admin .: August 2005

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