28.02.2008
Destination Fernie
Four amazing days of skiing in the Rockies
On the 19th group of 36 Miles Mac students accompanied by four teachers head on a 16 hours drive to Fernie. We left around four and our arrival was expected at 8 to Fernie
Suprisingly nobody was late and thus no one paid for making the bus late. Several interesting happened on our way. First of all, one of the students decided to go back because she was feeling really sick. Secondly, it was freaking cold on the bus when were crossing Saskatchewan. It later turned out that the bus was made in Mexiko, so the engineers probably didn't thought that the outside temperature might be -40. Therefore, almost everybody was wearing hats and jackets. I guess it make some people feel closer to one another :). Finally, I decided to sleep in the aisle which turned out to be a good decision. When I covered the little blue emergency light shining right into my face with a glove, everything was OK. It was also a good idea to sit in the front – we can have a conversation with our cool track coach, no one stepped on my face while going to washroom which was situated in the back of the bus and we didn't have to wait in order to get off the bus.
At around seven in the moorning we saw the mountains. It was such a nice change. I've never seen mountains for so long. They look kind of the Alps in Austria – flat valleys with couple of small towns and villages with mountains rowering straight from it. Mountaint tops are not so high in this area – about 2200m the highest ones. However, there are lots of trees – not only pines, but lots of cedars and spruces. Furthermore, the trees are tall with short branches which make them look like green towers.
Since Fernie is well known for its powder days we hoped we would get a snow strom. Unfortunately, no one came, so we ended up with the second best weather – sunny with blue sky and temperatures around zero. The snow layer is really thick there – about 3.5 m.
Fernie has lots of ski runs of all difficulties – there are green, blue, black diamond and double black diamond runs. Green signifies an easy run whereas double black diamond is the hardest. There are five bowls (kotel, kotlina, "udoli") and one can ski anywhere one wants. Thus we did lots of skiing in between the trees. It was lots of fun. We also came across powder, but we had to hike for it, though. Oh wait – I skied in powder once more. However, I didn't expect it, so the tips of my skiis got stuck and I ended up hugging a small tree.
I rented ski for the trip. They were only 160 com long, but it was great skiing – sou easy to turn in the moggles and I really enjoyed carving on groomed runs.
I liked the way the skiing was organized. We could ski wherever we wanted as long as we stayed in groups. We started to ski when the lifts opened and finished when they closed (9 till 4)
We've got several interesting experiences during skiing. First of all, a friend of ours showed us how the ski a double black diamond – he fell at the top and slid down nearly 100m in a snowball. We can only see snow everywhere and his ski going along. Suprisingly, he somehow managed not to lose the other one. Secondly, we were traversing to get to a different free run we we came across a rope. It was definitely not there because of avalanche warning and the run was open at the top, so we decided to continue. Here I have to say, that we were there with one of our teachers. However, when we crossed the rope we heard a voice: "Where are you guys going. There will be held a free skiing competition, so you have about 30 minutes to ski down. However, there might be people jumping and doing stuff like that. Just telling you this for your own safety – we don't want any injuries." Alright, we decided to go back and ski a different run. Those profis are crazy – we saw a guy jumping and recovering immediately. It looked as though there were no trees and rocks in his way. Thirdly, there is a tree from which underwear hangs. It turned out that there are signitures of people on it. Thus we also bought panties, signed them and left them there. Finally, we had two injuries. A chair hit one of the snowboarders to his hit. He was OK, but an interesting big red spot appeared on his hat. By coincidence, he wasn't wearing his helmet on that day. In addition, a girl broke his wrist. He was boarding just on a green run and her fall didn't look bad, though. Maybe that's why she got injured.
After skiing we spent lots of time in a hot tub. However, it was impossible to jump to the snow after, since it was pretty hard there. We slept in rooms of four. There were two double beds, so guess how we ended up sleeping. My Canadian friens ordered an extra bed and one of them decided to sleep on the floor. The idea was to alternate. However, he changed his mind soon and chose to sleep in a bed. Crazy. I didn't complained, though, beacause I had a whole bed just for myself. The Canadians also went to change their clothes to the washroom, so no one could accidently see their private parts. That's such a difference in comparison to my country. The night policy was to be in bed by eleven. Then the teachers taped the door and they claimed they would send home anybody whose tape would be broken in the moorning. Here in Canada I bet they would do it.
By the way, did you know on which character is James Bond based on? One of the teachers said that the Ian Flemming met a guy from Winnipeg who was a spy during the First World War and based James Bond on him. This means, James Bond should be from Winnipeg.
