barbecue at Paul's

As promised some recent news from Kingston and my life...
Just last weekend we (Christian, Lenko, Mathis and me) were invited to a barbecue at Paul's house. You might know Christian and Lenko from my previous posts, they are the guys from my lab, but I don't think I ever mentioned Mathis or Paul before. Well, Mathis is a German writing his Masters Thesis here in Kingston. By now I believe he is already on his way back to Karlsruhe to defend his thesis. Paul on the other hand is the facility manager of our building at Queen's. He is a nice guy, he likes to talk and he likes coffee as well. So we started having a coffee with him every once in a while in our lab. Last week he called us and invited us to a barbecue at his place.

Since he lives a bit outside of Kingston and none of us has a car, he picked us up at the university. After arriving at his place we took a look around at his house and at his huge yard. He has four dogs so we started playing with them, throwing frisbees and we also started drinking beer pretty soon. Especially Mathis needed the beer quite bad, since he had a bad hangover and there is no better way to get rid of a hangover than by just keep on drinking...
Since Paul has a hot tub in the backyard we soon decided to jump in there. It was set on 100 degrees Fahrenheit and had some jets and all this fancy stuff. It was really nice to sit in there, getting a water stream massage, drinking beer and talking. Well, after some time our skin was all wrinkled and so we decided to get out of there and go to the party room in the basement of the house. We had some more beers and then started preparing some corn. The corn was really good and after that we started the barbecue, prepared the table and each had an awesome steak. Of course there was much more beer, I don't really know how much we drank this day, but it was quite a bit. Anyhow, after dinner we went back to the hot tub and relaxed some more.
Soon though the day was over and it was time to go. Ryan, another grad student who joined the "party" later, was still sober and so he drove each of us home and I for my part had a liter of water and went to bed.
Altogether it was an awesome day, I didn't get any work done, but sometimes you just have to take a break. Hopefully we can repeat that some day.

Here you can find some more photos.

to indianapolis and back

Just a few days before my birthday I went to the US again to visit Barbara in Indianapolis. She's doing an internship at a company called ProTrans in Indy during summer break and so that was the place to go. After some fun and a lot of waiting at Pearson Airport, Toronto and a rescheduled flight from Chicago I finally arrived in Indy.
Since Barbara had to work until 5 pm during the week I had lot's of time to clean the apartment, to do the dishes, to the laundry, etc, and of course to do some research for my thesis. During the first weekend we wanted to go to Southern Indiana to visit some nice cities and some caves but due to the weather we kind of canceled that an went to the nice town Columbus, IN. Even though you might not know this city it is kind of famous for it's architecture. A lot of 'well known' architects build some houses here so we walked around in the city and took some pictures.

The next weekend we went to Ohio to CedarPoint, the rollercoaster capitol. In this amusement park are 17 roller coasters and I don't really remember how many we rode, but there were a lot and the fingers of my two hands were not enough.
We started the day with a ride in millennium force. It was freaking high but since the engine was pulling you up really fast it was not possible to enjoy the sight. After that we rode some other rides including the Gemini, Mantis, Mean Streak, Cedar Creek Mine Ride, Iron Dragon, Corkscrew, Magnum XL-200, Raptor and so on. But there were some other rides that are not roller coasters. There was for example a huge swing, the SkyHawk, and this thing just scared the shit out of me. It looks like a swing and that's basically all it is, but it takes you up higher and higher. We also did the free fall thing and almost at the end we even felt ready for the Top Thrill Dragster. You get into a 'Dragster' and then you start and the thing accelerates up to 120 mph in 3 seconds. After that you go 420 feet up and then you basically just ride straight down again. This is something I have never seen before in an amusement park and it's probably one of the shortest rides you can Before you know it the ride was over but it was freaking awesome!
Since the park is about 5 hours away from Indianapolis we (about 12 people) stayed at a motel over night and the next day we went back to Indy.
That was the second weekend. On Monday we went back to work again but it is kind of a short week. Since July 4th is THE American holiday and Barbara was off work on July 3rd as well we had some time to go to Southern Indiana. Luckily the weather was really nice and so we went first to a little town called Nashville, IN. But we drove on, visited the towns Salem and Corydon, the first state capitol of Indiana took a look at the Ohio river and went to a cavern. At night we arrived in Louisville, Kentucky and met with Aaron and Angie. We had some barbecue and watched some fireworks. After the fireworks we drove home and arrived there around two o'clock. So we slept in on independence day and since we were invited for a barbecue at some friends who work with Barbara at ProTrans we went there. The 'party' was really nice, there was lots of food and we had some fun talking to the people and playing cornsacks or however they called that game. Unfortunately we had to leave the party early because we had tickets for the baseball game. The Indianapolis Indians were playing against Louisville. It was our first baseball game and it was kind of interesting to see how many families with little kids were there sitting on blankets. We almost had the impression that the people were not really going there because of the game but because of the socializing with other people. The game itself was kind of boring and to avoid 'rush hour' and to avoid getting wet, since some dark clouds were coming closer and closer, we left after the 7th inning and went back to Plainfield to watch some more fireworks.

