Whistler

Hi,
So I just spent a week in a town called Whistler in BC.
It is known for hosting the winter olympics in 2010 and a big ski location in winter.
I was going there for a job opportunity but that didn't go as well as expected.

So the Saturday I flew from Montreal to Vancouver, I stayed in a hostel for 1 night because I didn't find a bus going to Whistler that day. I had a great evening in Vancouver seeing the sunset at sunset beach :) The next morning I had a walk in Stanley park and saw the totem poles. And after that it was time for me to take the bus for my next destination.

Sunday evening when I arrived I just chilled a bit and had some diner in my room :)
There was just 1 shop across the street and they did't had so much, especially for a vegetarian.
I had some chips and ice tea for diner and I bought myself a chocolate bar and smoothie for breakfast the next day.
Monday I went to the village and looked around a bit, it's such a nice village, small but nice.
I also did some grocery shopping to have some food at the hostel. I didn't want to do to much, cause the next day I would be tested for an hour in a bakery for a possible job.
Tuesday I got ready to go to my interview in the early afternoon. I got there way on time and so we started with a bit of conversation and then I got to work for a bit, showing how I was with customers.
I got payed in bread and cakes, so not so bad :) But I didn't get the job I've heard after a few days.
I got out of the hostel to enjoy a beautiful sunset surrounded by mountains.
Wednesday I've got ready for a hike, so I went into the village and asked at the info centre what I could do. A lot of the walks involved going up with a gondola and we all know I'm afraid of heights..so that was a big no :) Then she said there were a few options without the gondola, so I did one who started not so far from the village. I went to walk on the Lost lake trail, a 5km that would be easy and without to much ups and downs. Honestly I was a bit anxious about seeing a bear, but I didn't saw one, but I did hear one growl from a distance. Once I walked almost around the whole lake , I came across a platform in the water. There was a warning sign saying clothing was optional on the platform, and yes it didn't take long. After sitting there 5 min a couple decided to go skinny dipping and after an hour the first nudist were there, 2 different (older) guys decided to do some naked sunbathing. That was my queue to go :) I thought about coming back the next day to do some swimming, but that was before I saw a snake swimming in the lake.
A bit later in the afternoon i decided to do the little hike behind the hostel, called the Trainwreck trail.
The path was really small on that one and there were almost no people, it being after 5pm, so I got a bit nervous about bears and such but kept on going. What I did't know was that there was a suspension bridge I needed to cross, luckily it wasn't that heigh but it did move a lot. Once across I was at the train wrecks, that was nice and weird to see. And then I saw the sign to say you were in bear territory, so going back I went so fast :) Not hiking alone again in bear country.
Thursday I went back to the lost lake but took another way going there, it would be the last nice sunny day so I wanted to enjoy it.
Friday it was raining all day so I stayed in and also booked 2 more nights in the hostel, because I needed to figure out my next step.
Saturday the weather looked a bit grey, but dry, so I went into the village for some souvenirs and some diner. Arriving back in the hostel the rain started again.
Sunday was a rainy day and I got my things into order to leave the next day. Breakfast was nice because the 2 german girls in my room made pancakes and invited me to have some with them.
Monday it was time to say goodbye to Whistler and started my trip to Duncan on Vancouver Island, where I'll stay with a workaway family till I figure out my next step  :)

It was a busy week but I enjoyed my time in Whistler and who knows I'll come back in winter ;)
Love,
Sarah

Mont Tremblant: my first national park

Hi,
I've waited a long time for this day :)
The reason why I came to Canada was for the nature and of course there National Parks.
Now I did my first one in Quebec, cause I really wanted to do one on this site, before later on my travel doing the big ones on the other side of the country.

