April, April, der macht, was er will

It is the first day in Mannheim, and it is certainly cold here. Actually, it is even snowing a tiny little bit. Not enough to collect on the ground but that's real snow, anyway.
It has been great meeting some of the people yesterday evening and it has been even nicer to meet everybody today for class. This week will be very busy, with activities through the whole day and even in the evenings, but I will have to figure out a time to get to the grocery store.
The apartment I am in is tiny, but big enough for my purposes and I like it. It certainly is not cheap, but it is convenient.

BIG assignment due soon, but some older pictures first

Exactly a month ago we had the opportunity, on a Sunday, to do some sports and go for cross country skiing in a reservation park they have near Kingston. It was a nice Sunday, not too cold and with enough snow.
I hadn't done it before, but it worked quite well, it was certainly good exercise.
After this week I believe that I will be able to relax a bit more and have some free time. Who knows if, by then, I won't be able to go skiing again? I wish to go snowboarding, but this involves much more money, so I am not sure if it will be possible.
In any event, now I have to concentrate on the most important assignment I've had so far and I don't have much time available anymore. Enjoy the pictures below.

080127 Cross country skiing

http://picasaweb.google.de/ferbress/080127CrossCountrySkiing

Mont-Royal aux Montreal

We arrived yesterday in the afternoon in Montreal, left our things in our great apartments in the hotel (really great accomodation, but at a certain price) and went out on foot to take a look at Montreal. It is cold here, but i don't complain, it is enough to be dressed properly.

At night we met Hadi, one of our MBA colleagues at his friend's place and went out to the Seven club, on Crescent Street, where we got VIP treatment. Thanks a lot, Hadi!

Today Marc suggested we go to the Mont-Royal Park, so we took our comfortable Grand Caravan van and drove up there. The day was magnific and we had a great time in the park. The views from up there are fantastic, it mus be great to have such a nice park in the center of the city.

I decided to take a break and do some work on an assignment I still have to hand in this weekend, so I have to give it a go now. Others went to take a look at the Museum of Fine Arts, with the lights show at the Notre Dame in the old center of the town at 7 p.m..

In the evening we plan to visit a restaurant suggested by Peter, a Mannheim colleague who actually is from Montreal, Swartz's. I hope to meet a Brazilian friend then, who is studying here. She actually was my sister's good friend during college.

Well, a great weekend so far. A few pics for you. Talk to you later.

Fit to lead, tobogganing and pizza

It certainly has been a very eventful day at Queen's School of Business Full Time MBA today.

A picture before sleep

The evening started great with a nice pizza and a movie in great company and ended with snow shoveling and an hour or two at the Elixir club, with the MBA class. An this is the Mannheim team in a great pic. Excellent night, indeed.
Tomorrow is Walmart Business Case Day, let's see how it goes.
Oh yes, and it snowed like crazy. Bit annoying, when the restaurant is waaaaaay down at City Hall and all taxi services are completely overloaded, but very beautiful anyway.

Full ratchet and the snow outside

This was my day today. Working on Venture Capital term sheets for hours in my cubicle in our team room. At least I am enjoying. Can't really explain why, but it is a fact.
But now I am getting unproductive. I might go to that Irish music session later on.

And this was how my day started, Kingston with quite some snow. Pretty, huh? Let's see if I will still find snow great after 2 months.

Snow at the University of Warwick

Yes, it really is snowing. In the beginning I thought it would be that disappointing sleet so common in late autumn, beginning of winter. But my expectations were exceeded, and now we have a couple or a bit more centimeters of fresh snow on the grass.

I like the snow. Actually I love it! It is not by chance that my favourite sport now is snowboarding, I just hope that I will be able to do some in Canada, but this is not very probable. But I had a lot of fun tonight, already.

It is nice to see grown up adult "mature" students turning into kids, going out on the court yard and starting snowball fights with strangers they would otherwise ignore during their routine on campus residence. But it is such an important event for many of us, who had never seen snow before. I caught some of them on video. For people from Taiwan, Sri Lanka and Mexico, this is really something special.

Now I just hope that the snow will still be there in the morning.

More pictures on Picasa, of course.

071118 Snow on Campus