Now I am back in Kingston and work hard on my thesis. The simulation is slowly getting along and I'll start writing pretty soon as well.

There are some more pictures, which you can find here.

Montreal

Once again, I have to apologize for not really keeping you up to date and not uploading the pictures I've taken during the last few weeks. I'm kind of lazy publishing here but I'll try to do better for the remaining few months. Although I don't think that there will be a whole lot worth publishing within the next few weeks since I'll probably stay in the lab from early morning to late at night.

Anyway, some weeks ago I went with Christian and Lenko to Montreal. A former roommate of Lenko lives in Ste-Julie so we had a place to stay over night. Before arriving in Montreal we went to Laval to go to an Apple Store since Christian wanted to buy an iBook. After that we left the car at a subway station and went by train into the city. We walked around in downtown and the older part of the city. Montreal is really a nice city, it's amazing to listen to people talking to each other. One asks a question in French and the other one answers in English and adds some more information in French, the language only depending on the mood of the people, I guess. Most of the people though like to speak French more than English and we even had problems in some stores but usually there is at least one bilingual person working at each location.

At night we met with Sebastian, a friend of mine from Magdeburg, and some of his friends and went to the beer festival. You had to buy some coupons and then you could try from hundreds of different kinds of beer. It was really fun and the place was packed with people. Unfortunately we didn't have much time so we left the festival and went to Jonathan's (Lenko's friend) house and fell asleep really quick.

The next day Christian had to back to the Apple Store because he discovered a bad pixel and wanted to get a replacement for his laptop. So Lenko and Christian went to Laval while Jonathan and I went to the Olympic Stadium of the '76 Games. It was really awesome and looked futuristic especially if you remember that they build this more than 30 years ago. At the stadium they also had the flags of all participating nations and German Democratic Republic (East Germany) was one of them.

After that we met with Christian and Lenko and climbed up the Mount Royal to take a look at the skyline of Montreal. Mount Royal is the highest point in Montreal and houses are by law prohibited to be build higher than this hill. Anyway, the view was really good and was worth the struggle of climbing all the way up. Since it was pretty late already we had some food at a restaurant called Reubens which is supposed to be famous for their roast beef sandwiches and finally we had to head back to Kingston.

Just a week after that we decided to go to Montreal again. This time we just wanted to do a day trip. Besides the three of us there was also another German called Jörg and Marika a girl from Finland. We basically just walked around in the city again. This time it was packed with people since it was Formula 1 Weekend and a lot of events were on the streets. We saw hundreds of Ferraris, Porsches and all kinds of other expensive cars. After climbing Mount Royal once again and having dinner at some restaurant there was a concert and a big party on the street. Finally we drove back to Kingston and arrived here around 3 am.

