is no concept, no idea how the city should look like. At some point they just added, rebuild, changed or renovated some parts without any kind of rules. As soon as I got my phone you will receive picture and might understand what I mean.

I think that should be enough for today :) Be aware their are a lot of things umcoming like the lovely environment of Nanaimo, my Tofino trip and of course my first week at VIU, so be safe and stay tuned folks!

Leon/Canada

PS: Even tough my fellows don't promote their posts that much, read them! Might not all of us will be able to see the places they are, so at least get some insights, trust me you feel like you are there! :)