I've found a shuttle who did Montreal - Mont Tremblant and booked myself a ticket :)
We left from downtown at 8am with a typical yellow schoolbus! Also a first for me :)
Ones out of the city you had amazing views and the closer we got, you saw the mountains and ski lifts for the winter. A lot of lakes also ones we got close.
They dropped us of at Lake Monroe and we got a map and a reminder to be back at 3.45pm to go back to the city.
First stop to the bathroom and then get some info on the trails.
I went with the 'La roche' trail, cause ones on top you would have an amazing view of the lake and the mountains. Of course that meant a hike going way up :)
I've heard that in this park they still had wolves and it was also home to the black bear.
On one side I wanted to see a bear (from a safe distant), but sadly I haven't saw one :(
Going up was hard, especially ones halfway. It went up really steep and I wasn't the only one having some trouble and in need of some breaks. At a point you don't even notice the nice nature around you, it was that bad.... But it was all worth it in the end, ones you get at the lookout point you forget the pain :)
The view is just amazing...The lake, the mountains, the nature... Perfect!
I took a break and had some lunch while enjoying the view up there.
A little squirrel tried to get in my bag for food, the cutie :)
Ones I took in this beautiful view I started to go down again.
I took my time to take some pictures and enjoy more of the nature, some small waterfalls and I saw a deer :) The only big animal I saw up there, but still beautiful to see :)
Ones back down I went to fill up my water bottle.
I walked a bit around the lake and enjoyed the view.
There was a dock with some chairs on and I took a break there to look over the lake.
Ones more people came on the dock I saw one a bit further with a small beach, so I decided to go check it out. There were no chairs here, but a canoe with paintings on. Looked like one of the First Nations, really nice. I sad a bit on the dock to enjoy the view some more. Can't get enough of that view. While I sat there I knew this is why I came to Canada, to enjoy views and nature like this.
After a nice day it was time to get back to the city :(

This was one of my favorite days so far in Canada :)
Love,
Sarah

Fun weekend in Montreal

Hi,
So last weekend was a busy weekend for me in Montreal.

On saturday one of my roommates invited me to come to Cap Saint Jacques, a park outside of the city. We brought our picnic and beachwear and went to the park. First stop was the ecological farm, where we took a walk and saw some animals. My favorite were the little piglets!! Never saw them in real and of course I needed to pet them :) Then we did a little walk in the park, before going back to the car to go see the beach. Once at the beach we first had our picnic and then had a walk to a Castle nearby. It was a nice little walk. Then we headed to the beach, where I just put my feet in the water, cause it was not that hot to take a swim. We had some relax time there. After we saw you could look at some turtles, so of course I wanted to check that out :) We had a little walk till there and first we could not find turtles, until we looked further in the water. They were all sunbathing on a log of wood. Just a great view. In the evening there was a astronomy gathering at the main entrance of the park, this was the main reason we came :) We had some great info of how to take pictures of the sky and stars. And once it was dark we could go see through the telescopes of the professionals. This is what we saw: Moon, Mars, Jupiter, M57 ( ring nebula), M13 ( hercules cluster).
We had a great day and evening!

Sunday it was the Pride Parade in Montreal, I've heard it was one of the big ones :)
Never been to one so one of my roommates wanted to join and a friend I've met in Toronto was in town and also joined us. It was so colorful and fun! A lot of music and dancing :) I've seen Justin Trudeau and Antoni from Queer eye ( see picture ). What surprised me the most were all of the religions supporting the LGBTQ community, really didn't expect that, but was nice to see.
I had a great time, and at the end me and my friend decided to walk a bit with the parade to show support. It was a great day!

So after that weekend I was so tired :)
I enjoyed myself so much and ready for some more adventures.
Love,
Sarah

Toronto

Hi,
Just got back from a few days in Toronto :)
Let me tell you all about it.

To get there I travelled with a site called amigo express, a carpool site. Never done that before, it's not really something we have back home. But everything went great, did some stops along the way.
It was a 6 hours drive till there and it went like you would expect, hahaha.
I got at my hostel, who was great btw, around 17:30h. So I checked in, got the tour and got into my room. A bit further in the street I found a vegan restaurant and had some diner.
I went to bet pretty early goes the next day I had to wake up at 6am to get my bus to the Niagara falls.

