CLV Curling Report - Week 3

After last weeks thrashing for the CLV curling team, the international squad changed it's tactics.

Sending the big arse Granite rocks hurtling down the ice we found ourselves at the end of each round feeling confident holding the key real estate in the "house", that is, until we either blew our own chances or our opponents pulled off some incredibly lucky shot (They were amateurs in comparison to our Professional approach).

The first round saw us in the position to be up by 5 points, instead they one by one. Round two was very similar, we were up by 3 points, until we pushed our winning rock right out of the way. (William didn't even realise we were winning at this point... Silly Bugger) Round three, I don't remember precisely but it had some similar virtues, we were playing incredibly and there was a contentious Rock right on the line that was minorly argued over, but in the end didn't matter.

Round Four finally changed our luck, we held it strong the entire round up by 4 but finished only with 2 points... But at least kept us in the running. Round 5 we lost, but once again only by 1 point, and Round 6, going into overtime kept us on our toes... We had a do or die situation, we could either go for a killer shot and win, or we could go the easy one and tie... We chose the dangerous path, and alllllmost pulled it off... But alas, it didn't happen only 1 point given instead of the required 3 to win... The final score of 4-3 didn't reflect the closeness of the game, and was rather satisfying for the team... That said, it was also frustrating!

The Mid Winter Cold

Outside it's a beautiful winters day. The Sun is shining brightly, and snow has covered everything lightly. There is not a cloud in the sky.

Guess the temperature.

N.B. Thomas has just brought to my attention that the temperature was -32C this morning, which I confirmed on the UW temperature website.

Canadian Winter Wonderland

Well, it snowed again last night, walking home from University, I decided that it would be good to try and get some photo's so that people can see what the area looks like. The road had a fair amount of snow on it, and there wasn't many cars around, but here are a few shots looking at a Canadian intersection, and also some showing the mounds of snow around my house.

All of the shots were taken with my Canon IXUS II camera.

University Shots

Well, while I was here in Waterloo, I have been wanting to get a nice sign picture, and I finally got around to it. Here I am in front of the University's main sign. Right: Allison and I.

A few day's later, the Unit 20 shot.

Temp Shot

Well, this is the coldest I have managed to capture on my Thermometer, pretty Bloody Cold! But, I have been running around outside in these temperatures, and even after the door digging, I worked up a sweat...

When it's cold like that, we get some pretty major Ice build ups on the windows. Downstairs there is a window that is only single glazed and that almost Ices up completely. (All of the windows are Double glazed, like you would see on any glass doored refrigerator.

Door Digging

It all began late on Firday night, we had just eaten some left over Chilli from the previous weeks Pot Luck and we were looking for something to do. We decided it would be fun to make some snowmen (or snowpeople) as the snow was thick. However, it was too cold for that as the snow wouldn't stick together. Alas... what could we do...

I know, dig some snow on people's doors, and thats just what we did.

We began by searching for a large collection of snow shovels and that involved visiting Delphines & Sarahs house. They didnt want to help us, soooo their door was first! It all ended suddenly though when Sven face planted Delphines in the -24C snow.

Moving on, we decided that Stefans house should be completely covered, for that we needed more shovels and a bigger team... They were out of the house at the time, so we had all the time in the world to get the work done.

We didnt want to stop till the entire door was covered, this proved to be a nasty task as it was like shoveling dry sand, it didn't want to stay were it was. The last 30cm of door took about as long as the rest of the door. During that time, the snow drift (from the snow ploughs) across from their door was entirely demolished, and the nextdoor neighbours became a little anxious.

Upon Stefan and David's return, they were quoted wondering where all of the snow near their house had gone, that is until they saw their door. Not to mention the lack of nearby shovels for them to dig themselves out... Somehow they eventually found the group of us in Unit 20, were the giveaway was the stash of shovels in the frount room...

CLV's Olympic Curling Team

This Sunday marked the beginning for my Curling team. Consisting of Sven of Germany, Urs of Swiss Background, William of a Swedish Nature and Myself the Australian Bloke. After getting a 20-30 min run down of how to move around on the ice, and how to launch the stones. We found ourselves already in competition. For those who aren't quite sure how Curling works, imagine Lawn Bowls on ice. You basically have to get it as close as possible to the center of the Circles. And if your piece is the closest, then you get a point for every stone within the outermost circle - all of the opponents teams stones within the circle. (we finally understood this by the final round)

After much fun and teeth clenched excitement, our team pulled out of the first round ahead. In a nail biter twist, our opponents pulled into an equal first position at 1-1 after the second round. We pulled again away for the third round making it 2-1 and then the other team pounced earning an unprecedented (at least in our curling history) 3 points putting the total at 5-2. After this point we never got back, and finally lost 6-2. The good news though, the Winner buys the looser's a jug of beer, which we enjoyed thouroughly.

