After a few weeks of studies I’ve began to see what the courses are like. This semester I’m taking three art courses; one in digital arts, one in digital photography and one in art history, along with a basic astronomy course. The art courses are pretty far away from those technical courses I’m used to and they aren’t really as I expected. I expected the photography and digital arts courses to teach different techniques to capture great pictures and process images to be more aesthetical appealing. But they are much more art-focused, and it’s mainly conceptual art where the concept, meaning and the progress of the work is much more important than the beauty and aesthetics of the actual result. At first it felt very strange and unfamiliar but now I begin to learn the mindset. I see it as a valuable experience to see this completely different part of the educational world.

About two weeks ago I joined a group of other exchange students for a trip to Lighthouse Park. It’s located at the coast just north of Vancouver. The park is a host for the only untouched rainforest in the area. The preserved forest and the wild cliffs along the shoreline make the park well worth a visit. At the trip I got to know Patrick Flaherty who also had an interest in biking and we decided to try out Whistler Bike Park the following weekend.

Last Sunday morning we were on our way to Whistler, after only 3 hours of sleep (due to a last minute homework assignment) I was driving this automatic rental car trying to find our way out of Vancouver. I’ve never driven automatic before but it’s got to be made for lazy people. You don’t have to do anything other than hitting the gas and break, although I accidently did some violent breaking trying to hit the clutch a couple of times. After a 90 minute car ride we arrived to this legendary mecca for outdoor activities. The weather was perfect, not a cloud on the sky and a temperature at around 20 degrees. To get most out of the day Patrick and I rushed to the bike rental, leaving Gabrielle and Shupeng (who shared the car with us) to their hiking. There were quite a lot of people this day and the line to the chair lifts were long, but since the lift took us far up the mountain we didn’t need to spend a lot of time queuing.

After a week full of events I want to start with sharing some first impressions. In general here at UBC people are very friendly, almost too friendly, but once you get used to it it’s only positive. The weather has been outstanding, not a day without sunshine and blue sky, however, the temperature is constantly dropping and you can feel that fall is coming. The first day of introduction involved activities which seemed to be meant for first-year students. All were exchange students with at least one year of studies behind so it felt a bit childish. It’s apparent that all exchange students aim to meet new people which make it easy to get to know each other. The week has been full of interesting exchanges of cultural and political differences with students from all over the world.

This Saturday we climbed Grouse Mountain, said to be a must do for everyone in Vancouver. To be honest it was a bit of a disappointment, maybe I had wrong expectations. Everything was very prepared; the complete trail up was a man-built stair and when you reached the top you had to take the skyride down, hiking down was prohibited. It was very crowded, the great weather conditions and the fact that it was Saturday attracted the Vancouver residents. Although it was a one way route you almost got pushed out of the way by those in a hurry. The complete path was covered by forest and when you reached the top you were still below the tree line and the scenery was limited. Up at the top there were arranged events such as a lumberjack show and a bird show along with bears in enclosure. You never got the feeling of being out in the wilderness. Anyway it was still a spectacular view and on the whole it was a great trip.

Would I recommend it to others? Taking the skyride to the top to enjoy the view and a bird show, sure! But making the climb? In my opinion it wasn’t worth the effort, and the trail lacked in variation, if you’ve seen the first 50 meters you’ve seen it all.

I’ve been in Vancouver for a few days now and since I applied for early arrival the campus has been quiet empty. So far I’m alone at my student apartment and I’ve been spending my time on settling down and make the last changes to this website. The campus is under construction and there are fences and working machines everywhere.

Yesterday I went down to Wreck Beach. It’s a nudist beach, and since I’m not a dedicated sign reader I found that out the hard way wondering why every second person had forgotten their clothes. I wasn’t the only one with pants on so I decided to stay anyway even though it felt a bit uncomfortable at first. The community at the beach reminded me of the Australian chill and relaxed state of mind, and there was a large variation in age and gender among the visitors. Vendors were walking around naked selling ice-cold beer or margaritas while volunteers were picking up the empty beer cans to maintain the reputation of sustainability. It’s a feeling of lawlessness. Not in the criminal and unsecure kind of way, but in the hippie kind of way. All along the shore there were huge logs, escaped from the logging industry and stranded on the beach.

When I later returned to the beach to take some photos of the sunset I met a well-bearded man named Jacob and his companion who were convinced that the Mohawks defeated the Vikings back in the days. They seemed quite happy with life so I didn’t bother to tell them otherwise. I did promise to send them some photos though and not surprisingly he used marleyreggaesunslash@… as e-mail address. When we went our separate ways, as a suspicious European, I went through my pockets to make sure that everything was still there, which it was.

Tomorrow is the day of arrival for most of the students and I’m thrilled to meet my new residents and study mates.

I’ve never been as nervous waiting for a decision as I was the weeks before I got the acceptance to UBC. I wanted to go to Canada so badly and spending a year in Vancouver as an exchange student was a great opportunity. Ever since I got hooked on skiing getting to Canada and ski the BC mountains has been a dream.

After three years of engineering studies in Uppsala I felt pretty tired of school and that a break would be suitable. Therefor I applied for the exchange programme at the university. It was perfect since it opens up to get abroad and I can take any courses of my choice. When I discovered that they had some spots to apply for in Vancouver I decided to go for it. I put a lot of effort into the application and ended up quite happy with the result before I submitted it. A couple of weeks before the notification date I recieved an e-mail which stated that there was a new record in number of applicants to North America and UBC was particularly popular. That news lowered my expectations but I still had my hopes up.

The day of announcement was a pretty good day, I didn’t only got accepted for a year in Canada, I also got the results of past exam with a score of 42/40 (two bonus points were given for completing additional tasks during the course). That night I slept pretty good, dreaming…