The days between christmas and new year ...

The days between christmas and new year were actually not so exciting, for I had a cold and had to stay in bed. During our christmas trip I got the cold during the first night because the window was open and I was too lazy to close it ... I also suffered a backache ("Rückenweh").

On the 27th I had a good night's rest. At night we had dinner at the Romani's (Italian Restaurant).

The 28th, I felt bad; actually, we should go shopping (boxing week), but I didn't feel like. So I stood in my bed or was playing Age of Empires II ... yes, I know I should stay in bed and not play computer games *smile*.

Already a day later I felt better, so in the afternoon I met the other guys for shopping. First we went to Polo Park (the biggest shopping mall in town), but I didn't find anything convenient. Later on we went to different outlet stores of Adidas, Mexx, Tommy Hilfiger, and so on. They had some really good offers ... I bought two shirt with long sleeves, a dress shirt ("Hemd"), a sweater, a tie, and a scarf. At night we enjoyed dinner at my house and watched a movie ("The Tuxedo", thanks to Rainer!).

On the 30th we still didn't have any plans for our new years trip. Together with Brian (Taiwanese student) we were looking for a trip ... finally I reserved a motel room in Morden (that' s about 140 km south west of Winnipeg) ... our plan was to spend New Year's eve in Morden/Winkler and January, 1st in la Rivière / Holiday Mountain (small ski resort). At night we were invited for Japanese Curry at university and afterwards we watched a movie (one more!) ... that time we saw The Constant Gardener ... for three bucks (that's for sure a reason why we spend so many evenings in the movies). Before I finally went to bed, I had to prepare my stuff for our trip on New Years Eve ...

The review of New Year Trip will be published soon (sorry for delay) ...

Christmas Trip Review

I got up late on 24th; actually, I had already prepared my luggage the night before. At 10, one hour late, I was ready to pick up my friends at university. We decided to drive to Steinbach, in order to visit the town, have lunch and doing some shopping (especially food). On the way to Steinbach we also passed the small town of Hanover (with one "n", but I think there is a connection to Hannover because it's a German community) and saw road signs for Blumenort (funny name, "Flower Town"). There are also many French speaking communities (La Salle, St. Adolphe, ...).

First day: Trip from Winnipeg to West Hawk Lake via Steinbach

When we finally got to Steinbach, I was really surprised that it was such a small town, for I had in mind that it must be one of the bigger towns in Manitoba. Still we found a supermarket to buy some food, yet we didn't find an open restaurant downtown. So we decided to continue our trip in direction of West Hawk Lake and to have lunch later. As we got back to highway #1 we found an restaurant in Richer; I was interested in having some Canadian food.

The restaurant looked pretty funny ... it was an old kind of bar/pub and when we entered the first thing the waitress asked, was: "Hey guys, you seem to be young! Please show me your identification cards side by side ... " I was really surprised, for we weren't looking to order a beer. However, as she told us, we weren't allowed to stay in this room if we haven't reached our 18th birthday. In the back room of the bar they sold beer (liquor store), one side of the room was full of gambling machines and in another corner two old guys were drinking a beer and spoke French Canadian together (hard to understand!). This bar looked like the setting in an American movie; nevertheless, we ordered toast and burgers ... and got a good meal.

Now it was already time to drive to West Hawk Lake. The resort was easy to find, the check in took only a few minutes ... and I think we were really lucky to find such a good cottage. We had a nice kitchen, a lovely living room with a fireplace, three bedrooms, and finally a small bath room. A few minutes after we moved in the cottage we already got visit of some deers, was really nice to see them in front of our cottage.

"Canadians" seem to be curious *smile*

The other guys prepared dinner and Brian and me, we tried to light a fire ... as we experienced, it is difficult to make a fire only with newspapers and humid wood; therefore, we had to collect some kindling ("Kleinholz"). We had Chinese Dinner and Japanese noodles (they look like spaghetti, you eat them cold!) ... both was really great. We ended our Christmas eve by watching two movies ("A very long engagment", "Euro Trip") and enjoying the fire.