Above: Pondering over the art of the game. Right: Watching the Stone slide too far.

Above: Sven starting the Stone rolling... Right: Sven brushing for his dear life.

Niagara Falls in Winter

Well today marked a trip to the Niagara Falls region thanks to the International Student organisation here at the University of Waterloo. Our trip began at 10 am where we caught one of 3 school buses (like Bart Simpson's School bus) and made our way to the South East. After about 2hrs spent on the bus, in extremely cramped conditions (imagine the bus is made for 5-10yr olds) not to mention the fact that it was -15 or so outside and only heated on one side of the bus and as a result had the glass windows frosting up.

We had lunch at the Niagara on the lake township, nothing overly special, and then caught our buses again to the Falls, in particular the Fallsview Casino. Sven hadn't experienced a casino before and I think he found it interesting. The casino was even nice enough to offer us $10 each Cash just for coming along, oh yeah and a funky members card with a bouncy clip.

The falls were their beautiful selves with the added bonus being that the mist that the falls was producing had become a snowmaker on the other side. You can kinda just see it's effect on the left of the above right photo.

With the mist blowing the opposite way since our last visit, we were able to get up close and personal with the falls without needing to where our raincoats. But it was mighty cold.

After dusk, the falls are illuminated by some extremely large spot lights, this has a nice effect as you can see above. We also had the privilege to see a fireworks display, although it was somewhat relax and short compared to the Riverfire Festival.

After a long bus ride home, we arrived back at CLV only slightly frozen through, and for those you had the heater, sweating like dogs. I decided too late to get some shots of the bus, so you will just have to make it out in the above photo.

Give us a Coldie!

Asking for a coldie at this bar might attract some strange looks.

Particularly because there is no bar staff... But that aside...

Montreal - The land of the French

We arrived in Montreal on the eve of the new year, and thanks to Fabio's brilliant navigation, found the hostel with little or no effort. In fact, we pulled over after finding the street and looked up the number for the Hostel only to find it 10m ahead. Well done!

That evening, after setting ourselves up as comfortably as possible in the Hostel, (you'll se pictures below) we found out that the destination for the evening was chosen by someone in our group, although, we are not quite sure who. Anyway, the name of the club was "Foufounes Electriques" and after realising that it was actually in my Lonely planet guide, I remembered the translation. Electric Buttocks...

Above: Matthias out the front of the club pondering, Right: Some of the artwork lining the walls.

Above: HAPPY NEW YEAR, on the dance floor. Right: Thomas and Bea, Thomas was caught in an off moment. :)

Above: Allison, Sven, Vanessa and Amy. Right: Myself, Fabio and Jutta.

After the night of New Years, we made a trip up the Hill overlooking Montreal, Mont Real. The path the entire way up was rather icy, and the stairway above is somewhat an example. Up the 5km path up the hill, we saw lots of squirrels. Some were more tame than others. I even have a short video of them crawling up Chris's legs.

Above: The mod squad... Right: A distant squirrel.



Above: A not so distant squirrel. Right: Me at the top of Mont Real. (Sounds similar to Montreal doesn't it...)



More shots of us over looking the big French City.



Mont Real Panoramic.



That evening, we took a wonder through China Town and Old Quebec, some of the lights were very beautiful. You had to be careful though, there was Ice everywhere.



Above: Allison over looking parliament house in Montreal. Above: A statue in the middle of Montreal.

Now, as I mentioned earlier, the hostel was somewhat interesting. It was very small and there were barely enough beds for the lot of us. Fortunetly, I was in one of the earlier cars and got a reasonable bed unlike the English Crew who got rather lost finding the joint. But I am sure they enjoyed their sleep on the couch.

Above: Comfortably asleep. Right: The Montreal Metro.

On the way out of the city, our car made a visit to the Olympic park. They have a few records under their belt, including the tallest slanted tower. (above) They have a small tower exhibit inside and they even mention our two great towers, the Sydney tower and the Telstra Tower. Meanwhile, I was privately freezing to death, having dressed more for the long drive ahead and not the period we spent outside.

Well, the weather was perfect in Montreal however, just as we were leaving the big city, it began to snow. Well, we were greatful that we were on the way when we did. However... it did get worse, it began to Rain, and the temp was only -8... go figure. Soon enough the rain was literally freezing onto the windchild. Quite a fun ride home...

We made it home though in one piece...