We had been to the "Downtown" once – it's in fact only one street with shops. Basically, all the ski equipment is sold there for at least twice the price as usual, but it's not suprising. There is also a store with chocalate – they make it on the spot and you can buy here all the shapes
19.02.2008
Winnipeg Record Ice Skating Chain
There was an attempt to make a world record in the longest skating chain of people today.
The Forks – a place where can you go skating on the river. They already beaten Ottawa in the longest skating trail, so now they decided to make another world record. My friends and I went there to be a part of it.
The goal was to have as many simultanously skating people at the same time as possible. We were supposed to make a long chain of people and skate for three minutes. You have to hold the person in front of you by two hands on his or her shoulders for the whole time. The action started at 2.30 on the river. The previous record was abour 220 people skating, so the chance to be better were high. Today was a holiday (Louis Ried day or something like that) and the weather was nice, so lots of people came. In fact it wasn't just lots of them, it was lots lots lots. Even to get to the end of the chain wasn't an easy task.
Slightly after 2.30 we started to move. I guess this event would be perfect for sexual deviants of any kind. Since you couldn't really see in front of you, it was hard to determine when you should stop. We ended up crashing at each other several times. It was fun, though.
Although the chain was supposed to move smoothly, quick pace and not moving at all alternated within short distances. I call this a syndrom of "Muenchen Highway". They have a broad highway with frequent traffic jams there. However, something strange is often happening there – the vast number of cars is moving slowly 70 km/h, but then out of sudden they stopped. After a while you can go 70 again, but you have to stop again soon. Those periods alternate many times. Exactly the same was happening at the Forks today. However, there was a slightly difference in the way you stop.
And what was the final result? Fortunately, we didn't make a record in the highest number of people with skates lying on the frozen river nor in the largest number of people swimming under the surface of the ice. In fact, we made it! :) However, I still don't know how many people were there. I'm kind of curios about that, because my guess would be around 600. We'll know that soon.
Before the world record event, I went for an hour of skating – it's so cool to skate on the river. I finally reached one end of the trail today and it took me about 40 minutes to get there. Wind was blowing into my face all the time, so i didn't move quickly. However, the way back was a lot better. With the support of the wind, it was easy to go fast. You actually move forward even if you only stretch your hands and relax. The wind will do all the work for you.
Tomorow after school we're leaving for Fernie, British Columbia. It's a school ski trip. The temperatures there are expected to be around -2 and they should be getting new snow almost every day, so I hope there will be tons of powder :) We're travelling by bus, so the journey will take about 18 hours. Why is Canada so freaking big?
P.S. If you're a girl with black hair, your hair are likely to be fairly strong.
17.02.2008
Festival du Voyageur
Investigation of the culture of the people who are supposed to eat frogs (according to Germans and Czechs) and not to take showers (according to Brazilians)
This week there is a festival of French culture being held in the French part of Winnipeg – at St. Boniface. My friends and I went to check it out today.
We arrived there around four o'clock, paid 12 bucks and went in. The first think you notice is that all the signs are in French. Fortunately for us, there were also English translations and one can still hear people speaking in language one can understand.
What did we see there? To begin with there are lots of ice sculptures. It's a pity that not all of them are finished yet, but on the other hand we could see people working on them. Then we fixed our cultural deficit by visiting museum and workshops about aboriginals (native Canadian inhabitants) and voyageurs who are early pioneers who explored the Canadian territorium. They were hunters or explorers travelling mostly in kanoes. After that my friend and I took the advantage of being adults and went to a snow bar. We saw people drinking from glasses made of ice, so we decided to try this out as well. We ordered some red stuff and went to the outside bar made out of snow and ice. They also have an ice fireplace there. The drink tasted like a cold "svarak" (hot wine with some other stuff in it), but it's a pretty interesting to drink it out of icy glass. The advantage of it is that it's also impossible to break it (yeah, this is the real "nerozbitna sklenicka" we thought at first. However, our friend from Slovakia soon proved this thesis to be wrong). Finally, there was a huge tent where concerts take place. Lots of different kinds of music should be played there, but we didn't stay long.
In order for you to have a complete picture of the festival, couple of other things have to be mentioned. First of all, there is a wooden fortress in which the workshops and the museum are situated. It looks exactly as the one from the movies based on the novels by Karl May. You almost expect to see Lex Barker behind the next corner. Secondly, you can find there an ice maze and a "hill", both primarily designated for children. Thirdly, there are lots of fires where you can warm up a bit. However, we didn't need it at all, because today was a really unusual warm weather – -1 degree and freezing rain in the moorning. Finally, there is a huge tent with souvenirs and of course a bunch of kiosks serving fast food.
