Hurricane Gonzalo Warning! Oh wait, it already passed and we survived! It was thankfully not so bad, the house creaked a bit, and it rained like mad for a few hours, but the wind wasn't so much worse than usual. We had decided to manage the storm by having a girls movie night: we're talking wine, blankets, lovey-dovey movies, cookies & chips. After a whole day of lectures and 2½ hours of shopping for Halloween it was a perfect ending of the day!

 

Last weekend it was my turn to hop on the plane and fly over to Montreál. After 6 days there it has been proven that while Montreál indeed is very beautiful, it is far more cold than St. John's, for unknown reasons. 

 

Day 1/6: Arrival at Montreál at 7:30 local time! Jacob was being a sweetheart and picked my up by the airport, so I didn't even have a chance to get lost on my way to the city (thank you).

2/6: This day we were very active! We climbed Mont Royal (local little hill that provides grand view of the city - and full of squirrels!) and saw it's autumn glory, walked to the harbour and saw Old Port ("Gamla stan" för Montreál). Also lured Jacob to his first Starbucks visit ever, and tried on the Canadian cinema's when seeing Maze Runner. God, I NEED to get a hold of those books! (as usual, click on the pictures to enlarge them)

    

  

   

  

 

 

Day 3/6: Today we visited the Botanical Gardens/Jardin Botanique, which managed to be somewhat in bloom despite the season. The gardens are currently engaging in a light festival called "Jardins de Lumière", where they light up the chinese and Japanese gardens. Sadly, my camera wasn't good enought to capture the lights in the dark, but it was so pretty and they had made such a nice show out of it. Additionally, as it's so close to halloween, the greenhouse had a "painted-pumpkins and witch" section <3 On the way we also passed the Olympical stadium, which was very well kept.

 

  

   

 

Day 4/6: We went to the farmer's market at Jean-Talon to buy everything and anything you could possibly need in terms of fruit and vegetables - and you need plenty to make a Thanksgiving dinner! Naturally, we have to engage ourselves in Canadian traditions such as celebrating Thanksgiving (in October, unlike US that celebrates in November), and we do it hardcore!

Day 5/5: Study day! As I didn't mention, I had a midterm the 15th, the day after I got back to St. John's, and s we are responsible people the monday was dedicated to studying. You might think "WHAT YOU SHOULD STUDY WAY MORE THAN THAT! HOW COULD YOU THINK YOU'D HAVE TIME TO TAKE A TRIP WITH A MIDTERM SO CLOSE BY!". We got the results back and I landed on 91/100, so don't worry, I know what I'm doing! AND we cooked the Thanksgiving meal, of course. I managed to make cranberry sauce from scratch, something I've wanted to try out for ages, and with a combined effort we actually managed to do heaps of the suggested foods. Omnomnom!

Day 6/6: Today there was little time for anything but making my way to the airport after a sleeping-in morning. Bye Bye Montreál, nice to have seen you!

Gosh, time flies! We've currently entered the first really thick deadline period, which basically will last until October 23rd (with varying stresslevel degrees). Due to two huge deadlines, and the work I had to do to be able to have a social life/doing the trips we've done, the blogging has been falling behind. But now it's time for a Grand Summary!

 

This Weekend: Schoolwork. Meetings. More schoolwork and meetings. But on Thursday we took a colelctive break, and Anna, Eva and me went to Shamrock City, a local pub for a drink or a beer. There was a live band that played irish music like Galway girl and Fairytale of New York, but also irish versions of Country roads and Avicii. During the night we ended up in a spontaneous dance, just because the mood in the pub was so inviting. A very perfect evening <3

Last weekend: Gros Morne National Park

With four brave girls and a big amount of optimism we rented a car, (automatic, as basically all cars are here. Never driven one before, but it wasn't as hard as I had expected it to be), and road-tripped the 9 hours across the entire island of Newfoundland to the national park Gros Morne, known for its beautiful nature! It was quite scary at first, since my thoughts were "Oh my god do Canada have other rules? Other signs? How do you fill up with gas in this cuntry?!", but we managed to figure everything out. Thankfully I had Anna as a co-driver, and when there's a 9 hour drive you reaaaally need to step away from the wheel after a while! 

