Skyline Trail

Wow! Sometimes time just gets away from me.  I cannot believe I haven't written since September!

This semester, I got to pick my own courses instead of just doing the required ones.  I was pretty excited about it and instantly honed in on a genetics course.  It was new and something I thought was interesting.  For my second course, I picked an immunology course.  Me and immunology go way back and we're not exactly friends.  I've never had a huge passion for the subject but it's very important in the field of cancer treatment, so I figured I owed it to myself to do this course and not avoid it simply because I don't love it.  

Little did I know that I had set myself up for a really tough semester.  Pro tip: don't take a master's level genetics course when you have no genetics background.  And if you want to have a fun semester, don't choose a class you know nothing about and a class that you don't particularly love! 

In the end, it was a very very challenging couple months. But I survived!  And I might go as far as saying I actually like immunology now. Since then, I've been working on a literature review and have had a couple special visitors from Canada.  At the rate I'm going I'll probably write about it sometime in July, but for now, I'm finally ready to write an awesome blog post about mine and Sander's adventure on the Skyline Trail.

Hiking the ST was sort of like running a long distance race...but without the running part.  At first, I loved every single step, then I just wanted it to be over and by the end, I was completely high from what we had just accomplished.

Let me start from the beginning.

The ST has been on my bucket list for years.  It's a 45km trek that starts at Maligne Lake in Jasper.  You need to reserve campsites months in advance because the biggest campsite along the trail only accommodates 8 tents.  When we booked our trip to Canada for the summer, I hopped online immediately to reserve spots for this trip.  To my disappointment, the ideal campsites had already been booked but there was room at Snowbowl (12km in) and Signal (37km in).  Even though it wasn't ideal, we reserved the sites and vowed to get the details sorted out later.

Turns out later never really happened.  We were to spend two nights on the trail (Sunday and Monday) and thought we'd just spend the night in Jasper on the Saturday before starting the hike.  What we failed to realize though was that this was the Canada Day long weekend and there was absolutely nothing available for us! Ooops.  We only had 12km to hike on the first day so we decided to just drive to Jasper super early and start hiking that day. It was the beginning of July so even if we started hiking at 3 in the afternoon we'd have plenty of sunlight to get to our first campsite.

The day before our trip we headed over to Campers Village and bought bear spray, bangers, flares, bells, whistles, water treatment tablets, a map, a first aid kit and basically everything you could need to be safe on the trail.  Then we went to the grocery store and bought the lightest most calorie dense foods we could find and made Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3 food packets.  We packed our bags, loaded our water, weighed in around 30lbs each and were ready to hike! After sucking so badly on planning the trip, we were pretty darn organized with the packing part of it! 

Sunday, we were up early and on the road by 6:30am.  The entire drive there, it poured and poured and poured.  Lucky for us, it has eased to a nice drizzle and we embarked on our adventure dry and ready for an awesome hike.

The first day of hiking was really enjoyable.  The elevation gain was gentle, the scenery was beautiful, the weather was perfect and we were warm and excited!

The highlight of the first day was me falling into the river.  Yup.  Leave it to me to wear through both pairs of hiking socks within the first 5K! The saddest thing was that there was even a bridge to cross! Don't know how I danced for so long because let's face it, we all know I'm not the most graceful person!

On the second day, the challenge began.  The ST is pretty famous for it's views for one main reason: the majority of the hike is above the treeline.  It's true, the views are ah-mazing, but what every online source failed to mention is exactly how cold and windy it is up there.  We knew it'd be cold, but we weren't quite expecting below 0 temperatures overnight.  Needless to say, it was a chilly sleep with few zzzz's caught.  We woke up tired, stiff from the cold and 30 pound packs we weren't used to carrying and a bit uncertain about the distance we had to travel that day. Due to our poor planning, we had 25km to cover.  But we remained optimistic and hit the trail bright eyed and busy tailed for a great day in the wilderness.

