Adventures in the Canadian wilderness
27.5-5.6.2017
We had an awesome last trip with the exchange students hiking in the Rocky Mountains!
Our trip started on Saturday 27th in Camrose where we all met at the Augustana University Campus. Our chaperones Katelynn, Catlen and Joe were outdoor education students from the campus. We also had rotex Hugh and professional photographer Joel with us.
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| Excited students ready to hike! |
Mine and Michelle's (from Italy) trip to Alberta started two days earlier because we drove down to Edmonton (600km!) on Thursday. We stayed at one of the exchange students, Pommellien's host family and they were super friendly to us. We also got to go to an ukulele group and sing with Rotarians. On Friday we went to West Edmonton Mall, the biggest mall in North America and spent the afternoon in the waterpark at the mall. It was super fun and there was wave machines and crazy slides!
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Michelle (Italy), Kevin (Taiwan), Jean (France), me and Lauty (Argentina) at the Waterpark. |
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Jamming with Lauty's host parents Ross's and Brenda's ukulele group on Thursday night
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After arriving to the university we packed our backpacks, ate and went for a walk in Camrose. We weren't allowed to take any electricity or watches with us to the trip except cameras. It was really relaxing not to worry about what time it was or what was going on in the social media for 9 days. Next morning we loaded a bus and drove three hours to Kootney Plains. The views on the way were amazing: turquoise water, mountains and forests and the weather was beautiful!
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| Group picture with all the exchange students and the old youth committee members Liz and Cynthia! |
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| Our international family! |
We set up our tents and settled down. We spent three days camping, repelling, rock climbing and doing day hikes in the area. In the evenings we gathered around the fire to sing songs and play different games. It was really neat not to know what time it was, so we followed the sun to know when it was time to go to bed or wake up.
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| Ready to repell! |
On our fourth day we packed our tents and bags and started hiking. The views were beautiful but walking with the heavy bag pack in changing elevation was sometimes hard. We cheered each other and kept the positivity up by singing and chatting.
"Hiking is a bit like life:
The journey only requires to put one foot in front of the other...again and again and again.And if you allow yourself opportunity to be present throughout the entirely of the trek,
you will witness beauty every step of the way, not just at the summit."
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| Morning yoga in beautiful landscapes. |
Michelle from Italy, Hugh who went on exchange to Austria in 2013-14, me, Lauty from Argentina and Tati from Brazil.
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| Day hike to waterfalls. |
Those four days of hiking really gave me the real experience of what is it living in the wildlife. We filtered water from the river, used the forest as our bathroom and didn't shower the whole time.
Might sound little bit rough but it was AWESOME! Also our great chaperones prepared delicious
meals for us every day.
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| Gregor and Gustavo exploring Canadian forests |
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| Surprise kisses! |
After 9 days spent in the woods we drove the bus back to Camrose and finally got to shower and wear clean clothes - the feeling after shower was amazing! We also signed each others flags and journals, ate pizza and enjoyed the last night together.
Next day we went to Rotary's lunch meeting in Camrose and told Rotarians about our trip. We also had to say goodbye to each other which was really hard because the whole group had became really close during the year and that was the last time seeing all of us together.
It is such a blessing to have family from all over the world and I'm so thankful that I have became friends with such an amazing group of people. Keep your couches empty, I'll come to visit as soon as I can ;)
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| Hugh and me |
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| Picture with all the exchange students and chaperones |
Thank you for everybody who made this trip possible and such an amazing experience that I will never forget!
xoxo Roosa
PS. More pictures of the trip coming soon!
