Wells Grey Provincial Park

Good morning guys,

Time is passing through with light velocitiy and I have only few time to keep up.
There is much work to do and because of that my hiking and exploring activities are reduced to a minimum. That´s one reason why I´m not posting as many threads as I wished.
At least work worthed it. I got my first mark in geography of Latin America and it was a good A.
The next marks will come up in Corporate Finance where I had to work on a case study and the due date was yesterday. The next 2 weeks will be very stressy due to the fact that there are three midterms, 3 assignments and like every week quizzies ;)
Sounds great, doesn´t it?
Now some things about my last trip which was on saturday the 29th. (Long time ago ;P)
I was invited to join a trip to the Wells Grey Provincial Park. It´s located northwards of Kamloops and only 150 km away.
I tried to connect the location in Picasa but it doesn´t work because it is not a town...
This time the group differed completly from the last times. We were 7 guys. 2 frome Korea, 3 germans, Thomas from Italy and one guy from Switzerland.
The way to the park was very comfortable and for canadian relations very short. We started early in the morning and took the beautiful highway 5 in northern direction. On our way we could recognize the deep impact of the pine beetle epidemic. The coniferous forests on the slopes of the mountains where completly dead and a huge amount of the dry trees where twisted.
The reason of this epidemic are warm winters in the nearer past. In fact a result of a location based wam period in the past.
I don´t want to speculate if it a result of the global warming effect because it is recognizable that every one pushes the debt of it in this direction. It´s of course the easiest way...
Further northwards on our way the mixture of trees on the slopes changes from monoculture scots pine forest to a mixture of fir, pine, larch and birch forest.
It was an amazing view because of the combination of colours. Green, yellow, orange and brown slopes with a blue hirizon and addionally the darkness of the flushing water of the thompson river.
When we arrived at the tourist information center we asked if the salmon season is still going on. We heard that it must be a very nice happening when they try to reach their spawning grounds upwards in the rivers. Unfortunately they told us that it is was over and so we replanend our trip. There was still enough to see.... :D
Our first destination was 40km away by car and extra 5km on a "hiking trail". The street was a track in lousy condition but we were lucky because it was dry and it was no real problem for our Toyota mini van ;)
The first highlight hit us 10 minutes after departure. A bear mother and 2 childs crossed a glade only 15 meters from us away! In the first moment we could trust our eyes and noone of us was able to take a good picture. Unlucky international students :D
On our way we had several stops to take pictures and to enjoy the great landscape. We passed only 2 additional cars and met two other guys who tented at the end of the track.
To arcieve our first destination we ha to hike 5 km through a rough and mounteanous landscape. It was not really a official hike but you could imagine where other before you had walked ^^.
Our ogoal for the first part was a nice waterfall which cut in a glacial moraine of 15 meter thickness. It was almost noon and after a short break for group pictures we had to return to our car and leave for the other waterfalls.
The reason why British Columbia has so many waterfalls and a very high amount in usable waterpower is determined by the geological history.














The Coast Mountains and the Rocky Mountains sourround the Interior Plateau and due to the relatively new epirogenesis the slopes a very steep and therefore there is a high amount of kinetic energy available. This is only a short explaination.
If you want to know more ask me :D
HAHA!
Enough for the moment. During the trip we saw many different wildlife animals like cariboos, foxes, another bear which was grasing on a meadow (didn´t know that they are eating grass before), different birds etc.

All in all it was a very nice day with nice guys, a gorgeous landscape and it was cheap!

Cu folks

First roadtrip through western B.C.