After a short climb, we crossed Big Shovel Pass and started working our way to Lake Curator.  We stood at the top of the pass admiring the amazing views (pictured below) and slowly descended down the other side of the mountain.  This is when the challenge really began.  Shortly after we crossed the pass, it started getting windy and I don't mean a strong breeze.  I mean wind.  I'm talking gusts that nearly knocked you off your feet! I'm talking wind so strong that Sander and I could barely hear each other talking.  It was cold and to make things even more awesome, we were getting sort of tired.  We aren't used to hiking with packs and to top it off, this was the first hike of the season.  After hitting rock bottom energy wise, we decided to sit down behind some rocks for lunch and recharge before climbing The Notch.

As we were eating, we were admiring the scenery around us and trying to figure out how we were going to get over the mountain in front of us.  We couldn't see a trail at all but knew that we had to cross somewhere.  Looking at the mountain Sander uttered the words "we'll it's definitely not there" while pointing at a snow capped section of the mountain.  We continued to eat in silence when I noticed two blobs on the snow in front of us.  Two blobs that were very people like.....two blobs that were hiking....two blobs forcing Sander to eat his words because that's exactly where we had to cross the mountain.

Now, everything that I read online said that the Notch is the toughest part of the hike but that's it's manageable as long as it's not entirely snowed in.  We had heard from other hikers that the Notch was mostly clear with only a small patch of snow to cross.  What NO ONE mentioned was how insanely steep the Notch is.  Not even the elevation map gave a really good indication of what we were to face up there.  When we booked the trip, we had no idea we had a scramble over loose gravel and ice ahead of us.

It was absolutely terrifying.  There were no giant boulders to get your footing.  It was soggy, muddy earth that made you slide with every step.  And then there was the snow.  It was icy, wet and 100% unstable.  The first step I took, I slid down about half a meter.  My heart was in my throat and I kept thinking in my head: "why the hell am I doing this!?".

Obviously, we didn't die, but it was probably one of the scariest things I've done....but also one of the most amazing things.  We were literally on top of a mountain!!!

It was so amazing.  Pictures really do not do it justice.  We enjoyed the view for about 2 minutes before coming back to reality.  Fact was that we still had about 12km to hike before we were at camp for the evening.  This is the part of the hike where I just wanted it to be over.  We had conquered the mountain and I was ready to set up camp and rest.  My knees were aching, my feet were aching, I had blisters on my hands from my trekking poles, I was cold and hungry and just overall done with walking for the day.  But despite all of this, we had to continue. 

So on we went.

It snowed, it rained, it sunned, it clouded and we walked and walked and walked and walked. 

We walked more. 

And more.

And more.

We were exhausted and had had enough, but, this is also the part where I fell in love with the hike.  It's really like running a race for me.  You want to give up. You're tired and each step is a challenge, but somehow you love all of it.  You feel energized and inspired despite wanting to collapse.  It's the nature.  The smell of the fresh air.  The sound of the wind.  The ache in your legs.  The thirst and the hunger.  It all fuels my soul.  Except for the mosquitoes.  They can just die for all I care.

Around 6pm we hit Tekarra campground and had dinner there while swatting furiously at the hundreds of mosquitoes (this is not an exaggeration).  We shivered through our dinner and hit the trail again for the last 5km to our campground for the night.

Despite our sense of hopelessness fueled by fatigue, we made it to our second campsite.  One thing we definitely learned on this trip was that packs really slow you down.  We set up our tent, hung our food in the bear-proof hangers and crashed at 10pm for the worst sleep ever.  It was so cold. We both slept in all of our layers with hot water bottles until our 4 o'clock alarm was waking us from this shivery slumber.

Yes, four in the morning.

Remember how we weren't very organized and didn't get a place in Jasper for the night before we started hiking? Well, that bit us in the butt for finishing the hike.  Normally, you leave your vehicle at the end and take the shuttle to the start of the hike.  Since we weren't starting early enough, we missed the shuttle and instead left our car at the beginning of the hike.  Ultimately, this meant hiking 10km down the mountain before 9am in order to catch the shuttle back to our car in time.  Doh.