montreal

Ottawa - Canada's Capital

Before Ottawa became the beautiful city it is today, it used to be a rough lumber town with roads of mud. They even used to hold races on Wellington Street, the road right in front of Parliament Hill. In 1857, after years of indecision by 'colonial' politicians, Queen Victoria chose this 'little lumber-town' as the capital of the Province Canada (consisting at that time of what is today Quebec and Ontario). Her choice of an unpresuming, yet militarily strategic city was an attempt to ease the political tension of the day. After becoming the capital Sir Wilfrid Laurier created the Ottawa Improvement Commission (OIC) in 1899, which was mandated to beautify and plan the Capital.
And nowadays it really is a beautiful city, but it is still a Capital, that is different than anything that we've seen so far. Who can imagine to have a farm in the middle of the city, just 2.5 km from Parliament Hill? And there are many other little things, that make this city special.
Anyway, you can take a look at the pictures and maybe you like it. For my part I would really recommend to come to Ottawa if you have the chance to do.
A view days before Barbara had to go back to the US, we visited Parliament Hill, walked around in nice little streets with lots of shops, restaurants and bars, rented bikes to ride along the Ottawa river and enjoyed the nice weather. I guess the pictures say more than I can write here, so take a look and enjoy it!

ottawa

i'm still alive...

more than a month has passed since I posted something, but I can ensure you, I'm still alive and lately there is even something worth posting...
The last few days of May Barbara managed to come to Canada again, before her US visa expired. After a couple of days of working (Barbara had some reports to write and I just kept on reading for my research) we had a few days of nice weather and we did all kinds of stuff. We made 3 hour cruise to the region of the thousand islands, which starts at Kingston. It was really beautiful and we enjoyed the tour really much and at the end of the day I had a sunburn, but not too bad. On the weekend we went with Lenko and Christian, who finally arrived from Brazil, to Frontenac Provincial Park and rented some canoes. The weather was really nice again, but this time we were prepared and brought some sun block. Of course only the freaking Germans needed it, since Lenko was pretty tanned from his stay in Brazil and Christian is naturally used to a lot of sun.
Out on the lakes it was really beautiful, it reminded me of my canoe trip to Sweden with Stephan a few years ago. We saw a lot of different animals and enjoyed the nature and the silence a lot. At the end of the day we didn't go home right away, but went to the Thousand Island Bridge which goes the New York State and there we went up to a look out tower and were able to take a look at the region from above. We took a lot of photos and some of them I publish here, but the pictures, even though you might think they look really nice, don't really capture the amazing impressions we had when they were shot. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the pictures anyhow.

cruise & canoe

housemates and other people

Although my housemates and most of the students of Queen's are leaving this week, I want to publish some pictures of these guys.

First of all there is Will.
Will is one of my landlords, which basically means that he owns the house I'm living in. Actually he and Scott, who is on an exchange in France right now, bought the house and rent the rooms.
Will is a major in Economics and loves to work out in the PEC (Physical Education Center). Besides that Will loves cooking more than any other guy in the house and he makes crazy meals, like pork chops with grilled Asparagus or other things that need a lot of time to cook and he does it when he feels like it, no matter if it's a Tuesday or any other day of the week.
Some of you might think, 'well that's cool', but sometimes it's just a pain in the ass, because everybody makes his own meals in the house unless you planned it together. So just imagine you come home from work, you are hungry and the whole house smells like steak and other tasty stuff and you don't have anything in the fridge...
(In the picture on the right you can see Will and his girlfriend Jenn.)

Then there is David. I don't really have a lot of pictures of David yet, because he is rarely at home. David is an undergrad in Mechanical Engineering and last month he has spent more time in the library than at home. So I haven't really had time to get to know him fairly well, because he get up some time around noon and doesn't return from the library before 2 in the morning. David is originally from Ghana and he is the only guy that will stay in Kingston for at least the next few weeks.
He is a fun guy, though, and I'm glad I'm not all by myself in the house. In the picture on the right hand side you can see David with Beth, a friend of the house, at a barbecue we had last week end.