On the 25th we got a great breakfast with bacon, eggs and toast. Later on we decided to make a small trip by car.

Second day: Trip to Ingolf and Whiteshell Provincial Park

Spontaneously we decided to go to a small town named Ingolf ... just for fun! After a couple kilometers we reached the end of the road and there were just a few houses. I was already thinking of turning back, when we discovered that a small way led to the frozen lake. We parked our car on the border and walked down to the lake as a men arrived with his snowmobile. He told me that the ice was thick enough to drive on with cars, I was actually really suprised because I never did that before.


He left, but after a couple of minutes he already came back and offered us to ride his snowmobile, for he thought that we never had the opportunity before, what was true! He was so kind, everyone of us was allowed to drive his snowmobile and it was really fun ... for sure he is responsible too that I will keep Canada in a good memory!


We had some fun with the car on the lake, it was an unfamiliar picture to see parked cars on a jetty ("Anlegesteg"). We drove round the whole lake, who was pretty big (circumference was probably more than 10 km).

Having fun on a frozen lake!

Afterwards we did a small trip through the Whiteshell Provincial Park, on the way we saw many lakes and also a few falls. I was really interested in Rainbow Falls (due to the beautiful name), yet the fall was not as big as I was expecting :)

Rainbow Falls: Small, but still beautiful!

On our last day of our Christmas Trip we had planned a big trip ... going to Lake Winnipeg before going back to the city of Winnipeg.

Third day: Seven Sister Falls, Pinawa, Victoria Beach, Grand Beach, Winnipeg

On our way to Lake Winnipeg we did a stop at seven sisters falls, I was curious to find out why this town had actually such a funny name. The town itself was small, but at the end we found a road sign for the dam. As we reached the dam we had a sight over a huge storage lake ("Stausee") and also on a very wide river valley.

Dam of Seven Sisters

Huge storage lake

View on the wide river valley

Later on we drove to the town of Pinawa, that is situated close to the storage lake. Yet, there was nothing special to see, thus we continued our trip in direction of Lake Winnipeg. After seeing many frozen lakes we also passed through an area of First Nations ("Ureinwohner"). The urban sprawl ("Zersiedelung") was well visible, also we could see that the poverty in this area was higher than in other parts of Manitoba (burnt cars, houses with broken windows, ...).

Around 3 o'clock we finally arrived at Lake Winnipeg and reached Victoria Beach. First, we didn't know how to get to the beach, yet after asking some pedestrians we finally found a way down to the beach. The sight was really impressive, I felt like I stay at the North Pole.

Lake Winnipeg - I'm still looking for the polar bear!

Actually some interesting facts about Lake Winnipeg: Length 428 km, Area 24'390 sqkm (equals more than half Switzerland), Maximum Depth 18m !!!

We also visited Grand Beach, yet everything was closed and we couldn't reach the beach. Our exciting Christmas Trip ended finally with dinner at George's Burger House in Winnipeg.

Christmas Trip

Hi! Our Christmas trip is over ... enjoy the pictures in the photo gallery!

I believe I can fly ... :)

My review of our trip will follow soon ...!

Merry Christmas

Hey guys ... I wish you Merry Christmas ...


I will spend my next days in a cottage at West Hawk Lake, that's a small lake about 140 km East of Winnipeg! I will be back for December 26., CU soon ...

Enjoying first days of holiday ...

Yesterday I just got up at 11:00 o'clock, still I didn't sleep lots :) I did some phone calls, answered many mails and at afternoon we had Chinese dinner at university. We had "hot pot" with different kind of meet, fish and vegetables ... was tasty! Afterwards everybody was a bit tired, yet we went home early :)

Today I still didn't get much sleep ... because our day was almost overplaned. I got up at nine and give a ride to a friend to get some baking stuff. After 10 o'clock we started baking for Christmas and also for his birthday ... we did 4 cakes ... 2 of them burnt a bit, but with some small "repairs" (we cut the burned crust and put some frosting on) the cake looked super! We are ready for Christmas *smile*

Tonight we were invited for a birthday dinner at the house of the Philippine guy. We had some delicious Philippine food; acutally, the food looks to me quite similar to European food. Afterwards we had a good time watching pictures of the Philippines, Canada and the US.

