Carpe Diem!

It has been another exciting week in Canada. Currently I'm back home since yesterday for 2 weeks, the 25th I'll fly out of here again, looking forward to it already :-)
Not that I'm not enjoying myself here. It's great to see my friends and family again, but I can't wait to see all the rest there is to see in Canada and on top of that I'll be spending to much money here, having a holiday at home (drinking and eating all the delicious things they don't have in Canada).
How did it all end, well I didn't die from the bungee that's for sure, you could say it was close though. After some sightseeing in Ottawa, the next stop was the bungee jump location and just by looking at the damm jump platform, my stomach already squeezed together. It's a 200 feet jump (I think about 70m) and they say it's the highest in North Canada, with a rebound off 160 feet, so you can enjoy it over and over again. Anyway I managed to get up there, but then the hardest part still had to come, jumping off the fucking thing, head first. I really haven't felt this scared in my entire life. I'm a bit afraid of hights but I wanted to try it so that I maybe could get over that fear (it might work backworths as well). I needed some time before I jumped and when I eventually did it, I had to close my eyes before jumping. After that it felt great, you bounce back up, feeling weightless for a moment and you get the rush over again falling down. In my head I was calmer then it looked on the movie though. You see me jumping in the air with my legs and trying to grap something with my arms (force of human instinct to survive I suppose). The adrenaline boost I felt afterworths made me feel good for a long while :-) it was worth it (for people who are to afraid of hights to do this, try skydiving much nicer). We ended the day with a nice barbecue at the best hostel I've ever stayed in, HI Esprit (worth going to when you're in the neighbourhood).
The next day another adventure was waiting us, Whitewater rafting on the Ottawa river, guided by Espirt. It was another great experience. A pitty it was raining all day and that it was 7° outside but that couldn't kill the spirit, we were going to get wet anyway, the water was even warmer then the outside temperature, we were just asking to get wet. Besides the awsome rapids we did, we also had a gorgeous view over nature. In the middle of the river, nature all around us, we saw a beaver swimming, a blue herron flying, another big bird (which name I can't remember) flying to its nest with a fish in its claws, ... we even saw a small bambi (cute).

Our last stop with the Moose bus was in Madawaska, the eastern gate to Algonquin National park. We spend another 2 nights here, went hiking in the park, chilled out for a bit, ... and got eaten by black fly's and all other flying and biting things around. If you didn't used liters of bugspray you would wake up with heeps of red dots the next morning and even with the spray, they would always find a sport where you haden't sprayed, awful creatures.
Then on thursday we drove back to Toronto, where we got confronted with the deathly traffic of one of the busiest highways in the world, 16 lanes for traffic and still jammed. I told this before, but it stays impressive.
That was the end of the Moose trip (after some saying goodby drinks on the bus) and also from my eastern adventure. I haven't seen everyhting yet, but at least I can say that I saw more of the country then some Canadian people, living there.
The next stop after Brussels will be the Rockie Mountains!

My plans for the next year

Finally I've got everything a bit sorted out, about how my next months will look like in Canada. The last week it seemed impossible for me to make any decission, until Friday 1ste of June I finally saw the light.
My plan was to go home middle of july and stay there till end of august, because My Mexican friend was getting married in Germany, but the plans has changed a bit. When I've finished my moose bus tour I'll fly back home for two weeks, so that will be from 8th till 24th of june. The reason for that is because I frankly haven't prepared anything to stay away for a whole year and I think I'll need some winter clothes over here.
When I fly back to Canada I'll go directly to Calgary and there I start working in a Lodge, located at the gorgeous Lake Louise. I'll work in the kitchen and in the housekeeping for the whole summer season, probably till end of september I think.
Then I have time to see a bit more of the West of Canada, like Vancouver and Jasper National Park, ...
And then comes the best part of my trip: Beginning of December I will fly all the way up to Whitehorse, which is in Yukon Territory at the boarder with Alaska, where I'll do some voluntary work with Huskies. I applied with an organisation, called Muktuk, which organise dogsledging trips. I'm gonna stay there the whole winter and learn a lot about the dogs, even get to ride a sledge, awsome isn't it! I'm gonna be freezing cold, but I'll try to get a good isolation layer by then :-) which is working very well here with all the junk food in my sight.
Anyway can't wait to start the next part of my trip, although I'm having lots of fun now as well, finishing my trip with the bus.
I'm in Ottowa at the moment. We left Montreal saturday evening, after our bus broke down before we even left, so had to spend our day at the beer festival in Montreal, poor me! (they even had a couple of Belgian beers there). We spend a night in Mont Tremblant, a skivillage, and visited Omega Park, a wildlife park where we got to see Moose, deer, capricorn, wolves, beers, and all other North American wildlife.
Tomorrow will be the scariest day of my life, because the bungee jump is on the programme, I'm gonna pee my pants, but it will be worht it I gues.
So fingers crossed that the rope doesn't break and I'll let you guys enjoy my jump afterworths with some pictures when I've got the change.

Beautiful Tadoussac

Back on my own, my friend left Montreal Saturday evening. We spent our last day packing our stuff properly, cleaning the car, eating à volonté at a nice buffet and writing postcards (it’s always fun that people get postcards after you got back home ;-) ).
I’m going on now with my bus trip and on Tuesday we left Montreal again towards Quebec city (I like to see everything a couple of times) where I just stayed one night. I’m really lucky with the bus company, because the group is very fun and very mixed the age difference as well, from 21 till 65 (these are the ozzies of course, always up for an adventure). The next stop was Tadoussac, it’s 250km north from Quebec city, a small village located at a nice fjord and the St. Lawrence river. Here the river is already 30km wide and what makes it special is that the salt water from the Gulf meets the water from the river. This makes it one of the best places to see whales. So that’s what we did, whale watching on a zodiac boat, a kind of speedboat which allows you to get closer to the whales then with the very big tourists boats. We spend 3 hours on the water and it was great, I’ve never taught to see so many whales and from this close by. They can have a lot of different species of whales in the river, but we only saw fin whales. But that was his money already worth while. These are whales that can get 25 metres and we saw them coming up to breathe very close by the boat. We didn’t see one jump or their tale but their bodies are huge and just amazing to see.
In the evening we had a private party in our hostel, which we had all for ourselves. We also had a similar beer taste, off course Belgian, and spend the evening with Leffe.
Thursday then, today, we drove all the way back to Montreal, so now I’m stuck here again. I’ve got to wait till Saturday until the next bus to Mont Tremblant leaves, so will pass the time with figuring out what to do next. I have to start working, but I’m not sure yet where that will be. You’ll find out soon!