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How are you all doing?! Sorry for not having updated you in almost a month…I have been extremely busy with school (I guess I have to list this as an excuse;)..but it actually is true, training and just getting to know Toronto!
I just realized I haven't written anything since the middle of September..so here come some news!!
Well..what have I been up to?!
September was spent getting to know the other exchange students in a variety of activities from dinners, to parties and shopping trips! I must say I am not yet really fascinated by the nightlife here in Toronto (but I am not a club-person anyway)…but we live right next door to the biggest pub in the city which has live-music like 3 times a week!! Geez..it sounds like I spend like days in there…whereas I have only been there once! One fun party was my house-mates 21st birthday party, which we celebrated on the roof of a high-rise apartment building which had an indoor pool! Marlies ( a dutch girl from Amsterdam) and me couldn't stop ourselves from jumping in it at 12:30 @ night!!
Apart from partying and getting to know people from Risexc, I of course spend my 12 hours a week @ school! I am really enjoying my subjects I am taking except for the fact that I have one teacher who should have retired 10 years ago! It is funny how people react when I tell them I am an exchange student…some don't believe me and others think I am originally from either Canada or the US! School has been keeping me pretty busy the past 2 weeks, as I have 3 big group projects, one huge individual project and 3 midterms coming up! And those who know me, know that even though I only have to pass my subjects here in one way or the other…I am studying and working quite a bit!
In my spare time…I spend a lot of time @ the University of Toronto sports centre training with the other Tri-club guys and girls. It is a lot of fun and we are actually getting to know one another now that I have installed a regular going out for dinner night (it is almost as cheap to eat out as to cook)! We have 3 official swims a week (each of them is at least 1.5 hours long), 4 spins we can attend and 2 runs as well as one brick/transition training! I train 8-9 times a week… I have asked myself where I spend more time @ school or in the pool/spinning room/running. I think you can all figure it out for yourselves…;)
On Friday evening I left Toronto with a group of 5 other triathletes with 3 mountain-bikes on a bus to Kingston. Kingston is three hours away from Toronto and we were going there to compete in the Ontario-university triathlon competition! Queen's University was hosting a cross-duathlon there! It was an awesome opportunity to participate in my first ever duathlon, escape from the city for a day, get to know the other people in my club a little better and just generally enjoy myself!! Gerhard was so nice to let us sleep at his house in Kingston! He has 9 siblings and is the oldest meaning their biggest idol!! They are an incredible family and Jordan, Christie, Nina and I felt really welcomed! We spent the night chatting away and after waking up after a few hours of sleep and a good breakfast we headed over to the race site! We arrived very early and had time to walk the bike-parcours!! Having never mountain-biked before in my life I was getting a bit worried whether I would be able to do this!!
After Gerhard won the short race we started for our race (4km run- 10km bike- 4 km run)…which was quite a cross-run followed by a lot of fun biking!! Why didn't anyone ever tell me mountain-biking is a lot of fun?! The second run hurt quite a bit..but I made it to the finish line without stopping after 1:20:21 and was quite proud of myself! I was the second girl of the club to finish after having passed Nina on the bike! I was just a bit sore today when I went for my swim-training! The next race is sometime in November in Ottawa..and I hope I will be able to go!!:)
On the 7th of October we were invited by Dan and Trixie Euser to spend a real Canadian Thanksgiving with them and their whole family!! The entire family is of Dutch-descent so I got a chance to speak some "Gronings" with the grandmother and grandfather! It was awesome and thanks again for taking us!! They picked up us at the early hour of 7:15 so we would be on time to make it to church!! After having enjoyed a Canadian Christian Reformed Service with a christening and a lot of singing we headed to the "Thanksgiving dinner" house! Here we had our first snack…the cake I had baked the day before and real "Kruidkoek"!! It felt so good to eat some real Dutch food!! After this we jumped on the huge trampoline they had in their backyard and burned off some calories before going on a hike! After we got back we almost instantly all sat down for Thanksgiving dinner! It was amazingly good with all the food that belongs to it: Turkey, mashed potatoes, salads, stuffing, gravy etc. After dinner we all sat on the deck outside and had some more food…fresh apple pie! By now I was sooo stuffed that we went on the trampoline to lay down…for like 5 minutes before our energy returned and we turned into kids again!! J As we were already quite close to the Niagara Falls Dan, Trixie and Steve decided to take us there to see them at night! It was nice to see them again!! The falls itself are amazing but both the Canadians and the Americans have made a commercial site out of this natural wonder! Driving through Niagara is like driving through a mini Las Vegas with more ugly neon-lights, and when we got to the falls I was shocked to see that they are illuminated in different colors at night ( for pictures check my blog)!! It was still stunning to see and hear the amounts of water gushing down there!
Dan and Trixie: Thanks again for this incredible day!! We enjoyed it a lot!!
Another thing I did in the last 2 weeks was go to a bike-exhibition in which all of last year's tri, race and mountain-bikes were sold off at reduced prices! I was very tempted to buy something..but ended up not doing so as I do want a little more advice than just a quick look!!! They even had Cervelo's P2 Carbon triathlon bike (the frame in Cycle-trend) finished off with all Durace components for 3900$...I will probably be buying myself a nice race-bike and bringing it home with me!! Does anyone have any suggestions/tips what I especially have to pay attention to?!?!?!?!?
Well I think I have now written enough to bore all of you so I will stop…and hopefully update you more often from now on!
I hope you are all doing great and would love to hear what you are all up to!!
Looking forward to seeing you all sometime in the nearer future!
Groetjes, Liebe Grüße, Cheers, Adios,
Sarah
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