Good morning Folks,

how´s it going? I hope everyone is fine and in a good mood to read my newest thread :-)
I have to tell you about my last "longer weekend".
On monday evening we decided to go to Vancouver and Vancouver Island and started our search. The plannings for our trip were quiet short-termed. The result was that we didn´t get the cheapest accomadations for our trip and had to spent plenty of money more than we thaught. But otherwise we had no problems with them and real good sleeping conditions every night. More information will follow down the text.
So back to the plannings. Before we could start our trip we had to rent a car and this was more difficult then we thaught. The others had have some experience with hiring a car and so we reserved a full-sized car (for 5 persons) at a station called enterprise rentals. First problem in Canada is, if you are under 25 years old you have to pay a daily extra amount of money for the hiring because of your little driving experience. The reason for this is that the kids don´t have to go to a driving teacher and do their test. Their parents are allowed to teach them driving with 16 years and they only have to pass a short 30 minutes lasting test. It´s costing 100 $, disgusting!
Okay nevertheless Steffen was 25 and we had only to pay the regular renting price.
This problem was easyly solved. On thursday afternoon Steffen and I headed downtown to fetch the car. When we arrived the girl behind the counter refused our reservation because we had to have an international driving license. I think it was only an excuse due to the not having of our reserved car. The frustating thing was that we could not negotiate with her and so we had to take a taxi which took us to the airport where the other car rentals were located.
Fortunately Avis had a full sized car which had been delivered 10 minutes before we arrived. We took it immidiately and hey wondering no problem to rent it with our normal license!
After these little problems we drove up to the UCH and loaded our baggage into the car and finally started our roadtrip to the Pacific Ocean at 7 pm.
On board of our new Chevy Impala were Steffen the driver, Pippo the navigator, Micha the beer annihilator and me the photographer.
On the way to our first overnight stay in Vancouver we drunk some Canadians and listened to the satelite radio with its beautiful channel Top 20 of 20! Every hour the same 20 songs :D
It was stimulating the mood of our crew ^^
When we arrived at the Holiday Inn it was around midnight and after the check-in we went to a really nice bar next to the hotel. Ordered a good night pitcher of beer and talked with the bar owner about Vancouver´s attractions and where we could go shopping tomorrow.
At the next morning we plundered the buffet and checked out with a fullfilled stomach :)
On our way downtown the passed Chinatown which was really shabby and dirty. It is a enormous contrast to the shiny flair of the city centre with its skyscrapers and clean malls.
Beside the malls, Vancouver has also a shopping runway and at a friday noon it was not crowded at all. We spent at least 6 hours with shopping and experiencing the wonderful city centre.
After our more or less succesful shopping trip we continued our way up to the Horeshoe Bay.
It is located 30km in the north of Vancouver and the starting point of the ferry which should bring us to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island.
When we arrived at the entrance counter we faced a huge line up and it was obvious that we won´t been able to take the next ferry. We were forced to wait for approximately 3 hours until we could go on board. During this time we played some poker and went down to the small town and spent our time in searching for some food.
The ride with the ferry seemed to be very short because we weren´t able to feel the speed with which we were driving due to the complete darkness outside and a little bit tiredness.
After our arrival in Nanaimo we had to drive around 150km to reach our hostel in Port Alberni.
We had to wake up the women at the nightcounter (it was around 1 am) to get our keys for the room and I think she hadn´t seen such exhausted looking germans in her whole life before.
Fortunately the beds were very comfortable and it took me only a few seconds to doze off :)
Next morning we had no breakfast because it was not included and we continued our trip west searching for some possibility to eat immediatley. After a hour of ride on a beautiful highway we arrived at the Pacific Rim National Park tourist office where we got our parking license and also some information about the next gas station and a restaurant. These information led us to the small town Uclulet at the southern end of the peninsula on which the Pacific Rim National Park is located. It was a gorgeous little fishing town with a tiny harbour and an observatorium on a peak.
We found a nice diner and bought some muffins and sandwiches. On our way to the gasoline station I had the idea to eat at the beach and shortly after our tanking stop we tried to find a free entrance to the beach. This wasn´t easy at all because most of the land was in private property so that it last around 30 minutes and several u-turns until we found a possibility to touch the pacific ocean. It was a wonderful partly foggy beach and the atmosphere was a little bit mystical.
From one minute to another the fog reach the beach and than dissapeard.
It was a really nice start into the day and in fact the real start of our adventure trip. Unfortunately we couldn´t spent much time at this beach due to the fact that our trip was planned and we had lots of topics on our agenda for this day.
So we headed northwards and our stops in the Pacific Rim National Park revealed many different scenes and atmospheres from foggy dark and wet rainforests to sunny beaches with nice waves. I cannot describe them in detail please look at the photos which I uploaded at Picasa and try to make your own desicion but the only thing I had to say that it was at least amazing in most cases awesome. For some moments I felt as free as I felt in Sibiria with the difference that it was a complete different atmosphere due to the not comparable landscape.
Now back to the narration. We have been spending the whole morning in exploring the interior reainforest with it´s old and tallest trees I´ve ever seen, some bogs and foggy beaches.
In the afternoon we decided to spent some hours of recreation at the Long Beach.
It´s British Columbia´s surfer paradise with up to 3 meter high waves in September. As we arrived the beach was seemed by about 100 people on a lenght of 3km. It was really quiet and you were able to hear the waves crushing at the beach.
Only a few minutes after we arriving our desire to jump into the Pacific was so high that all the stress and tiredness of the days before were forgotten. I took my camera with me and filmed Pippo and Micha when they rushed into the waves. I joined them a few seconds later and the only feeling which was able to perceive was pain. The water was so cold that my thies felt like they were burning. I don´t want to talk about the feeling of other parts of my body ... ;-)
The ocean was very salty and I was only able to stay 6 to 8 minutes in it.
But all in all it worth it!
At around 4 o´clock we left the beach and headed further on to a little fisher town called Tofino.
We stayed in a luxury Best Western Hotel with an awesome view from our balcony on the sea.
In the evening we decided to have a real diner at a restaurant and at the reception they recommend us a small one at the harbour. The restaurant was really good attended so we had to wait about 20 minutes to get a place on the terrace. I had Linguine noodles with salmon in a orange cherry sauce. It was very very tasteful and the best salmon I ever had but it also had its price. 28 $ plus taxes for the meal and again 5 $ for the coke. 36 $ not bad for a dinner :D
When we paid everyone of us gave the normal (german) amount of tip and they looked at us like something was not right. They explained us that it is common to pay 15-20 % tip in Canada when the meal was okay and more when it was very good.
In my case that would have meant that I have had to pay 45 Dollars! In fact we didn´t pay more than we gave and left the restaurant with the certainty again that living in Canada is very expansive!
When we came back to the hotel we went down to the beach to have a fire. On our way down we saw some fires and we decided to ask one group next to us if we can spent some time togehter at their fire. We were very lucky because the group was on the way up to their room and they wanted to extinct the fire and so we finally had our own fire. We enjoyed the night sitting at the fire talking, drinking and kidding!
On Sunday morning the we woke up early to get some breakfast and we had to discover that there was no real breakfast for us due to the big marriage which was going on the whole weekend.
So I was forced to organize a box and put in everything I could take from the buffet and took it with me :D
The next point on our program was whale watching in Tofino. It started at 10:30 in the morning and begun with a short and very senseless dvd introduction about fish and animals in B.C.
Than we headed to the dinghy and started our trip out to the ocean! The dinghy had much power and it the ride was lots of fun. The weather was fine and after 10 minutes on boat Todd the skipper got a message that others had watched whales in our area.
So we headed to the spot and in fact there were two greywhales grasing. Unforunately the water was not deep enough so that the whales would have to dive steeply and were forced to show their tails. Otherwise we saw many different types of birds, seelions etc.
The ride took about 3 hours and at the end I had the feeling of sawing something very special.
Afterwards the started our way back. It was about 1 o´clock in the afternoon and Kamloops was about 650km away from us!
The way back last us until half past 11 in the evening.
We were very glad that we reach it until midnight because Anthony had birthday and we wanted to gratulate him personally.
So our weekend ended with another bottle beer and some new guys :)

