About INTERNeX

What to do on the weekend

Here’s some inspiration of what you can do on the weekend:

The Holiday Spirit continues and INTERNeX is going to The Van Dusen Festival Lights. This magical winter wonderland has more than one million lights decorating this beautiful garden. Wander around the lakeside and experience all themed areas that offer their visitors tasty treats, unique light features and holiday music. Let us know if you wanna experience this event together on Saturday evening. Price: $21 + taxes and tickets are available online only. 🙂 

Then there’s The Big Elf Run at Stanley Park on Saturday, December 10th. This holiday themed run is suitable for all ages and offers a 5km, 10km, 15km run around Stanley Park. Run together with hundreds of elves, enjoy DJ, “elfie station”, prize giveaways and more. The run starts at Lumberman’s Arch and goes on a trail that passes the Vancouver Aquarium and winds its way along paths surrounded by old oak trees, the seawall with views of Coal Harbour and the Burrard Inlet. Check-in opens at 11.30 and you can read more about their timeline on their website for more details. Let’s check it out! Admission: from $35

Last but not least: Steveston Festival of Trees at the Gulf of Georgia Cannery in Richmond. This event is perfect for getting into the holiday spirit, exploring a display of illuminated holiday trees inside the historic cannery at Steveston Festival of Trees. This event is an ongoing event and runs from December 1st until the 24th. The Christmas Trees are designed and sponsored by local merchants, so let’s vote for our favourite 🙂

Hope you find it inspiring and whatever you decide to do on the weekend, we hope you will have a great weekend!

Cheers

Ida

Hejdå friends!

So it’s time to say goodbye as I only have a few days left of this week which happened to be my last in Canada before I fly back home to Sweden. My sixteen weeks here have been great, a time full of new impressions and experiences, laughter and adventures and not a day has passed without me singing of joy, haha. 😉 If you know, you know, I sing melodies when I’m happy. 😉 The longer I stayed in Vancouver, the more I fell in love with this city. In the beginning it was a lot to take in, I’m not going to lie, I wasn’t used to the ‘Big City’ life at all, but I’ve experienced so many new things, gone on many trips and I’ve met so many new people who’ve become my friends. I know we will meet again somewhere in the world in the near future. Thank you for making my stay in Canada the best! 🙂

The trip to the Rocky Mountains, which was also my Kick-off event with the INTERNeX-family was an awesome four-day trip with an amazing group experiencing Canada’s incredible nature together. Such a great start of my Internship as a PR-coordinator at INTERNeX and I got a lot of new experiences that turned out to be the best ones ever. Definitely one of my many highlights 🙂

Hiking the Grouse Grind, a trail that is 2,5km long and has 2830 stairs, was another of my highlight events. It was such a great day of hiking, a bit challenging but absolutely worth it. If you are looking for trails near Vancouver with a beautiful view and wildlife I highly recommend this one. Vancouver in general has it all – city-life, mountains, forests, ocean and all the activities that come with it 🙂

Last but not least I have to tell you about the four-day trip to Vancouver Island, including Tofino and Victoria. During this trip we experienced a bunch of things such as stargazing and bonfire on the beach, whale watching, we went to the Long Beach where they filmed scenes of the first movie of The Twilight Saga which was so cool!! I also got the chance to feel the sea for the first time (it was dark outside and I was a little too close to the water so the waves hit my legs, haha, me in a nutshell) but it was such a great, happy moment. 😉

I also had the chance to coordinate the last monthly trip of the year: a three-day trip to Whistler. What a challenge, but I’m so happy we managed to go there in their peak-season. I definitely gained new coordinating skills and I really love how just a few thoughts turn into reality – this ski/outdoor-trip was a great end of my stay and I will live long on this one. 🙂

I must say that there was way more that brought value to my time in Vancouver than these trips, I’ve grown both professionally and personally and I have to thank the INTERNeX- family for that. I can’t wait where the next adventure will take me. 🙂 

You know what else is great? It’s Pub Night tonight, let’s party and say goodbye! 😉 

Cheers

Ida

How was the weekend

Last Friday INTERNeX went to Whistler for the weekend. Whistler, beautiful Whistler! I am so happy we managed to go there last weekend as it’s my last weekend in Canada. 

Whistler is about two hours from Vancouver and it’s really easy to get there by Shuttle if you don’t have a car. As we arrived in Whistler we decided to leave our luggage at the hotel we’d be staying at while waiting to check-in, so we decided to head towards Whistler Golf Course Loop which is a 5km walk through beautiful nature nearby the village. While we were walking we saw people playing ice hockey on the lake, they seemed to be having a great time out there and so did we on our snowy walk together 🙂 

After the snow walk we went back to the village for some shopping and to get something to eat. Wow, there is something magical seeing Whistler Village covered in snow. Make sure you don’t miss out on it! Around 6pm we had dinner together at Splitz Grill where they serve all different kinds of Burgers and fries. I definitely recommend you try some burgers in Whistler, the village offers various options 🙂 The rest of Friday night was pretty much a chill night at our hotel which had a hot-tub in each room and a pool outside, not bad! Who would want to leave in the freezing cold -14 degree weather when you can relax in a hot tub?

