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This is Famous Svens Wondrous Homepage! On this page you got the latest news about my time in Canada!

Wednesday, August 31, 2005

A great year is over

Being home again I can look back on a great year in Canada. This homepage will finally find its rest as this might be the last update on it.
Thanks to everyone who visited this site during the year as my thanks also adresses all the people which made the year to what it was: A great and unique experience!

May the legend of this blog survive and help to reminisce these fantastic times.

posted by FAMOUS SVEN at 31.8.05 | 14 comments

Download a last memory!

As a special feature you can download the official "Sven-in-Canada-video" now in three different qualities. It summarizes my exchange year within a couple of minutes. Go for it!

Best Quality (38 MB)
Medium Qualtity (18 MB)
Poor Quality (10 MB)

Enjoy!

posted by FAMOUS SVEN at 31.8.05 | 3 comments

Friday, August 26, 2005

Vancouver

Vancouver is the favourite city of many Canadiens and exchange students. The nicest part of the town is certainly the district Gastown, especially the Water street. Main attraction is the world oldest steam clock which plays every hour the "Westminster chime".

left: The Water Street with Harbour Centre Tower in the background; right: since 1870 the steam clock plays a melody every hour.

Starting point was the visit on the tower of the Harbour Centre (167m) from where a complete view over Vancouver is possible. In the middle of the picture above you can see the BC Place Stadium, the roof was once the biggest airbag roof in the world.

Also in Gastown you can find the traingular building from 1908 (left). Some blocks further, in Chinatown, the "Dr. Sun Yat-sen Classical Chinese Garden" (right) offers a nice atmosphere to take a break and relax.

Above: Where a harbour centre is there should be a harbour as well.

Close to center of Vancouver the Stanley park is located. In earlier times natives lived here, now it is an urban recreation area.

From here you can see a fantastic skyline of Vancouver (left) and a whole bunch of totempoles (right).

posted by FAMOUS SVEN at 26.8.05 | 1 comments

Sunday, August 21, 2005

Vancouver Island

The capital of the province British Columbia is Victoria on Vancouver island, the biggest island in Canada's west.

Main attraction is the parliament building (left, behind us) which has been designed by Francis Rattenburry when he was 25 years old. It appears very glamorous in the darkness of the evening when the decoration of 3333 light bulds is activated (right).

Other attractions: left: The Faimont Empress Hotel is also designed by Francis Rattenbury and is located nicely at the habour. right: In the Tunderbird park you can see some totempoles.

In Tofino we participated in a whale watching tour.

In non-photo distance we saw the back of a greywhale. Other animals we could watch: Sealions (above), a seaotter, some dolphines and a bald eagle.

On the Cathedral trail (above) we saw huge giant trees, some of them up to 800 years old.

There are lots of hiking possibilities on Vancouver Island. Above you can see the battleship lake.

Above: A nice sunset on Vancouver island

posted by FAMOUS SVEN at 21.8.05 | 0 comments

Monday, August 15, 2005

Jasper and the Rocky Mountains

As the biggest national park in the Rocky Mountains Jasper has an area of 10878 km². The city of Jasper which is in the middle of the park has a population of around 5000 people in the winter and 20000 in the summer, tourists not icluded.

We arrived by train (left) in a very rainy Jasper townside. Although the weather forecast predicted heavy rain we dared to make whitewater rafting trip on the Athabasca river (right, without rafts). This river is the heart of Jasper and its water is the melted ice of the Athabasca glacier. The 3°C of the water and the not much warmer but stormy rain made the rafting tour to an incredible adventure. After we were totally subcooled by these conditions the sky turned into clear and we could enjoy the wonderful landscape.

Jasper offers gorgeous lakes in an awesome landscape. The medecine lake (above) is connected to an underground cave system and changes it water level during the year significantly. In fall it is nearly dry.

The pyramide lake (left) offered another nice possibility to enjoy the nature. We used some of the trails for hiking and mountain biking to reach this and other seightseeing points like the Maligne canyon, the Maligne lake, the Athabasca falls... right: fltr: Sascha, Jörn Marten, Daniela and me at the Old Fort Point.

Many animals can be seen in the park (left) or even within the city (right). Unfortunately we couldn't see a bear bur perhaps this was even our luck after all the accidents that happened recently.

Another must-see is the Columbia Icefield (above: 2% of the whole icefield). It's the biggest icefield (325 km²) in the Rockies and consists of 8 glaciers.

And finally the attraction above is very rarely visible in Jasper. That's me. But even without me the visit on the Wistlers Mountain's peak in 2470 m height should be worth it.

posted by FAMOUS SVEN at 15.8.05 | 0 comments

Sunday, August 14, 2005

Edmonton

Starting point of our trip into the west was Edmonton, the capital of Alberta. We had just one afternoon to spend there. A must-see here is the famous West Edmonton Mall, the world's biggest shopping mall. Unfortunately it was the evening of this sunday when we arrived there and the shops were already closed.

The West Edmonton Mall offers far more than just shopping: It contains bars (left), exotic animals to watch (right)...

...several entertaining attractions (left) and, of course, a big ice rink (right).

The West Edmonton Mall has more than 800 shops and seems to offer shopping in a nice atmosphere. OK, I haven't seen it in the busy time.

posted by FAMOUS SVEN at 14.8.05 | 0 comments

Saturday, August 13, 2005

My Waterloo is over!