I hope you all hung up until here. Sry for the long text but otherwise it would have been not adequate!

So guys have a lots of fun with finding some errors in my english!
I wish you a nice weekend stay tuned!

Beach visiting on sunday the seventh

Hello folks,

its time to make some annocements about the thing which happened in the last days and about the plan for the next.
So on sunday Team Germany which consists of Phil, Micha, Steffen and me and a part (the female ) of Team Australia went to downtown Kamloops with the hope to find some kind of beach at the Thomspson river. The journey started at the UCH where we caught a bus in direction of downtown. When we arrived we recognized that is was quiet a long way by feet to reach our final target. We had to cross the train rail which was very unsecure so a member of our group called Abbey from good old England (Manchester styled ;-) ) took the safer way upon the stairs.
During the ten minutes of walk we passed the icehockey stadium and a nice park called Riverside park. At the beach we observed some crazy and awesome looking "cats" which were in real dogs but Micha had another opinion about them ^^.
After around 3 hours in the sun we left and got some icecream in the citycentre. It took half an hour to supply all of our group with icecream because the gilr behind the bar was so unbelievable slow in putting the cream into the wafer... Never the less the icescream was tasty and it shortened the wayting time for the bus back home.
In the evening we had some diner which consisted of nuddle with rucular, tomatoes and scampis.
It was very nice, easy to make and all in all quiet cheap.
This point is not unimportant because the food in Canada is more expansive than in Germany. Espacially meat costs more than at home.
Nevertheless the day was very nice and a good start into the new week.