I really thought it was going to be awful, but in the end, it was pretty nice.  I hadn't really slept since I was so cold, so I was glad to get up and moving again.  We hit the trail at 4:45 silent and exhausted, listening to music while meandering down the uninspiring fire road.  Between the heavy packs and insane distance the day before, the level gravel road was a nice reprieve.

We made it to the end by 7:30am and had breakfast at the trail head while waiting for the shuttle.  Eventually, more people trickled in that were starting the hike that day and it was really fun to chat with them.  We had just walked 45km across the Rocky Mountains.  I don't think there's anything as satisfying knowing you did it with your own sweat and determination.

In the end, I am so proud that we pulled through.  There was a time where we thought of taking one of the side paths to the highway and hitchhiking back to Jasper.  We were exhausted, hurting and we desperately wanted to give up and I am so glad we didn't.  It was worth every single blister and mosquito bite and I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Portugal 2016

In August, I had the opportunity to cross another country off my list and I spent 2 weeks exploring northern Portugal.

I don't even know where to begin with describing how awesome this vacation was, so instead I created another vlog to showcase some of the fun stuff we did.

Portugal is a wonderful country to visit (though I do not suggest trying to drive there from the Netherlands.  Google maps says 22 hours, but it's more like 32).  The cities are bustling with culture, the coast is gorgeous, the hiking is brilliant and there's cheap port, so what more do you need in life?! It's really hard to recapitulate an entire 2 week holiday in one post, but if I had to pick, there are two moments that stand out as my favorite moments of the trip.  First is dinner on the beach.  Half of the group decided to go to Coimbra (the old capital of Portugal), and the rest of us decided to have a relaxing evening at the campsite.  Instead, we ended up packing up our chairs, our drinks and ourselves and heading to the beach to watch the sunset.  One thing led to the next and before we knew it, we had ordered pizza and were having a fun night playing tag in the sand and visiting while watching the sun set.  That is until the group called us from Coimbra saying that their car was stuck in the parkade.  They had missed the operating hours and turns out their car was stuck there for the night. There was a brief moment where we thought we might have to send our DD to go get them, but luckily they managed to find someone who spoke Portugese and English and they called the company to come let them out.

The second evening that remains one of my favorite memories is when we were visiting Geres national park.  We were at a campsite that led right onto the riverbed and one night, we decided to have a campfire! We gathered up some twigs and driftwood and sat on the rocky shore enjoying each other's company all evening.  It was something so simple, but it was so relaxing and spontaneous.

Overall, it was a great holiday, so without further ado, I present to you a not-so-short photo/video summary of our trip to Portugal!

Summer in Photos

2 months, 23000 km, new cities, brilliant hikes, many laughs, a few tears, a boatload of memories and I still haven't written a blog post about it!

I promised it would happen, and I'm going to hold myself to it.  In the meantime though, here is a 10 photo summary of what my summer included. :)

One Year

I've been mostly absent from the blog lately, and there really is no other excuse than I've simply been living and loving life.

My parents were here for two weeks in April, which most definitely deserved its own blog post, but, alas, that did not happen.  We spent our time together catching up and showing them our life over here.  We laughed, we cried, we explored and we created new memories that I don't need to write out to remember.  Bottom line is that is was a wonderful visit and I am grateful that they made the trip over here.  Now when I talk about this or that, they have a mental image of what life over here looks like, and for me, that's one step closer to closing the feeling of distance associated with living across the world.

Yesterday, too, was a special day for us.

It was the night of the Ludovico Einaudi concert, which is the concert Sander got me tickets for for my birthday.  It was everything I expected and more.  My excitement could no longer be contained, so we headed over the the venue about 45 minutes earlier than needed.  I was vibrating with excitement and when 8:15pm finally rolled around, my heart was pounding with anticipation.  I don't think I've ever been so excited for a concert in my entire life.

Pre-concert excited selfie

I was curious if this was Ludovico's own piano or if he just plays
on the piano at the venue he is performing at

When Ludovico stepped on stage, I think my heart skipped a beat.  When the first note hit, my eyes welled up.  I kept saying I was going to bawl the entire concert, and I'm happy to report that wasn't the case, but I would be a liar if I didn't say that I teared up a bit.  I spent the better part of 3 hours completely transfixed by this musical genius. Every single song was beautiful and the acoustics were perfect.