Then there is Julian. Julian is originally from Toronto and the roots of his family lie in Italy. He is a major in Mining Engineering and History, doing a dual degree. Besides that he started learning Italian a year ago and will go to Italy this summer. After two months in Venice he'll travel around in Europe to visit Austria, Germany and the Czech Republic.
Jules works at a beer store and knows a lot about beers and is really looking forward to visit the Hofbräuhaus in Munich and Prague and have some of the best beers in the world.
One day after my arrival Julian turned 21 and so we celebrated his birthday and I had my first party a little more than 24 hours after entering Canada... In one of the pictures you can see Jules and Ruth, a friend of the house.
Jules likes cooking as well, he is kind of a pancake junkie and loves to barbecue.


And last but not least there is Malcolm.
Malcolm is a major in civil engineering and the youngest guy in the house. He is definitely a fun guy and kind of a ladies man, but although partying a lot, he gets really good marks. Malcolm will be doing his internship next year and won't come back to Kingston until September 2008. He is a crazy recycling guy and just loves everything, that has less packaging or a really good energy efficiency, just like low energy light bulbs or hybrid cars and stuff like that.
He also likes cooking and sometimes just hydrates 2 kg of kidney beans to make a bathtub full of chilli con carne. As you can see in the pictures he likes to wear costumes and is really creative in making them.

Altogether I love these guys, they are awesome and even though I just lived with them for a month now, I had a whole lot of fun with them.

Just last night we had a fight night, which basically means that Julian and Malcolm got their costumes from last halloween and wanted to fight against each other. Since Julian went to a different party than the other guys they haven't had the chance to fight each other so they made it up last night. We also had a lot of fun barbecuing or just running around in Kingston, hitting the bars and clubs or eating poutine.

two-weeks-report

After arriving in Kingston Barbara and I took a look at the city, but although it is said to be one of the nicest cities in Canada, the weather just didn't make it look like that at all. Therefore we were not really doing much this week, but it was nice to just relax and do nothing. What we did though, was cooking. Canada is a lot more European than the US when it comes to groceries, so Barbara enjoyed to have 'real' bread again and to go just foodseeing instead of sightseeing. We also managed to take some pictures and I finally have some pictures of my new home.
Unfortunately Barbara had to go back to the US after what seemed to be just too short a week. A day after that it started snowing heavily and we got 15 cm of snow over night. This made even Canadians freak out. They assured me that this is actually not supposed to be the weather for April. Anyway, I did take some pictures of 'my' house in the snow. The crazy thing about this, two days later we had beautiful weather with 15 degrees Celsius and sun, and the weather has been like that for almost a week now. Finally spring has arrived in Kingston and I'm telling you it is really nice outside and if you walk around you'll see almost everybody barbecuing or just sitting on the porches or roofs and relax/study in the sun and enjoy the nice weather.
That's basically what we (my housemates and I) did last week, barbecuing almost every day and do some activities outside like playing football, soccer or throwing a frisbee. Unfortunately this is the last week of exams here at Queen's and almost all of my housemates are going to leave Kingston at the end of the week. Malcolm is already leaving tomorrow and Julian and Will will be gone by Friday or Saturday. Only David will stay some more weeks maybe even some more months but even with two guys the house will be like a deserted place. Nonetheless I don't think it will get boring over here, since I have enough things to do and there are still some guys in Kingston to have fun with.

On Friday last week Janine visited Kingston for a few hours. She was on holiday, traveling around in the States and Canada with friend of hers. Since her friend's sister lives in Ottawa and since Ottawa is only 180 km away from Kingston she just hopped on a bus and I picked her up at the bus station. Then we were just walking around in Kingston, went down to Lake Ontario, to University, had a coffee and a cone of icecream and then she had to head back to Ottawa. It was a really short stay, but it was really nice having her over here and talking to her. By this time I think she's in Germany again and I hope she'll send me the photos she took soon, so I can share them with you.

