How was your weekend?

Living in a house on an island in the middle of nowhere with an awesome group of people. Far away from the big city life, any Starbucks, McDonalds and Skytrain stations. But close to trees, birds and the sea. Sounds crazy? It was!

Everyone found the way to the ferry terminal of Tsawwassen on Friday afternoon, ready to start this adventure. The award for the biggest luggage goes to… Bart (who carried our food)! Two hours on the water passed by quickly with fun stories until we arrived on Salt Spring Island. Let’s get back to nature! That is exactly the feeling I had when we drove to our house. Hidden between the trees, we found our accommodation for the weekend. A huge wooden house with everything you could wish for: a big kitchen, a cozy living room, bedrooms with a view, luxurious bathrooms and all this surrounded by a terrace with a hot tub. Perfect! Once everyone explored the house, we settled in and prepared delicious spaghetti. With full bellies, the evening could start off with games and drinks. After a few exhausting games, it was time to relax. What could be a better spot to rest than a hot tub? Well, it was quite ‘cozy’ with 12 people in one hot tub and definitely fun! What a great night!

Salt Spring week 6

Rise and shine, the next day started. The sunshine outside promised a lovely day. For some, it was harder to get out of the bed than for others, but we all managed. After we strengthened ourselves with breakfast, we explored the island with a small hike. We walked through a park where we spotted some fairytale doors in the trees and had a nice view over the forests of Salt Spring Island. We ended up having lunch in a park next to the city center of Ganges, a cute place with lovely stores.

The next activity was a tasting of Salt Spring’s famous Wild Cider. Surrounded by nature, we learned more about ciders and we tried ten different kinds, from dry to sweet ones. The sun was shining, so we could even take off our jackets. Back at the house, it was already time for dinner. The burgers were quickly prepared and even quicker eaten. The night continued with driving a bus, destroying the circle of death or trying to get plastic balls into cups.

Salt Spring week 6-2.jpgWhat a lovely view I had when waking up on Sunday: trees and sun! The view inside of the house was not that promising, as the last night left its traces. But as teamwork makes the dream work, the living room was soon shining again. So, Sunday started off easy with some fresh pancakes and fun stories of last night. Lucky as we were, we could get two of the three taxis that are available on the island. This time, the sun deck on the ferry earned its name and we could enjoy beautiful views on the way back to Vancouver.

I really had a good time with you and I am already looking forward to our next trip to the Rockies. See you on Wednesday to share all the fun stories of the weekend during our PuB NiGHT.

– Kerstin

INTERNeX International Exchange
International Village,
Suite 2077, 2079 – 88 West Pender Street
Vancouver, Canada -V6B 6N9-
Web: http://www.internexcanada.com
Email: pr@internexcanada.com

INTERNeX Canada: Casual Fridays

This weekend is a long one guys, because it’s Easter! When I hear Easter, I automatically think of bunnies, basket full of eggs, chocolate (of course), and flowers. But I always wondered why there are such thing as Easter bunnies? Why do they lay eggs? Where are the hens?

According to an old legend, Easter began with the pagan celebration of the goddess Ostara. She was associated with the Spring season and fertility. The goddess entertained children by turning her pet bird into a rabbit. The rabbit then gave colorful eggs as presents to the children.

If that wasn’t enough, I came across a short story for children that “tries” to explain…

Why the Easter Bunny Brings Eggs (adapted by Jean Warren)

Once upon a time, there was a King who had a very powerful magician at his court.  One day, the magician gave the King a hen that laid beautiful eggs for a present. The king liked the eggs but he was greedy and he told his magician that he would like the hen better, if she could lay eggs of gold.  So the Magician worked another magic spell and sure enough the hen started laying eggs of gold.

The king was delighted.  He became very rich and the envy of the other kings.  He kept his special hen in a golden cage next to his thrown.  He knew that someday, someone would try to steal his hen, so whenever visitors came,  he would have his magician come and hide the special hen and substitute an ordinary hen in the cage.

Sure enough, one day someone ran off with the hen in the golden cage.  The king was glad he had had his magician switch the hens.  He sent word for the magician to bring back his hen.  But the next day, when the king looked in his golden cage all he found was a white rabbit.  “What’s this!” said the King.  “Little rabbit, how did you get in here?  The King opened the cage and had his footman take the rabbit back out to the woods where he belonged.  Then he called for his magician.