And now it's soon time to go to bed ... a trip is waiting me and I have to get up early tomorrow morning :)

Exams are over ...

Yipee, my exams are over ... thus my term is over too ... now I have holiday!!!

Monday and Tuesday I was preparing for my last exam on Wednesday! On Tuesday I was writing my last two christmas cards ... the same day I got the call of Walmart that my pictures are ready to pick up; actually, I was waiting since 8th of December, hence I wasn't interested anymore.

Yesterday in the afternoon I wrote my last exam; unfortunately, I didn't work out as well. The questions were pretty difficult, yet I should pass the course. First, I was a bit upset, and a few minutes later I already changed my mind: I felt happy that the term was over and I now have two weeks of holiday!

When I came home, I had to do some work on my car. Last week I ripped off the power plug of my car ... but what do we need a plug for? Yeah, actually all Canadian cars have hybrid engines, thus on city traffic you are able to switch between gasoline and electric power. So that's pretty cool, you just charge the batteries at night ...

Did you trust me? I'm joking ... it's still true that all cars in Winnipeg have power plugs, yet for another reason. Because of cold temperatures and to ease the process of starting the engine they use an external power source in order to operate an engine block heater ("Motorheizung"), furthermore you get the advantage that your car will heat up faster (warm air for the air ventilation!). Finally, I know that hybrid engines exist already, but do these cars have a power plug ...?

At night we had a burger at Dairy Queen and went to the movies to see "A History of Violence". Was a good movie, talking about a family guy who gets more and more confronted with his past of violence ...

A busy week or even not ...?

This week I had no school, I stayed all week long home to prepare for my exams on Friday night (financial accounting) and on Saturday morning (economics). It was probably a strange week; on the one hand I was busy and felt like I had to work, on the other hand I was wasting my time with junk.

Actually, on Monday I was working on my financial accounting material, at night I had to go downtown to pick up the pictures I needed in order to create my christmas cards. In the shop they told me, that they lost my pictures during the transmission from the computer to the lab. That was really bad, for I did two times the way downtown (everytime I lost about one hour) for nothing. Also Christmas was coming soon, so I needed the pics. Last Wednesday (Dec. 08, 2005) I already let printing out 6 pictures at Walmart, yet also here I'm unlucky ... I'm still waiting (today is Dec. 18, 2005). However, I was still able to write a dozen of christmas cards because I let print out the pictures by a 1 hour photo finishing store (yet, as I'm still waiting I'm not sure if I will be able to send more cards).

On Tuesday I was working hard, I worked all day on my potential economics questions. I just didn't do anything more ... probably it was the day I was the most serious.

Working Time ...

On Wednesday I was working a bit in the morning, in the afternoon I had to give a ride to a Canadian friend to the airport, she went back to her family in Ontario. When I arrived back at the airport, my first time since I arrived in Canada last August, I remind my first days in Canada. There is such a big difference, when I arrived here everything was new and I was wondering about everything: cars, streets, red lights, liquor store, persons, behaviours and so on! And now everything looks familiar to me, like I stayed in Canada for years. It's funny how fast you get adapted to a new environment :) At the same time I felt like travelling too, I just want to take the plane and visit another city ... back to reality ... I had first to write my exams before I could get on another trip *smile*
At the airport I was also looking to change the date of my return tickets (actually May 21, 2006). Unfortunately I wasn't sure about my actual travel date (July 07, 2006), and because the travel agent of Air Canada wasn't able to find me on their computer system they couldn't complete my request. However, for the moment it looks like I will even stay longer ... my latest date to go back to Switzerland is the 31st of August ... my student permit will expire that day and I will not apply for extension.
On my way home I did a stop to do some shopping. I bought a fleece and some running shoes ... Afterwards I got dinner and continued studying.