I have been a bit slack in the last time updating my blog. Basically it happened not much, we had a few BBQs though. Here are some impressions of my last days in Waterloo:

left: a last picture in the bomber (fltr: Martin, Daniela, me, Alex); right: Sascha at the BBQ, he definitely had enough fire this evening.

fltr: Jessi, me, Daniel and Jakob

Repeating myself I just can say it was very good time I spent in Waterloo. Before I'll go back to Germany I will travel into the far west of Canada exploring the Rocky Mountains and the West Coast. Thus, there won't be any updates before I'm back home but then I hope I can provide you with awesome pictures and wonderful stories of my trip before I finish my work on this website.

posted by FAMOUS SVEN at 13.8.05 | 0 comments

Sunday, July 31, 2005

End of the term again!

Now that the third term is over my studies here draw to a close. As usual there are some things to do for everyone which makes it always difficult to update this site with interesting events. This term I'm lucky enough not to write any exams but I have to finish my research project during the next days before I start off to my final trip to Canada's west in two weeks.
After nearly one comlete year, a year full of excitement, it's somehow a strange feeling attending a last time a lecture here, dancing a last time in the bomber, shopping a last time at the farmers market, ...

Watch out for the next updates, there might be some during the next days!

posted by FAMOUS SVEN at 31.7.05 | 0 comments

Monday, July 18, 2005

JM's birthday

Today we have finally been invited to a really grown-up birthday: 25 years Jörn Marten, congratulations. As we couldn't expect elsewise from the host, the party was well organized with way too much food.

Before we deserved our first coldie we gave over our presents. JM: "Oh, 2 presents!" Sascha:"Yea, we spent sooo much money for you!" (fltr: Sascha, Daniela, me, Jörn Marten)

Australian wine instead of danish buttercookies from Daniel (left) and canadian buttercookies instead of scottish wiskey from Jessi (right). I'm sure he wouldn't get more presents at home.

posted by FAMOUS SVEN at 18.7.05 | 1 comments

Sunday, July 10, 2005

Tour d'Umgebung

The sportive highlight of every summer term is the traditional Tour d'Umgebung. Whereas mainly second row bikers cycle around somewhere in France the main summer classic goes around Waterloo.

At around 8:30 tour organizer "Reini" (waving) opened the race with a very strong field with athletes from team TU-Braunschweig and team TU-Hamburg.

Very soon the first run-aways started an attack (left)...but no danger for the yellow jersey which controlled the field from behind (right).

In Heidelberg the forces of the small leading group around the green jersey of the best sprinter vanished and the lead over the merciless approaching field went smaller and smaller.

In St. Jacobs the peloton could be brougth together and the goal was reached in record time.
vltr: Jörn Marten, Sascha, Reini, Jendrik's girlfriend, Ole, Jendrik, me, Matthias, Matthias and Lutz.

posted by FAMOUS SVEN at 10.7.05 | 0 comments

Saturday, July 02, 2005

Thousand islands

Close to Kingston the St. Lawrence River offers a very nice lanscape with over 1000 islands.

Most of them are very small and contain just one little house (left) or even just a lighthouse(right).

It's somehow funny to see that some of these small islands are connected with bridges (left) and the main attraction is the big island with Boldt's Castle on it (right). Americans think that this castle is amazing with all its "details". But good that we had Jessi along with us, our scottish castle guide to disabuse us.

I might repeat myself, but it was again a really nice trip. fltr: Jessi (thanks for teaching me scottish dance on the boat), Daniel the danish guy, Daniela, me and Jörn Marten.

posted by FAMOUS SVEN at 2.7.05 | 0 comments

Friday, July 01, 2005

Canada Day in Toronto

On Friday we went to Toronto to attend the celebrations of the Canada Day. The city was crowded and since it was a very hot summer day we used it more or less for hanging around at the habour.

left: Break at the habour: fltr: Matt, Jörn Marten, Daniela, Beate, Jessi and me; right: Canada Day celebration at the habour

In the evening we watched a Shakespear play in an open-air theater. It was very nice, or at least the parts I could get out of it.

above: "Much ado about nothing" from William Shakespear

posted by FAMOUS SVEN at 1.7.05 | 0 comments

Monday, June 27, 2005

Coming soon: Canada Day

Since this little blog always offered a bit more than just my pure canadian adventures but also a bit of general information and education I wanna continue this tradition by giving you an understanding of the Canada Day, canadas national day, which is celebrated on July 1st (this friday).

The Canada Day goes back to 1867 when on the first July the Dominion of Canada came into act which united the three british territories Canada (todays southern parts of Ontario and Quebec), Nova Scotia and New Brunswick (it seems that we Braunschweigers have always been first here).
In 1879 the holiday was created as Dominion Day and changed into Canada Day in 1982.

I'm looking forward to this since it is said to be celebrated very patriotic and entertaining.

posted by FAMOUS SVEN at 27.6.05 | 0 comments

Friday, June 24, 2005

The swiss week

This week Bea, Fabio and my old roommate Thomas returned from their travels through Canada to prepare finally their journey home to Switzerland.
I enjoyed to see them again and Bea and Tom arranged a BBQ to say goodbye to the people who are left.

Lots of stories and gossip at the common diner (fltr: me, Jörn Marten, Thomas, Daniela and Bea)

So my swiss friends: I will always remember these great times with you and especially the living in unit 20. Thanks a lot for this. I wish you all the best in your further ways of life and hope they will cross my again.

posted by FAMOUS SVEN at 24.6.05 | 0 comments