“Where is my magic hen?”, asked the King.  I told you to bring her back. “I did bring her back,” said the magician.  “I put her in the cage”, I just didn’t have time to change her back into a hen.”

620674_10151942162845006_125447590_o

This is Rolo 🙂

They never did find the little white rabbit, but from that day forward, children found colorful eggs hidden all over the kingdom.  And some say, that every once in a while someone found a golden one.

Yeah right, I don’t think so. Actually, I have two rabbits at home named Rolo and Coco..maybe they will leave trails of golden eggs and make me filthy rich 😉

Happy Easter and have a great long weekend!

Cheers,

Flora

INTERNeX International Exchange
Suite 200 – 211 Columbia Street
Vancouver BC -V6A 2R5-
Web: http://www.internexcanada.com
Phone: +1 (604) 662 8149
Email: pr@internexcanada.com

Nuria’s Story

Today I would like to share Nuria’s  little, but memorable story from Vancouver! Nuria participated in the INTERNeX Canucks Contest, but unfortuantly she did not win one of the Canucks tickets. But since we really liked her story we gave her another prize, namely 2 tickets for the Maritime Museum in Vancouver.

It was on a normal evening in Vancouver we went to english bay to celebrate Lies birthday. We were hangig around, playing volley-ball, singing the birthday song, looking at the beautiful sunset, eating the birthday cake, telling stories… So we decided to go to a pub to clink glasses, so we were on our way to the city.

Somebody saw a black limousine parked in a parking area and we saw people coming out of the limosine, so we thought it would be cool to ask the driver, how much it would be to take a drive. So we went and asked.

The thing was, that the guy, who owns the limosine, buyed the car on this day (from a friend)! It was his personal car!!! So he invited us to join him and his friends for a ride… „Are you kidding me, of course we are coming.“ We went into the limosine and drove around for an hour, over the lions gate bridge (at night, with all the lights from downtown), into the stanley park and through downtown. It was amazing. It was the perfect birthday present for Lies and a perfect ending for this day for all of us… just unforgettable.

You will never know what is going to happen in Vancouver, you will never know… but it will happen… so better be prepared…. muhahaha!

I would like to thank Nuria for sharing this great story with us! Great to see that you have an awesome time in Vancouver!

Cheers, Lydia

INTERNeX International Exchange
Suite 200 – 211 Columbia Street
Vancouver BC -V6A 2R5-
Web: www.internexcanada.com
Email: pr@internexcanada.com
Phone: +1 (604) 662 8149

Video of the week!

This week we have a Canadian stand-up comedian for the video of the week – Russell Peters. In this show he is talking about how to become Canadian? Since we are all internationals here in Canada, maybe some of us would like to know how to become a real Canadian citizen! Russell has an Anglo-Indian decent but is born in Canada. His humor is mostly about his own cultural background. In this video he is actually making fun of his Indian dad and how his dad wants to become a real Canadian. I don’t want to say too much, because you just have to see it yourself. Personally, I think he is really funny!! Enjoy the video of the week!

Do you have a video that you would like to share with us? Send it to pr@internexcanada.com with your short story or description. 🙂

Cheers,
Claudia

INTERNeX International Exchange
Suite 200-211 Columbia Street
Vancouver BC -V6A 2R5-
Web: www.internexcanada.com
Phone: +1 (604) 662 8149
Email: pr@internexcanada.com

Picture of the week!

This week we have a funny picture from Adam. He lived in the staff house and told me that it was his turn now to have an awesome picture of the week on the INTERNeX blog’ . He really wanted to be the picture of the week because this week is his last week here in Canada and he wanted to show the other candidates how much fun he had here! He was  in Vancouver for the Work&Travel program and worked at a coffee company for 7 months. He describes his time here as AWESOME!
In the picture you can see him passionately eating from his pizza in a restaurant in Victoria. He was there with his friend Kevin! He choose this picture because it is typical Canadian with him wearing his Canada sweater.

This week it was Adam’s turn, but maybe next time your picture will be picture of the week!! Do you have a picture of a great experience here in Canada? Send it to pr@internexcanada.com with a small description or story!

Cheers,
Claudia

INTERNeX International Exchange
Suite 200-211 Columbia Street
Vancouver BC -V6A 2R5-
Web: www.internexcanada.com
Phone: +1 (604) 662 8149
Email: pr@internexcanada.com