So the second day I woke up real early and walked to the bus terminal, for the first time on a greyhound bus :) They split us up in 2 groups, the ones going to the  falls and the ones going to NY.
Came out a bunch of us going to the falls needed to wait on a other bus cause the first one got full.
But at the end got there pretty much on time. Still had to walk about 30 minutes to get to the actual falls, but it was a walk next the river so not that bad.
I just have one word for the Niagara falls, AMAZING!
Mother nature did great there, I mean it's just wow.
I went on the Hornblower, the boat who gets real close and personal with the falls :)
We got some red rain ponchos and on the side of the US they got blue ones.
I knew we were going to get wet, but I didn't expect to get an actual shower :) That was so crazy, I mean my hood came of just of the power of that water coming down. I was soaked!!
Had a bit of a panic cause some water got in my camera and my memory card did a bit weird, but it got fixed by drying the next day.
In the afternoon I did the Behind the falls walk. Again you get a rain poncho, this time a yellow one.
You get down 38m with an elevator, then you are in the caves behind the falls.
In one tunnel you really got a good view from behind, you just see water coming down. And you hear the power of the falls. You also get to two platforms right next to where the water falls down. On the top platform you get wet, but on the lower one you get soaked :) Afternoon shower anyone?
It's just great to see it from that close.
I also went on top to see the river coming closer to then fall down.
I just had the best day over there, nature is amazing.

On my last full day I visited Toronto itself. Didn't got lucky with the weather in the morning, cause it was pouring down. But the hostel got some umbrella's for people to borrow. I went do Graffiti Alley first and took some nice pictures there :) Then I went to the city hall to take pictures of the big Toronto letters. After that rain stopped, but my feet were soaked :( I found some other shoes at H&M, so I continued my way to the CN tower. I didn't get up but took some pictures :) For the rest I walked some more downtown and enjoyed the city. What was kinda weird for me was to find streets with houses (like regular houses) in the city. Just thought that was a bit weird, thinking of a big city. I didn't felt great cause my feet got so wet and then it got hot, so I got back to rest some in the hostel before going for diner. I went to diner with a friend I've met in the beginning of my travels in a hostel in Montreal. We had a great evening together.

The morning of my last day I walked around a bit more in the city and got some snacks for the busied back to Montreal. It was a 7 hours long busdrive, just crazy. But it was ok :)

I had a great time in Toronto :) Everyone who knows me must know that the Niagara falls was the highlight of my trip, cause I love nature. But the city was nice to visit to. I'm happy I changed my mind to stay in Toronto for a few months, cause I wouldn't have liked living there. Thats just me, cause I'm not a big city kind of girl. But I can imagine people loving to live there :)
I hope you liked my adventures so far.

Love,
Sarah

Toronto by night 

Behind the falls

 

English pie recipe

Hi,
While starting watching The great british bake of I've been tempted to make some english pie myself, but then totally vegan :)
Here you have my recipe :) For 2 ;)

For the pie :
- Flour 200gr
- Butter (vegan) 100gr
- Ice cold water
- Pinch of salt

For the stuffing :
- Mushrooms
- Spinach

- Soy milk
- Salt
- Pepper
- Butter
- Flour

I started to make the stuffing first cause everything needs to be cold before putting the pie together to have a good bake.
First wash and cook your spinach, then do the same with your mushrooms.
I make my saus to bind everything like this: put some butter in a pan then ad a spoon of flour to it and some salt and pepper. Now put the stove on under your pot and whisk all this together, when it all start to stick together you put some soy milk to the mix but keep whisking. Put soy milk and whisk till it look like a good texture. Now put your vegetables in the saus, make sure to get most of the water out of your spinach. Mix this all together and if necessary put some more salt and pepper.
Now you can put this aside to cool down.

For the pie put the flour in a bowl and ad the butter to it. Wash your hands cause you're going in :)
Rub the butter into the flour gently if it's all mixing together you can start by adding 4 spoons of the ice-cold water in. Keep doing that till you have a good texture. Roll the dough in a ball and put it in the bowl with a plastic foil over it and put it for 30 min or longer in the fridge to cool.

Now get some flour on your counter top and roll out the dough till it's half a cm.
Make sure to butter up your cooking form you're going to put this in and put some flour in it to, so it doesn't stick after.
Now put in your stuffing.
Then roll out the rest of your dough to use as the top.
Put it over to close your pie but cut a whole in the middle of it to let the air out.
Now brush on some water over the top to make a nice crust.