On Thursday I went shortly to the shopping malls because I needed some envelopes. But I was not able to find them, this ones I found looked more for business purpose, I didn't like them at all. Then I got the idea to buy a package, I got 40 christmas cards and envelopes for $3.95 - so I finally had my envelopes, even if I don't need the cards :)
At night I was writing the christmas cards, for I was thinking that I had to mail them in on Friday in order that they will be in Switzerland/France for Christmas.

5 cm	10 cm	15 cm	20 cm	30 cm	40 cm	50 cm	75 cm	100 cm	150 cm	200

We got more snow this week

Friday at 6 p.m. I had my financial accounting exam. The exam duration was 3 hours, that was pretty long; nevertheless, time went over fast. Afterwards, I went home and had dinner. Then I had just two hours to repeat my economics stuff ... sleeping a few hours ... and writing the economics exam on Saturday morning at 9 a.m. Actually, it was funny ... I wrote both exams in a gym, the same place i usually use to play badminton :)
After the exam I went to the house of the french guys because we should do a small trip that day. Yet, we changed our plans and went to Polo Park, the biggest shopping mall in Winnipeg. The mall was crowded with people, for everyone was doing its christmas shopping. The other guys bought some books and together we were looking for a coat (one french guy actually likes buying one).
At night we had Thai Dinner for celebrating the birthday of one international student, later we spent another funny hour with Karaoke for and finally we ended our night in the Taverne.
There a small funny story happened: I was ordering a coke; however the waitress (a good-looking girl) forgot my order and offered me a coke (actually it was pepsi, but coke sounds better, isn't it?) for free (by pretending she forgot the bill too). Later on, when I thought she already left our table, I told to the other guys: "She is a hot girl" (because she actually is ... ok, usually I will not comment that, I did it more because it was really nice to offer me a drink for free!) However, she just stands behind me and according to my friends she heard what I just told them ... I was really ashamed!!! Later, when I ordered another coke, she forgot it another time ... yet, I didn't get my drink and also not a free drink ... probably she was revenging me *smile*

Today I only get up at 12 o'clock. I called my parents and afterwards, I was cooking ... I tried a meat sauce (Sauce Bolognese) and it worked out ... smells good! Finally, tonight it was time to update my blog ...

School is over ...

My school term ended on Wednesday, now it's exam time ... I'm sorry to all the guys who are still waiting on my email answers, looks like I'm again a bit lazy, but I hope to send you all an answer soon ...

On Monday I was baking a (Swiss) Apple Pie ("Apfelweihe"); my roommates and my friends really liked it. I just missed the whipped cream ...

On Tuesday I continued improving my baking knowhow, I was invited with another friend for Xmas-Baking and all together we were baking Xmas cookies. Check out the pictures in the photo gallery ... thanks to Mark for the pictures (and the copyright *smile*).

Wednesday was actually my last school day and to be honest, I felt a bit sad that day. I talked to my roommate and he felt the same ... probably the weather was responsible for our change of emotions. He had the good idea to invite me for a run and I really enjoyed it. Even if it was really cold, about -15°C., with good equipment (warm clothes) it's really fun to run and my stamina ("Ausdauer") seemed to be infinite (we run for about 11 km).

On Thursday I started learning Economics, I had lots of reading (around 70 pages), yet I didn't do anything more.

Friday I went to an optional class at school, we had the opportunity to ask questions about the exam topic. I also went checking my new schedule for next term ... yupee ... my earliest class is at 10:00 a.m., thus I don't have to weak up early for my next term. On Friday night I met the other guys for dinner at the cafeteria of the university, we also had to talk about our christmas plans (we have the choice between looking for a cottage/hotel around a mountain or on a lake) ... I will know more soon. Afterwards we went out for a small trip to the french part of Winnipeg. We had a very beautiful sightseeing, downtown looks beautiful with the snow and all the Xmas decorations. Afterwards we went to the Movies; we saw Jarhead, a movie about Marine troops in the Gulf war. I had really mixed feelings about the movie; however, I endorsed the fact that they didn't glorify the war and the spirit of the troops.