Besides that there hasn't happened a whole lot here in Kingston.
Worth mentioning might be the sudden death of my laptop, which just stopped working on a rainy day a week and a half ago. The thing that drove me crazy was that Windows as well as Linux just died, so I figured it had to be something with the hardware and it just turned out to be the case. Fortunately Ben, the husband of Sarah (Ph.D.-candidate in my group), is a computer administrator at Queen's so I just went to their house and we found a bad stick of RAM, causing the problems. Now my laptop works again even though a little slower, but I'll get a new stick of RAM sometime this or next week.

That's all that happened within the last weeks that's worth telling you. I uploaded some pictures of the week after easter and you can take a look at them if you want.
I hope you have a great week and hope this finds you in good spirit!
Cheers!

easter in kingston

some photos...

Finally I have some photos to show you...

toronto & niagara falls

Barbara flew in to Toronto on Good Friday and I picked her up at the airport. Saturday we walked around in the city to do some sightseeing, but since it was freezing cold we didn't take a whole lot of photos there. Anyway, the next day we drove to Niagara Falls and you'll see some pictures of a whole lot of water...
Now we are back in Kingston and I hope to be able to show you some pictures of Kingston and Queen's University some time next week.
Take care!

awesome...

Today I went to a concert at Queen's University.
The one and only Ben Folds was playing and I'm telling you, it was just awesome. I guess most of you guys don't know Ben Folds, but you should listen to some of his music, you might like it - although he's even better if you can experience him live on stage!!!

just in case...

Google is the best!
Just in case someone of you guys wants come over for a visit, you could use GoogleMaps to find your way here...

first impressions

Today I managed to take my camera to university to take some pictures...
There are not a whole lot, but there will be more some day! As far as I've heard Kingston must be awesome in the summertime, but right now with the last snow melting and the meadows looking like big mudholes it's not that pretty at all!
But anyways, here they are!

first impressions

here I am

After 26 hours of travelling I finally arrived in Kingston and found a bed to rest. I'll take some pictures of the house and my room and my housemates and all that as soon as possible, but first of all I need to get settled here, sign in at Queen's and all that kind of administrative stuff.
Besides that there will be a party tonight - a housemate of mine just turned 21 today so CHEERS!

and off I am

I guess it's time to say Good Bye.
In a few hours I'll fly to Toronto and the journey begins.
I hope you guys are all doing good in the next few months and I try to keep in touch with everyone.

And off I am!

it won't get boring...

Now I'm really set and almost ready to go. Finally I got a thesis for my research work or let's say I got three theses and have to decide sometime which one I want to work on. The first is about applying discrete event systems to protocol verification, the second one about using a logic model involving formal reasoning about knowledge to describe DES problems and the third and last one is about exploring what stategies could be used to display DES diagrams so that when operations are applied to two DESs, their resulting output maintains some meaning related to the constituent input DESs.
Sounds all really exciting and like a whole lot of work, but I'm still looking forward to going to Canada and I'm sure I'll have a great time there.

But before going there are still some things that have to be done. First of all I'll move all my stuff from Magdeburg to Salzwedel. I don't really know how long I'll stay in Salzwedel, but I guess it won't be too long. Lukily I can stay at my friends appartment in Magdeburg so I might return Monday night or Tuesday. After that there is still the last exam in nonlinear systems and my brother's wedding...

Besides that I just created another blog for my family similar to this one except for the posts being in German. So if you're sick of my English just go ahead and take a look at this link but there will be some differences in content, language and frequency of my postings.

That's it for tonight. Cheers!

getting all set

March 20th is getting closer and closer and little by little I'm getting all set.
I do have a ticket to Toronto, I do have a visa, I do have a place to stay and I would go tomorrow if I could. The 'only' thing that still needs to be settled is the thesis for my research work. But that shouldn't be that big a deal.
Of course there are a lot of things that need to be settled here in good old Germany, but first there are still some more exams.

getting started

Ok guys, I'm just getting started with all this.
Since exams will start soon, it'll probably take quite some time to get all the settings the way I want them to be.
Nonetheless, here I am!