Cu guys

First day in University

Hey Guys,

so finally the canadian every day life started for me yesterday. After 4 days of "vacation" and organization I had 4 classes. The first started at 8:30 am.It was Corporate Finance with a very good teacher. In this course I met Katha and Michael they are both german speakers. This will make things much easier in the future because I expect much work for this class.
After this business class I walked over the Arts and Education buildung tojoin a regional geography course of Latin America. The teacher is a women with a crazy name called Navqui. She is a first nation that means she has no european ansistors but only indianic. The course seems to be very interesting but as in a classes I took part yesterday I think my only problem will be to learn the special vocabulary and to read the much stuff we get to work through.
This is the main problem - every student has to spent more than 300 $ each semester for books.
If I would buy all of them in the bookstore which is located on the campus and called "bookies" I would have spent 650$ for all classes. Now I´m trying to organize some used ones but it´s not that easy because they are highly demanded ;)
Back to my day in the evening from 5 pm to 8:20 pm I sa in a course which is about British Columbia and Yukon. It´s also regional geography but the teacher is very very good. He reminds me a little bit of Herr Soyez. ( He was a geography prof. at our department)
Because he is also a little bit confused, doesn´t use the techniques effectively but has a huge knowledge, awide horizonts and his english is the best I heard here yet.
After this marathon of classe throghout the day I met Thomas at the aquatic center and we swam half a hour in the great pool. After that we went shopping at the superstore and than I had have some drinks with Omar my roomate and his freind Chris.
So long the first day was a good one and I think my english improves from day to day.
Understanding is not the problem at all but talking is in many situations quiet difficult and sometime also frustrating.
The things are going on and I will inform all of you who are reading my blog .

Cya soon Matthias

P.S. I took some nice photos of the campus and the city yesterday too. So check them out!!!!!

http://picasaweb.google.de/matthias.mensing/Sept4Unibeginn#

5te Tag in Kanada

Guten Morgen Leude,
wie versprochen habe ich mittlerweile ein paar Fotos von Vancouver und Kamloops hochgeladen.
Sie sind unter http://picasaweb.google.com/matthias.mensing erreichbar.
Sibirien Bilder und weitere aus Kamloops werden folgen!

So und jetzt ein paar Grundlegende Dinge zu Kanada.
Bisher bin ich von der Art wie das Leben hier seinen Gang geht sehr beeindruckt.
Abgesehen von den anfänglichen Schwierigkeiten, die durch die 6 Stunden Verspätung des Fliegers entstanden sind, läuft mittlerweile alles ziemlich reibungslos.
Die Leute, die ich hier bisher kennengelernt habe sind alle schwer in Ordnung. Die Organisation der Wg läuft auf Hochtouren und ich muss sagen mit Omar und John habe ich es sehr gut getroffen! Beide stammen aus Kanada, Omar ist sehr redseelig und offen für Neues. Er studiert Social Works im 3 Jahr und wird dementsprechend in den nächsten zwei Semestern graduieren. John studiert Fine Arts ebenfalls im 3 Jahr. Viel mehr kann ich zu ihm bisher nicht erzählen, da er die meiste Zeit in seinem Zimmer hockt und PC Games zockt ;). Achja gestern ist unser 4tes Room mate eingetroffen. Er ist wohl aus der Türkei, ich habe ihn aber noch nicht kennengelernt.
Ich bin aber gespannt wie ein Flitzebogen!
So jetzt noch ein paar Worte zum "FOLKS" wie die 3 Aussies immer zu sagen flegen.
Ich glaube unsere peer group besteht glaube ich so aus ungefähr 20 Leuten! Wir sind 7 Deutsche, 1 Italiener, 3 Aussies, 2 Schweizer, 1 Grieche und jede Menge Kanadier.
Jeden Tag lernt man neue Leute durch das Orientation program kennen, jedoch kann ich mir neben den ganzen englischen Vokabeln nicht jeden Tag 20 neue Namen merken ;D

Neben diesen kleinen Schwierigkeiten gibt es noch das Problem des mobiltelefonierens hier in Kanada. Die Anbieter hier sind regelrechte Abzocker, die Tarife können sich nicht in geringster Weise mit den deutschen messen. Hier muss man sogar dafür bezahlen wenn man vom Festnetz angerufen wird oder WerbeSms vom Provider empfängt.
Naja ich habe mich noch nicht für eine Lösung entschieden, aber in Zukunft wird ein mobile wohl unausweichlich sein!

So erstmal genug geschrieben, ah ja meinen nächsten Postings werden in englischer Sprache erscheinen ^^ ( gut für mich und vielleicht bei entsprechender Qualität auch für euch)

Ich bin raus (8:00 am)

Zurück aus Sibirien und auf dem Sprung nach Kanada

Hallo Leute,
nach einem wunderschönen gestrigen Abschiedsabend wollte ich mich nochmal von euch verabschieden und ein paar Bilder hochladen!
Ich werde mich nächste Woche an dieser Stelle wieder verewigen und euch auf dem Laufendem halten wie es mir so in Kamloops ergeht.

So long hautsa rein

Nauders08

Hallo meine Lieben, heute teste ich mal meinen neuen Blog :D
Hab das Bild eine wenig bearbeitet ^^