Family visit, ... and studying

Time flies.

So many things have happened and I have had no time to write anything to my blog. But that's how it is if real life needs to be lived.

Anyways, I wanted to do a small update before new adventures start (Jamaica from Friday).

Mostly I've been studying - I even didn't go to the kegger where eeeevrybody went yesterday, because I wanted to write my mid-term essay that is due 1st of March. But now I'm done with it and I can be even more relaxed in Jamaica. Love it! :) I told that as I'm cutting down partying here now I'll probably end up drinking rum in Jamaica every single day for a week! :D Let's see.

Ok, going back in time, last week I had my family visiting. They stayed 3 nights in Toronto, so we had 2 full days for exploring the city and visiting Niagara Falls. They arrived on Tuesday evening and were all super exhausted from their long trip. We went out for a dinner, but during the dinner they nearly fell asleep so I figured it'd be a good idea to get them back to the hotel asap so they would be in better shape the day after.

On Wednesday we had a day in Toronto planned. Went to the aquarium first (super nice) and CN Tower later. I advised we could go in the afternoon around the time it's still light, but starts dusking, so you could also see the city in it's night lights. It was really pretty! :)
CN Tower is 553.3 m high, the building was completed in 1976 and it was the highest tower of the world for 34 years, til 2010 when 600 m high Canton Tower in China took over for 2 years. Today's highest tower is Tokyo Skytree finished in 2012 and it is 634 m high (where I've been in 2013 :) )

In the evening we wanted to go out for dinner, but everybody were still tired (jet lagged) so we just has some take-away from Eaton and got back to the hotel.
As I was the only one still awake, I booked a car for the next days' trip and went back to my hostel (oh yes, I stayed in a hostel 500 m away, 70€ cheaper and still really good location + everything :) )

World's highest towers Wikipedia

Aquarium.

My phone is doing pretty well. :D

Aquarium.

Toronto from CN Tower.

Maarja, too scared to look down :D

Me and Maarja, also known as my older sister :D

On Thursday we had a trip to Niagara planned. The day started really early - we went to Eaton Center and took a car. Of course I couldn't find the car rent (it was a big shopping mall and I had no clue, where the cars should be located at...) After asking from the security guard, they pointed us to the roof, where the cars were! :) Oh yes, before getting there, I though I'll check from internet again, but in order to get free WiFi, it was mandatory to do a check-in in Facebook for Eaton Center.. Sweet. In a hurry, under pressure - check in and FBing was the last thing I wanted to do 8 o'clock in the morning..

Anyways, we got the car and the drive to Niagara could start! :) As we figured, I was the only one having the driving licence with me (even though everybody has licence) I was driving the whole way. The weather in the morning was beautiful, cold, but sunny and we didn't experience any big traffic. it just took some time to get used to the highways but otherwise it was ok. Maarja was doing a great job reading the map for me and we even didn't get lost while driving there - success.
The Falls were nice - a bit more frozen than the previous time, but still flawing.

On the way back we decided to drive through another town - Niagara-on-the-Lake. It was a good decision, cause the road was really pretty. But then, heading back to the city, the weather turned - it started to snow. There was a huge snowstorm warning for New York the previous day, so now it started to get to us. The visibility was close to zero and we saw 3 accidents on our way back. On the highway there were 2 accidents, so we were just standing there - 4 rows, none of them was moving or moving like 10 km/h. Road conditions were really bad and if we finally returned the car we were happy we made it back safe. the city also looked crazy - it had been snowing so much with so little time and it was not cleaned yet, so all this snow-slush, pedestrians in addition to the fact that you're in a foreign city (big city compared to Estonian-Danish ones).

Horseshoe railing - that was pretty awesome/artistic!! :)

Who cares about the Falls... :D Maarja and Kadi.

Our faithful car that we couldn't find in the morning.

On the way back to Toronto.

In the evening we had a meeting with one of our relatives who lives in Toronto, so my mom had agreed to meet with her at 17:00 at CN Tower. So we met up with her and went for dinner. After diner it was time for me to say goodbye to my family come back to Waterloo. The others left the day after early in the morning, so there was no point for me to stay longer. By now they should enjoy their cruise in Caribbean where it's warm and sunny. :)

On Friday when I woke up, then everybody else from the dorm went to Toronto. I knew it was happening, but as I already spent my days (and money) there and I had loads of homework to do, I decided to stay in Waterloo. It was a nice weekend, full of reading and coding and almost going crazy. Oh yes, on Friday I went to Molley's for a beer with Stefan and some other international guys who were left in Waterloo.

On Sunday evening we got out first snowstorm warning - freezing cold, heavy wind, lots of snow, schools might be closed. So on Monday all schools except uWaterloo were closed (even though one of the Uni's, Laurier, is almost on the same street, 700 m away). Only some of the curses were cancelled. On the other hand I didn't mind not having a snow-day. For some reason it just reminded me childhood - sloshing through snow to school. Good times. :)

On Tuesday we had Babble Cafe first and then I went to choir rehearsal. On Thursday we went to the hobby theater (our Uni has a theater in it!!!)  were one of our exchange students is playing. I thought it was really funny and even though I was a bit skeptic at the beginning, in the end I enjoyed it a lot. On Friday morning we went to Kitchener's mall for shopping and then in the evening we celebrated one of our Dutch girl's birthday and went out for dinner.

The play

What else? Oh yes, I'm not cooking anymore! Firstly it's almost impossible to find normal ingredients from the shop (and they're more expensive than half-ready things).Secondly, our kitchen is SO dirty, I want to throw up every time I enter there, I just can't do it. If I'd like to cook, it'd mean that I'd have to clean the kitchen first, so I could be sure nothing that doesn't belong to my food wouldn't be there.
Hence, me and Kasia started a new micro-wave, fast food diet. Let's see how it goes.
Another thing - I'm gaining weight! I'm not exercising that much as I did in Copenhagen, I live literally across the street from Uni and even if I wouldn't I'd take the bus to Uni as they all do it in here. Let's be honest, I miss biking.
Another reason for putting on weight - the donuts are soooo cheap here (and soooo good)!!! A donut + coffee at Engineering cafeteria is only 1.6$ which is like 8 DKK, 16 EEK, 1.13 EUR.
And then of course the food that I was talking about previously. I'm afraid I will be rolling back to Europe in May...
The bread in here - tastes like saw dust. Sorry, but I miss my black bread.

One day (if me and Kaisa had decided not to cook in the kitchen anymore) we went out for dinner. We decided to go to the closest place in the food court in Plaza. So we took the first restaurant from the left, which was one Thai, Vietnamese restaurant. Oh my God, such a bad choice! It's was so bad that it became funny. It was not cheap, no, but it really bad. Some of the items in our food were really disgusting and every time before eating it we just showed it to each other and played the game "would you eat it?". If the other said "no" too, then we didn't put it into our mouth. :D One thing in my soup looked like a sponge for dish washing.. :D Mmm, yammi. :D After the dinner we decided to go to the shop and take a Coca-Cola, just to make sure we'll survive. :D We did, but it was an experience. :D
Oh yes, and by now we have discovered several frozen meal options, I can't believe I'm saying it, but some of them are even tasty!! :)

Ok, seems that I'm almost getting to the end here. Next week is promising - tomorrow there will be puppies/dogs in Engineering lounge. They'll be brought there to release exam stress! Such a cool idea! I'm def gonna go, cause I LOVE dogs!!! The other days will be full of studying, finishing up things before Jamaica and then on Friday we'll already take off!

Stay tuned! :)

-Jaana :)

It's kind of snowy in here... Did you want to park your bike??