Nothing to watch, but lot's to listen to! This was the song that originally got me hooked on
Ludovico Einaudi.  It was even better live.

Seeing Ludovico Einaudi was a dream come true, and it was the best birthday gift and the perfect way to celebrate being in the Netherlands for one year.  Yes, time flies!  One year ago, yesterday, Sander and I arrived at Schiphol with our 6 suitcases in hand and butterflies in our tummies.  It was definitely a milestone in our life together that was worth celebrating and I couldn't image a better way to do it.  

A New Personal Record

Last Sunday, I ran a 10km race.  I made a new personal record, and I kind of want to talk about it.  Deal with it.

I love running.  And if you were to ask me why, I really wouldn't be able to give you a straight answer. When you think of it, it's really not that fun.  You do the same motion over and over again, there are no rules, there are no points, and no one wins.  It's mostly a solitary sport, it's hard on the joints, and it makes you insanely hungry.  But somehow, even with all of these cons, it brings me an intense sense of satisfaction.  I think it boils down to pushing both my physical and mental limits.  Sometimes when I run, I feel strong and powerful and it motivates me to work even harder, but other times I feel weak and useless and though it sucks and is frustrating, it also pushes me to keep going.

Over the last year, I have had more of those weak and useless moments than the strong and powerful ones.  When we moved to the Netherlands last May, I immediately signed up for the Amsterdam half marathon.  That was my very first long distance race I ever ran, and I wanted to do it again not only for nostalgia, but also to see how 4 years of hard work can pay off.  Unfortunately, I didn't end up running the race due to a minor knee issue.  I needed some time off to rest and heal, and that forced me to put my goal on hold.  If there's something in this world I hate more than olives, bleu cheese and mustard, it's promising myself to do something and then not following through.  So, once my knee was feeling back to normal, I started training again and set my eye on the Utrecht half marathon.  But, as we all know, shit happens, and shortly after getting back into my training routine, I became quite ill with influenza, and again, I was forced to take the time to let myself heal.

Come January, I was back to being healthy and ready to tackle training once again.  What I didn't consider though was that over a period of 4 months, I had hardy ran at all.  My very first run of 2016 yielded the slowest pace I had seen in years and I was beyond frustrated. I actually considered just giving up on running entirely right then.  In the last year, it had brought me more disappointment than joy and I felt like it wasn't worth it anymore.  But like I said, I promised myself I would run another half marathon, and I wasn't going to give up, so I drew up a training schedule and began the hard work.

In the last couple months, my frustration has been transformed into determination and on Sunday, I finally saw the fruits of my labor as I ran the Utrecht marathon 10K event.  During the race, I felt so incredibly powerful and strong.  Whenever I wanted to give up, I just reminded myself that I didn't spend all those hours training to walk, and after 51 minutes and 4 seconds, I crossed the finish line. I had just ran the fastest 10km of my life, and though my muscles were cramping and I was so exhausted I could hardly talk,  I felt like I was on top of the world.

And that is what I love about running.  I love proving to myself that I can do these things.  I love that at the end of it all, it's a competition with myself, and that when I cross the finish line in record time I can feel a sense of accomplishment even though there were 53 other women who finished before me.  Perhaps I didn't win the race, but in a sense I did.  I won against myself and that's what inspires me to continue training for the half marathon I've been working towards.

I'll be running the 21.1 on May 22 in Leiden, and hopefully I'll have another success story to share with you!

Ludovico Einaudi

The piano is one of my favorite instruments in the whole entire world.  When I hear the piano, the music grabs at my heartstrings and tugs them in a way that doesn't make me sad, but inspired. 

I started playing piano when I was 10.  If it were up to me, I'm sure I would have started sooner, but my parents decided that, after having to fight with my sister to practice, they never wanted to do that again.  So, they made me wait, and at the magical age of 10, the 'rents decided I was mature enough to make my own decision, and I began with piano lessons. 