Early Saturday morning we picked up breakfast to go, before our snowy activities outdoors continued. Some of us decided to go to a spa, some went shopping, some went ice skating in Whistler Village and some of us went downhill skiing. Since I went skiing, I have to say it’s a ‘must-do’ while you are in Whistler during the winter season. The mountains are huge with many ski-tracks, ski-lifts, a lot of snow-covered trees and it was so beautiful to see the nature surrounding the village. Luckily we had a few hours of sun while we skied. I have to admit it was a little chilly in the morning, but as soon as the sun came to our ‘side’ of the mountain it instantly felt so much warmer. As the ski-lifts were closing quite early, we were back in the village by 3pm. Just in time for Apres-Ski and I can say Whistler knows how to party 😉 As a late dinner we decided to go to The Old Spaghetti Factory in Whistler. We got it recommended and it was definitely the best end of the day. 🙂

Early on Sunday morning we checked out of the hotel and as we were all a bit tired we went to have coffee and breakfast. We went to an organic café who served various organic and vegan dishes and I can tell we had a delicious breakfast. If you are interested to hear more about this organic café, just ask us and we will give you the details of where you can find this hidden gem in Whistler Village. 😉

This was a review about our weekend in Whistler. Make sure you don’t miss out on the next INTERNeX trip!

I hope you had a great weekend and I can’t wait to hear all about it at this week’s Pub Night!

Cheers

Ida

What to do on the weekend

December is already here and this is my last weekend in Canada. It feels strange to say that since I only have seven days left and I have a few things on my bucket list I want to experience. I will experience one (or more) of them this weekend and I will tell you more about it next week 🙂 

Today INTERNeX is going to Whistler for a weekend trip and we expect to be back in Vancouver on Sunday evening. This weekend will offer outdoor activities such as skiing, skating, snow walking, cozying up and a lot of fun in the beautiful village. We are a group of nineteen going to Whistler and I am sure that everyone of us will have a great time. Last time I was in Whistler was in the beginning of October and it was 100% autumn (you can read about our last Whistler trip in a previous blog post from October). It will be great to experience Whistler in the snow and all the adventures that come with it. I will tell you all about our weekend on Monday, but first: let’s enjoy the weekend and here’s some inspiration of what you can do:

In Metro Vancouver they have an event called Lumagica which is located in Surrey. This is an ongoing event until December 30th where you have the chance to experience a beautiful trail in lights through various secret winter wonderlands where you can try out delicious food as frosty’s hot chocolate, fresh crepes with chocolate sauce, calzone pizzas and more. Make sure you don’t miss out! Price around $27 on weekends. 

…have you ever experienced ice skating in the centre of a city before? You should go to Robson Square where they have a skating rink starting from December 2nd, 2022 till February 28th, 2023. This event takes place outside the Vancouver Art Gallery. There is also an ice rink in North Vancouver at the Shipyards Skate Plaza which is the region’s largest outdoor rink. At both events it’s possible for skaters to bring their own skates or even rent a pair on-site, although numbers are limited. This is a “must try” in my opinion and it must feel like being in a traditional Christmas movie 🙂 

Whatever you decide to do on the weekend I hope you will have a great one and enjoy every minute of Christmas spirit 🙂

See you next week!

Cheers

Ida

New ‘Kids’ on the blog

This week I had the pleasure of interviewing new candidates to the INTERNeX family.

Starting with Maja. She’s 19 years old from Germany. She just finished high school and worked as an assistant at a logistics centre in the field of goods delivery before she decided to travel to Canada. During her time here in Vancouver, she will be volunteering in a business association with duties in public engagement. So cool! 🙂 I asked her why she decided to come to Canada and she answered that it was mostly because of the combination of the big city and nature. Vancouver is surrounded by mountains and we are lucky to call it our backyard and her first impression of Vancouver is a little different from back home as the city offers its people a lot to see and to do. I am sure you will experience a lot of new things during your time here 🙂

What’s on her bucket list? Definitely go on a hike. She says she wants to explore the Capilano Suspension Bridge and I can strongly recommend a visit while it’s still winter because of its lights. Then she mentioned that she wants to go to Grouse Mountain and Lynn Canyon 🙂 After her time here in Canada she plans to study three years within Media & Communication at a University in Leipzig. Hobbies? She played handball for twelve years and she likes to read books – especially romantic ones, she started reading a new book on the flight to Vancouver called ‘Maybe Someday’ – thanks for the recommendation 🙂 Favourite food? Pasta, so I recommend trying out the ‘old spaghetti factory’ located in Gastown 🙂 

Next we have Nicole. She’s 21 years old from England. She’s been living near a town called Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch in Wales for 4 years (I love that name, you should ask her how to pronounce it) and she is now here in Vancouver where she will be volunteering at Stanley Park for six months to gain international experience as a part of her studies in Zoology and Animal Science. She has been in Canada before as she has worked summers in Ontario and we are so happy to have her here with us on the west coast. At first she planned to go to Costa Rica but ended up in Canada, mostly because of Canada’s nature, wildlife, and ecosystem and I won’t forget to mention she is really passionate about bouldering where she has about nine years of experience and about one year ago she started doing outdoor climbing. So cool! If you like bouldering/climbing you now know who to ask. I’m sure there are more here who want to learn a new sport 🙂

I asked her what her first impression of Vancouver is and she says it’s a really nice mix between city and nature, especially how nature surrounds the city. When she arrived in Vancouver, it started snowing the next day so she has already experienced a typical intense “Vancouver weather” – sunshine one day and rain or snow the next. 🙂

Bucket list? Bouldering is her passion and Canada has one of the best practices when it comes to outdoor climbing. She wants to explore Vancouver Island and visit a friend of hers who lives in Victoria. She wants to learn more about Indigenous history and she wants to experience snow skiing because she has water skied before, so this winter will be great to try downhill skiing :)Plans after Canada? Going back to graduate and looking for a job in zoology. She will travel wherever the new job takes her, so cool!! 🙂 Favourite food? Sushi and Paella. Last but not least: have you heard that she knows a large number of different languages? Here are some of them: English (mother tongue), Spanish, German, Welsh, French, Maori – simple words and she also tried to learn Hindi.

We are so happy to have both of them here with us. Meet them at next week’s Pub Night and get to know them a little bit better 🙂

Cheers

Ida