It's also funny that no matter where you go you always meet there someone who you know. (Vow, it's almost a rhyme) We've met there some of our classmates and also other international students.
10.02.2008
Exams
The first semester finished couple of days ago. Let's have a closer look at how the final exams looked and what classes I'm taking this semester.
In Canada students write a final exam at the end of the semester for every subject they're taking. One of the exceptions is Physical Education, though. The final exams makes 30% of the final mark whereas the course counts for 70%.
My first exam was English provincial exam. Every grade 12 student who is taking English has to write it. The preparation for the exam almost look like a secret CIA operation – the booklets arrive in the moorning of the exam day and the teacher cannot open them till shortly before the actual start of the exam. All the students are writting at exactly the same days so they can't get any hints from other students. Yes, it's days – it's not a mistake. The English exam takes four days to write. During the first day there is a response to written text such as peoms and stories, but pictures were included as well. Furthermore, there is also a group discussion. At the end of the first day a first exam booklet should be finished and it's handed in. During the days 2, 3 and 4 students work on a second booklet. The task is to develop an original written text on a given topic. In fact there is a main theme for the whole exam – it was fairness this year and borders last year. So in the last three days we had to write something which has connection to fairness. We could choose whatever form we wanted – it could be an essay, short story, poem, etc. I decided to write a speech about charity organization, paying special attention to the situation in Africa.
The next exam was math. It was provincial exam as well, so everyone in Manitoba was writting it at the same time too. My goal was to beat my track coach who is also a math teacher. She got 99% in the course and 99% in the exam, so her final mark was 99%. My mark before the exam was somewhere higher than 97%, so I needed to do well in order to beat her.
The exam consists of two separate parts – there is one hour long answer calculator section and two hours non-calculator section. There is multiple choice, short answer and long answer in the second part. Let me explain what does it mean. I guess multiple choice is clear, short answer means they want just the solution – either number, formula or whatever. In the long answer they also care about how did you get the answer and you can get/lose half marks there.
On Friday we wrote our Chemistry exam – this one wasn't provincial; it was made by our teacher. He put some interesting questions there:
"Will there be a sound, if a tree falls in a forrest?"
A) yes B) No C) Potentially
What would you answer? There were also questions like "How would you spell my name?" (He comes from Russia, so majority of the Canadians answered this one wrong) and "Will you say hi to me if you meet me on the street?" I'm still not sure whether he gave marks for those or not.
I wrote my last exam on Monday – Physics. Well, it was the hardest one of all and I didn't even have time to finish all the questions. Moreover, one crazy thing happened during the exam. Imagine you're solving a hard physical problem and then out of sudden there is a little explosion right behind you. It was a bird who hit the window. My teacher looked out of the window and said: "This happens sometimes in this room."
What are my final marks? To begin with, I got 62% in the english provincial exam and my final mark is 80%. It was interesting that I did a lot better in the writting part of the exam than in the response to the text. By coincidence my teacher was marking my essay and he told me I got most of my points there. Thanks everybody who gave me interesting ideas what to write about and discussed it with me. In case of the math exam i still don't understand how, but I got 100%. My final mark is thus 99% and I ended up with the same score as my coach. However, there were students whose final marks were even better – my friend from Physics got 100% both in the course and in the exam! Continuing on, I got 95% in the Chemistry exam and my final mark was 96%. Finally, I somehow got 95% in the Physics (perhaps there was something inspiring in the bird crashing on the window), but I can't tell you my final mark, because I still don't know it. The same stand for the Physical Education, but I expect something around 80%. It looks as though it's not common to automatically get full mark for this course in Canada.
Let's go back to this semester. I have full shedule as well and my classes are: Math IB, Physics IB, Psychology, World Issues and English Transactional.
Math is lots of fun, because of our teacher who makes lots of jokes. However, she also explains everything well and she is really helpfull. In addition, a great thing about this class is that there are only 15 of us and I already know lots of people there, because I have the second slot together with them as well.
In my second slot, I'm continuing on with Physics. Last week we were doing our own lab and it was pretty interesting, because we had two beaker explosions. My lab was to test the strenght of a hair and if you're interested I could write more about that. When we were performing this lab we kind of felt like in a zoo. There were grade 9 students from a Junior High coming to see how High school looks. They must have thought what crazy animals are they living here at Miles Mac.
As my third class, I took Psychology. I took it just for fun and because I though that it would be a lot more interesting than in the Czech Republic. It really is – at the beginning of every class we're reading either Psychology magazines, articles or our own books. At the end of the week, two students are expected to tell the class about an interesting article they read. We've also done one experiment so far. Yes, we're taking some notes too, but it's not only about that as it was back home.