I started with the books made for 5 year olds, and quickly progressed into the Royal Conservatory grades. Within a couple years into my piano training, I had finally caught up with the kids my age.  I continued with lessons until the end of high school and I loved every single second of it.  I remember hugging my piano teacher, Sara, on the last day and both of us crying .  We shared a love for music and it was heart breaking to hit the end of our road together.

At the time, I thought it was the end of my musical road, period.  I was entering university, I had just started dancing with Volya, which demanded at least 2 full evenings a week,  and furthermore, I was moving into a condo and I had no piano.  It made no sense for me to continue with lessons, so I settled for playing as often as I could when I was home, but as time went on, my playing dwindled, and eventually, I stopped entirely.

It wasn't until I moved to the Netherlands in 2011 that I dusted off those old piano memories and began playing again.  It all started with the movie Intouchables.  It's a French movie about a quadriplegic and the development of his friendship with his aid worker.  After spending years working with people in wheelchairs, I could appreciate the humor and the story warmed my heart.  But what grabbed my attention instantly was the music.

In the first scene, we are introduced to the two main characters as they're speeding through Paris in a car.  But, there are no sound effects.  There is no one chasing them.  The car does not crash.  And there is no explosion.  Instead, it's piano music.  Just a lone piano, its notes chipping away to expose raw emotion. 

After watching the movie, I had to figure out who wrote the music.  I needed to hear that opening song again and again-- it was an insatiable craving.  Eventually, I found my answer: Ludovico Einaudi.  Along with that though, I had discovered a musical genius with an entire repertoire songs to learn on the piano!

My love for Ludovico's music has not diminished over the years.  I have learned a number of his songs, and have been stalking his tour dates ever since we moved to the Netherlands.  Seeing him live was promptly added to The Bucket List and I was determined to make it happen.  Needless to say, when I realized I had missed his tour announcement over the Christmas holidays, I was completely heartbroken that I had missed my opportunity.  I checked Marktplaats (Kijiji) for weeks, hoping to find tickets that someone was trying to get rid of, but had no luck and only seemed to be drawn to scams.

Well, my dream has come true: I am going to see Ludovico Einaudi LIVE.  Somehow, Sander managed to get a set of tickets, and he surprised me, giving them to me for my birthday!! I'm still in shock a week later and grinning like an idiot.

The song from the first scene of Intouchables.

Just photos

Last weekend, we ventured a bit north for a weekend away.  Sander's graduating class is quite close, and each year they plan a weekend to hang out.  It was a really fun weekend, and the best part of all was that we woke up to snow on Sunday morning!!

Such fun! The crazy snow-loving Canadian in me was so incredibly happy to wake up to white on the ground.

Anyway, other than the snow, the weekend was fantastic. It was basically a weekend to be a kid again.  We played board games for hours on end, and even had a few rounds of a game in the forest that is really similar to Capture the Flag.

And while I was looking at pictures from last weekend, I came across some fun one I snapped while on a picture adventure with Richard in November.  I really liked the different lighting captured in each.  

That's all for now! Tot volgende keer (tip: use Google translate)! 

Our House

Check out the new dining room! 

It has been a couple busy weeks over here! Last Friday, Sander and I officially took possession of our very first home.  Unfortunately, I had to write a final exam in the morning so I missed the passing of the keys.  However, Sander and his parents were kind enough to wait for me before going into the house, and Sander carried me over the threshold in true old-fashioned style. Not long after that, we started moving!  It was a short move (to the end of the street in the background and around the corner), so we were able to move the big stuff on dolly cart.

We've spent the last week unpacking odds and ends and making numerous trips to IKEA and other home stores.  It's a bit of a slow process since the amount of stuff we can buy is severely limited by how much we can carry on our bikes.  We're not always the best estimators when it comes to getting things home, not that we've ever bought a painting or a firepit that didn't fit in our car or anything.  ;)  Okay, fine, those are true stories, but we're erring on the side of caution this time and making certain we can get it home before buying it.... hence the fact we've been to IKEA and Praxis twice and Action thrice.  