Saturday I was learning for a couple of hours and was chatting on MSN (instead of going out, tztztz). Finally, I had a funny ride with a friend through the city of Winnipeg ...

Today I went with some friends to the Manitoban Museum. My first impression was that it was quite an old museum. But then I got really surprised, the museum is huge and there is lots of really interesting stuff to discover (about the First Nations ("Ureinwohner Kanadas"), Hudson Bay, Building of the railway, and so on). We weren't able to visit all the museum in two hours, that's why we will go back another time. Afterwards we had dinner at George's Burger House, I think nobody was hungry anymore ... a must for all visitors of Winnipeg (but only if you like Burgers *smile*). To digest and to avoid a bad conscience ("schlechtes Gewissen") I went for another short run :)

Have a look out of my window!

About the weather ... now it's cold every day, we get used to stay outside at temperatures below -10°C. , with the wind chill it feels colder than -20°C. ... but the temperatures will still lower for January and February. How cold it feels, depends on how strong the wind blows. For the moment the situation is not as bad ... I've still warm hands :)

Actual Winnipeg weather forecast

Swiss retrospection, American Customs & lots more (updated)

Last Friday I met Nick; he is the exchange student who will go to Winterthur next April. I also met Andrea, the Canadian exchange student, who stayed in Winterthur between October 2004 and March 2005. We had some mexican food and enjoyed our evening. It was funny listening to Andrea as she told us lots of stories about Switzerland, it looks like she really enjoyed her time in Switzerland. Also, Nick is really excited about going to Switzerland soon, I hope he will have a great time there ...

On Saturday, two French exchange students and me decided to do a trip to the United States. I asked my room mates where we should go; they gave me the advice to go to Grand Forks, which is a city with 50'000 habitants about one hour of the border. So, we started our trip at nine o'clock in the morning and arrived about one hour later at the border. First, we visited the duty free shop and also get some information about what we are allowed to buy in the United States and to get back (= import) to Canada.


That was really surprising to me: We weren't allowed to buy anything or we had to pay duties and provincial sales taxes because we just stayed for less then 24 hours in the USA. After 24 hours, 48 hours and one week you will get exemptions of CAN$50, CAN$200 or CAN$750 worth of goods without paying any duties (= GST (Goods and Services Tax, actually 7%) and excise taxes (actually 7% for products under the Most-Favoured Nation (MFN) tariff treatment); nonetheless, you (probably) still have to pay PST (Provincial Sales Tax, 7% in Manitoba). Under the NAFTA Agreement (North American Free Trade Agreement) all goods that are produced in Canada or the USA are excluded of duties (duty-free), but you still have to pay GST and PST. To buy alcohol or tobacco you have to stay at least for 48 hours (to get an excumption), or you will have to pay a duty that can exceed the value of your goods. To conclude, a funny point: If you did any reparations on your vehicle abroad you have to declare them at the border, or it could happen that they will evaluate your car as new and you will have to pay GST and duties on the entire value of the car ... :) Don't cheat!!!

But now back to our trip (I just got excited about studying the Canadian "I Declare" booklet) ... We then got back to the car and drove to the American Customs. The American officer greets us with the informal question "how's gone?", I gave him the passports and then he got serious:

"Where are you from?", "In which country were you born?", "What are you doing in Canada?", "Where do you live in Canada?", "Where are you going in the US?", "What are you doing there?", "How long will you stay?", "Is that your car?" ... and so on ... they then studied seriously our passports, recognized that they are machine readable and before the investigation continued, they check the trunk of the car. We had then to enter the building of the US customs and had to fill out a form with lots of question like if we had been involved in war activities and other stuff. Finally, they had to take finger prints and pictures of us all ... and they also didn't forget to write down my car license! After already 30 minutes and some more questions we finally got our permission to enter the US ... and don't forget to take your credit card or some US$ (you have to pay US$6 for the permit which is valid for three month). I never spent as much time at a customs, neither in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Austria or as well Canada ... they take it really serious ... still I doubt that this process increases the security of the United States. However, I have to point out that the officers were friendly and gave clear instructions of what we had to do ... and the time was worth to spend a nice day in the US.

