Welcome to Guelph!!!

I made it. And I got a very warm welcome. But let's start at the beginning.

I had all these bags packed, exactly 45,8 kg. I was allowed to take 46. So my father stressed me to leave on time and I was at the airport far in advance, still not early enough to get myself a nice spot somewhere at the aisle which would have allowed me to stretch my poor back. Luckily the nice Lufthansa steward got me a seat in the front row at the aisle later, so I really enjoyed the flight which was also really calm. Food was decent, I had enough space and it was only 8 hours, so I slept and read and then we were there.

I was picked up by my roommate and fellow AIESECer Brett, his dad and his dad's German (girl?)friend. She emigrated from Germany when she was a year old, so she talked to me about prices and compared to Dmark and Pfennige, which I found really sweet. When Brett first took me into our apartment I almost walked backward and out again, because it was sooooooooo messy (and I consider myself pretty used to messy, but this was too much). But my room was empty and my bed and desk were still in the living room, so once we had that straight it was okay...now there is some messiness left but it's not in my room and not in the central living room so I don't care. Once we had everything straight people started to arrive for Brett's weekly Potluck. This involves everybody bringing some random food and then eating it together. So there were Krista, Dan and Whitney from AIESEC here and then the trainees: Carlos from Ecuador, Niul from India, Bogdan and Aida from Romania and Amos from Kenya and Carlos also brought Axelle, a french girl along. I had a great time having AIESECers around me after a long time without, they made me feel at home immediately. And very welcome: they brought a huge bottle of Champagne which I had to open. Soooo cool. I managed to stay awake until midnight and just ignored the time difference. Still I woke up at 6, wide awake but then put myself back to sleep in order to adjust to Canadian time. I hope that was it with my jetlag, but I already feel getting tired and it's not even 6 pm here yet.

This morning Brett took me around town to change money, do groceries, get me a Canadian phone (email me or check facebook for my number) and discover the city and also university campus. Good thing about a university with a large agriculture department: it looks really nice. The town of Guelph is also cute, it has 118.000 inhabitants, so it is not very big, the sense of style of the people is not as good as in Copenhagen, but as far as I've seen also not as bad as in Twente. And I already discovered the Canadian wildlife today: I saw a groundhog. I discovered later that it's supposed to be what we call "Erdmännchen" in Germany, but it's a zillion times bigger than the ones we have at the zoo and I found it really cute. I want one!!!!!