However, after a weekend of hard work, I can say it is starting to feel like our home. We've spent the weekend hanging the last of our lights, putting up shelves, organizing closets and, believe it or not, relaxing!

I can't wait to get the finishing touches done.  We have a nice painting to be hung and a few ideas of other art to have in the house.  We're also going to get some nice house plants (on top of the herb garden I planted this afternoon!) and awesomeize our balconies (yes, plural). It'll be a slow transformation, but it's one that we're thoroughly enjoying right now! Who knew being a homeowner was so awesome?! ;)

Home for the Holidays

I know it has been quite some time since I've posted, but in all truthfulness, nothing too noteworthy happened throughout the month of December, and we've been quite busy since we've returned from Canada.  Before Christmas, I was insanely busy with the course I was doing at the time, which was called Innovative Tumor Therapies and was probably my favorite class I've done so far.  Lucky for me, I landed an internship with the professor of the course and, in February, I'll be starting a project about lung cancer and combination therapy.  I'm really looking forward to getting out of the classroom and into the lab!

Anyway, between Bruges and Christmas, that was the only share-worthy point.

My Christmas break started on December 18.  I had a final exam that afternoon and after, I headed out with some classmates for dinner and drinks (sadly, I bailed on the karaoke part of the evening). I don't know why we don't do that more often because it was such a great time!

The next day, I took full advantage of the lounge time and watched TV in my PJ's all morning.....and part of the afternoon.  After a really intense 4 months of school (and no long weekends), I was basking in the glory of having nothing to do.  Eventually, I realized that wasn't entirely true, and I started packing for our trip home.

We played suitcase Tetris all morning Saturday, and after shuffling stroopwafels from one bag to another, we were finally packed and ready to fly our 50lbs of Dutch food to Canada.  Just kidding.  It wasn't all food....just mostly food.

We arrived in YEG at 5:00pm on Sunday to HUGE hugs and happy tears.  There's nothing like a good hug from your parents after not seeing the for 7 months (we were all too busy hugging to bother taking a picture).

The two weeks we spent in Canada were a whirlwind, but a wonderful one. We started off our holiday by spending a few days with Carter and Cash.  I was absolutely convinced they wouldn't know who I was.  I figured they would play shy and be reluctant to give me hugs.  I couldn't have been more wrong! The second they saw me, both yelled Auntie and came barreling towards me for hugs.  It was the most heartwarming thing and a memory I'll cherish forever.  I couldn't get over how much they've grown.  They're no longer little babies, but running and talking little people!

We spent Christmas Eve at Baba's like we do every year, and it was wonderful.  Christmas Eve at Baba's is the reason I love Christmas.  In Dutch there's the the word "gezellig" and there's no literal English translation, but it exactly sums up why I love Christmas Eve at Baba's so much.  Wikipedia describes it as "belonging, time spent with loved ones or togetherness that gives a warm feeling",  It's the perfect word for the occasion! I've spent every Christmas Eve of my life at Baba's stuffing myself full of amazing Ukrainian foods, laughing with my cousins, playing cards and enjoying family, and like I said, it remains my favorite holiday.

After Christmas, Sander and I decided to take a mini vacation within our vacation and head to the mountains.  We did a day of super easy hiking and a day of snowboarding.  I forgot how much I love the Rockies.  I cannot even count how many times I've been to the mountains, and they still take my breath away.

We rang in the new year watching the Northern Lights, drinking eggnog, playing cards and visiting.  It was a great start to 2016, and I'm happy to report I started the year without a hangover for once! ;)  The last few days of our holiday were spent hanging out at the lake.  I tinkered on the piano for a bit, we had a campfire, we played suitcase Tetris again and before we knew it, it was time to fly back to Holland and return to the daily grind. 

Being back to the daily grind is kind of nice.  As amazing as holidays are, it's always nice to return to a routine.  I've started a new course for the month of January (Biostatistics) which is keeping my plenty busy.  We're also back to our gym routine, working off those extra pounds from Christmas, and we've started packing for our move at the end of the month.  Yes, we're moving again, but it's something that deserves it's own post! So for now, here's a sweet pic I snapped near Sander's parents' house.