 

The first day we did two shorter hikes, since we arrived in the afternoon: the Tablelands and The Lookout. The Tablelands looked like something you'd find in Arizona or Texas, yellow rocks and a little stream from the platfrom mountains. We also encountered a group of wild Caribou's, which was very surprising to us but really cool to have seen. The Lookout was very different - full of maples dressed for Autumn, red, orange & yellow leaves everywhere and a stunning view of the area. After the hikes we drove to our home for the weekend, Bayside Cottage. The cabin was very cute, and easy to find despite the fact that we had to find it in the dark (our hikes took a little longer than expected due to constructions/landslides. 

 

 Tablelands:

 

The second day was dedicated to one single hike: The Gros Morne Mountain. We started early, and walked for 1,5 hours before we reached the foot of the mountain, where warning signs to not proceed unless it was clear sight, wouldn't get dark soon and that we'd better be prepared for some really hardcore climbing. And it has indeed rained and been cloudy during the morning, but by now it had thankfully cleared up. We begaun our climb! And climbed. And climbed. And wondering why there was always yet another little hill to climb when we reached the previous summit. But then we arrived at a crater-like area (resembled the stampede from the Lion king), and it was very unlikely that any more climbing surprises would await us. But other surprises did - in the form of a Moose, in all its glory, who came climbing down from the top. So what do you do, in the middle of a bare mountaintop when a moose starts climbing your way? We can't run or hide, simply hope it wouldn't get too close. And thankfully he decided to take another path, and we could finish our hour-long climb to the summit at 806 meter. It was a tundra-like landscape on the top, with very hard, cold winds that had us stop and wobble aside many times, so we kept a careful distance to the edges. But the view - oh the view! It looked like a mix between a Norweigan fjord and Rivendell from The Lords of the Ring. The way back provided us with this lovely view, and a serpentine-like way down, so no more climbing (yay!). We stopped by a little (windy) lake and had lunch, before we returned to the same trail as we had walked this morning. The whole hike took 7 hours, and when we got back food and beds were the only activities we were willing to take on.

 

The third day we were once again on a tight schedule, since the rental car needed to be back by 21:30. So yet another early morning, and a hike to the Western Brook Pond, that simply was stunning. It was an easy walk there, apart from a couple of overflooded bridges that left us with pretty wet feet. But after yesterday such a walk was welcomed, and the view was worth it. We also did a super-short walk to the west coastline, which was much more approachable than the high mountainwalls and cliffs we have in St. John's! By some almost legal driving (might have crossed the speed limit towards the end, just a little) we got back in time. I must say though, during our road trip we met some proper lumberjack-like Canadians, which was so much fun to have seen (one of those types I approve of stereotypes), and I realized that coffee is, and always will be, the king of roadtrip enjoyment. And throughout the weekend, I couldn't have wished for better company - you're soooooo awesome girls!

 

Three weeks ago:

My darling came over from Montréal to visit me, and I did my best to show him my new world. We went to George street with the girls (the party street - most bars per square meter in north america!), where we indeed had a proper nigh out, but we also got Screeched in, which is a traditional ceremony that makes you an honorary Newfoundlander. A fisherman with a paddle singing songs with you, makes you swear an oath, we got some meat-like thing to eat, had to kiss a cod (fish), and finally drink screech, a local rum. After all this we had earned our diplomas! During his stay we also walked up to Signal hill, Quidi Vidi village, brewery (only the shop though) & harbour, Yellowbelly and Downtown. Next weeks it's my turn to fly over to Quebec over our thanksgiving break.

Four weeks ago:
It was Monicas birthday, which was celebrated with a cosy dinner & pub experience in Downtown, where we sang Happy Birthday in seven languages, and had a general blast! I really enjoy the group of girls I'm hanging out with, so many nice persons <3