Put it in the oven for 40min on 180°C. Till it's golden brown.

Watch out it will be hot when you get it out so let it cool for a few minutes before eating it :)
Enjoy your pie :)
( Of course you can fill your pie with everything you want, if your not vegan you can of course put some cheese in it, and if you eat meat go ahead and enjoy )

Love,
Sarah

Getting used to Montreal

Hi,

I know it's been a while.
I've settled in into my room and shared housing and my roommates are great :)
Been looking for a job since I've arrived here but still no luck, had some interviews but nothing more.
Is it because they know that I'm here with a working holiday so not planning to stay long? Not that I tell them that :)
So now I've decided that instead of stressing around about not finding a job I just need to enjoy my time here and work out my next steps on this journey.
Planning now to go do some national parks with my roommate probably, so that should be fun :)
Also looking to maybe go a few days to Ottawa to visit and of course i have to go visit Toronto and the Niagara falls  while I'm still on this side of Canada.
So with all this on the planning for next month I should have enough to post also :)
What I love about the place where I stay now is that even if it still is in the city it's not downtown so really chill. I even made a friend who comes almost each day :) haha it's a squirrel and he's just so cute (if you know me you know I love animals)
My room has a view on the little garden so I have a good look at it :)
I've been to the Firework festival here in Montreal last saturday because it was a Game of Thrones theme, but did not see any dragons :) but it was nice fireworks.
Also this saturday I go to the just for laughs festival, which is all about comedy. So on demand of my sister I'm going to see the Tiffany Hadish gala :) my sister is such a big fan and I thing she was so funny in Girls trip, so looking forward to that :)
For the rest I try to enjoy myself the best I can, sometimes it's weird to do things by myself, but I'm getting there :)

Love,
Sarah

My work away with the huskies

Hi,
I know I'm a bit late with my post, but my charger for my laptop died so needed to buy a new one.
Already back in Montreal looking for a job for the summer, just got in my room for the next 2 months.

I arrived at Plessisville on the 16th of june in the evening, I got a ride till the place I would stay, called Randonee Mickla. In the winter they have a dog sledding company and I was there now to help take care of the 100 huskies :) By arrival I already got to see them all and meet some from up close.
There were 4 other people staying there to help out, a couple from Mexico who were very nice and 2 french guys who were not social at all. But I was tired so got to bed to be fresh in the morning.
The job was to go feed the chickens and bunnies and check for eggs with the chickens.
For the dogs we had to give them water twice a day, once in the morning and once around 5PM.
The guy who was in charge came every morning with the meat for the dogs, which were frozen chickens cut in half. So we put the meat in the back of the quad and went to feed the dogs.
All the dogs were very nice, but one dog always barked at me even if I came close to let him smell me he didn't liked me... I can't please everyone :)
The big group of dogs stayed at 2min walk from our place, each dog was chained to a pole and had their own little house. They didn't got a lot of place to move but I guess it was enough... We could walk the dogs but you had to be sure you could handle them and we had to ask a guy which we could walk, but the guy wasn't there a lot.
There were also a few dogs staying closer to us, that were the younger once (who still have to learn how it all works) and the once people left there behind.
While I was there a guy came to leave behind his 4 year old siberian husky and it was so sad. But then a few days later he comes back to see him and asks the guy in charge if gets walks, cause he's used to walk 5km a day. The guy says no because even the other dogs don't get that kind of walk.
And a few days later he came back to walk his dog and then leaves again. How confusing for this dog!! Didn't liked that :(
My best friend on this stay was Charlie, the little puppy. He was so cute and we got really attached to each other. The day i left he was following me so I had to go and put him inside so he wouldn't get on the busy road. His mom Louve was also so loving, it was sad to leave them :(
There was also one dog who wasn't a husky and the only one who could be inside and also slept inside, Boulette is 13 years old and was so nice :) our little guard dog.
I had a great time here with all those dogs!!

Love,
Sarah