My fourth slot is Worls Issues. I guess it needs a further explanation. In this course our focus will be population, media, situation in the Middle East to name just a few. We're discussing what was in the news or what happened in the world at the beginning of every class. Right now we're doing gender issues. Everybody was asked to answer questions like "If you had a second chance, would you rather be a woman or a man and why?" "What's the worst thing about men/women?" You should have heard the discussion! Furthermore, our teacher is funny and he seemed he knows a lot.
My last subject this semester is English Transactional. I'm taking it with the same English teacher as I took English Comprehensive the last semester. Transactional means we will focus on letters, writting instructions, criticisms and so on. The teacher is cool and it looks like we will be doing lots of interesting stuff.
That was an overview what happened the last semester and what's gonna happen this one. The first semester is over and I'm curiuos what will come next.
6.02.2008
Last week
There was a holiday last week starting for me on Monday after I finished my last exam on that day – Physics. I had lots of plans to do, but it all went kind of differently.
In fact my friends and I spent most of the time at the airport saying goodbye to our friends who were leaving after the first semester. We were sort of camping there; the only thing we were missing there was a tent. There is a cool room designed as an inside of a plane from where you can observe the planes landing and taking off. We found there a free wheel chair here. It's pretty interesting to ride and you can't even imagine how soon your hands get tired.
There was a snowstorm in Toronto, so lots of flights were delayed or canceled. One of our friend's flight was moved to the next day, but he still had to stay overnight in Toronto. Exactly the same also happened to our german friend with the only difference that her first flight was postponed. It sucks that if there is a problem due to bad weather conditions, the airlines will say it's out of their control, so they won't pay you anything nor they will cover your expanses for a hotel.
After we left the airport we always did something together – went to a mall (sounds crazy, I know, but what can you do if it's -30 outside), skating or to a friend's house. However, we didn't go to sleep before 1 o'clock :)
I've learned some interesting stuff this week. Firstly, I always thought that the Czech word "cus" comes from the German "tschuess", but my friend from Germany told me that the Czechs weren't the only ones who screwed a foreign word – the Germans in fact screwed the Italian word "ciao" to form "tschuess" and after that Czechs screwed "tschuess" to "cus". Secondly, I've seen some really funny videos. Here is one of them: Silence! I kill you! The guy is just perfect – he doesnt move his lips at all. Thirdly, I experienced to coldest weather in my life – the windchill was -47. I guess it's a record for this winter... so far :). Finally, it's amazing how fast some of the new students learn. I was explaining something to my new home stay brother from Brazil when I was interrupted by a different new Brazilian student. Although it was his 5th day here, he already had incredible knowledge about how the buses work, where to go shopping and so on.
We've also decide to go to Brazil with my friends one day. The plan is to make some money and go. Let's see how soon will this happen, but we're going for sure!
In the next article, I'm gonna write about how the final exams looked.
3.02.2008
How have I changed so far?
My stay in Canada has had for sure a certain impact on me. In this piece of writting I'm gonna look at it more in detail.
To begin with, it has to be said that I can only write about such changes I'm aware of. This means there could (and most probably are) more of them, but it's up to you to recognize them. Moreover, some of the changes probably reveal only after my return to the Czech republic.
The first change is that I've started replying to questions like "How is it going?", "Wazzup?" and so on. It still suprises me that I've even started asking such questions myself. Those questions are considered as a normal start of a conversation or a part of saying hi. Although most of the people will reply that they're doing good, I don't think it's an unwritten rule to keep saying you're fine no matter what. Sometimes you can hear replies like "It's not that good" or "I'm tired". I also noticed that I've started to talk more than I used to.
The second change is the use of antipresspirant and deodorants and stuff like that. All the Canadians use them, but I've never met anybody who overused it and smelled badly because he or she put on too much. This is different from the Czech republic where you can sometimes meet women to whom it's dangerous to come close. Almost immediately after my arrival my home stay mum gave me an antipresspirant and I've been asked to put it on several times.
Continuing on, I was taught how to clean a bathroom and how make poridge which is stuff consisting mainly of oats and muesli. It's put into boiling water and cooked for several minutes until it becomes kind of dense. Although my home stay brother hates it, I love it. We usually eat it for breakfast with milk and sugar or raisons. The greatest advantage of it is that it keeps you full for a long time. Moreover, during my chemistry classes I've realized that even the teachers can make mistakes and they you should always check it yourself. In addition, one learns the importance of a face mask and that your hands can be cold even if they are in pockets of your winter jacket.
As I said before there for sure are more changes than those, but I'm currently not aware of them. I guess they'll be a suprise for both you and me after I come back.
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