The US customs (border)

After one hour on the Interstate 29 (I unfortunately didn't took a picture of the road sign) we arrived finally for lunch in Grand Forks. We first got some money and were amused about the ATMs ... you can do all your business out of the car by just chosing the right lane ...

Drive Thru Bank

Afterwards we decided to have lunch and found a lovely restaurant called Whitney's. We had some American food ... I enjoyed Filet Mignon (à la Americaine *smile*) and especially I liked the Bean Soup (was really good!!!). We also had some Chicken Wings on a Minnesota Sauce ... mhhh ...!!! The meal costs us about US$20, that seems to be a bit more expensive than in Canada.

Just accross the street we found the Cabelis, a hunting store. They sold lots of funny stuff like tents, special machines to drill through the ice (ice fishing), camping utilities and everything what is good for hunting. In another part of the shop you could buy weapons, rifles and also bullets ... it looked so strange to me ... there was a mum buying bullet with her daughter (she was just a teen) ... that is really thought-provoking ("nachdenklich stimmend")!!!

Bullets, bullets, bullets ...

Afterwards we went to the shopping malls and checked also the prices. The prices looks to be similar with Canada ... a reason is probably that the city is close to the Canadian border and also that there is not a lot of competition. At sunset we decided to have a look on the US airbase; unfortunately, it was too dark, so we didn't see lots. From outside the air base seems to be gigantic; according to Wikipedia the air base has a population of over 4000.

Caution: Snowmobiles!!!

On our way home we had to pass the Canadian customs, lots of questions again, yet after 5 minutes we could pass the border. The customs agent looked really serious (in the way he didn't believe/trust us) and I liked especially the question if we bought any firearms or bullets.

Now everyone was hungry and we were looking for a restaurant. We drove through the small town of St. Jean Baptiste, not only the name was french, also it was a french community. It would be nice to have dinner in that town, unfortunately; we weren't able to find a restaurant there. Finally we found a restaurant in Morris, and we enjoyed some real Canadian specialties. I had a French/Canadian bean soup and afterwards a veal cutlet ("Paniertes Kalbsschnitzel") with mashed potatoes. I really enjoyed my veal cutlet, was my first since I'm in Canada ...

On Sunday I was playing badminton, it was the last time this year, for the gym will be closed during the exam period (actually, Wednesday will be my last school day this term). In the afternoon I felt like cooking; it was time to try something new ... I did Chili con carne and it worked out: It tastes great ... :)

Column on Winnipeg Transit System

Yesterday morning by reading the newspaper (Winnipeg Freepress, 01 December 2005) I found a column concerning the Winnipeg Transit System. The major of the city wants to increase the fares and that leads to an interesting debate ...

Click on the picture to read the column.

Baking, buying tires & winter stuff ...

On Tuesday I had my last writing essay class. Afterwards I decided to bake, since I haven't bake for a long time. I did a marble cake ... tastes great but was too long in the oven (a bit dry); however, with some Frosting it still tastes good :)

Yesterday I was looking for my courses for next term, unfortunately I was not able to select all the courses. Yet, the coordinatior on the student office will help me and I hope it will work out ...
I chose the following courses:

• Introduction to Supply Chain Management
• Introduction to Management Sciences
• Introduction to Management and Organization Theory
• Introduction to Canadian Issues and Economic Policies

Probably I will also take again a ESL (English as a second language) course, but first I have to check the schedule.

Today I went shopping, my roommate helped me to find cheap and good new tires. We checked out Walmart, Costco, and Canadian Tire. We finally bought the tires at Canadian Tire; for around 350 bucks I got new all season tires. I also had the opportunity to buy a new winter jacket, a neckband and some other winter stuff ... now I should be ready for cold temperatures :)