Tag Archives: Winter

Spring Break in the Mountains

Posted on by
Reply

Hey all!

Mont-Tremblant, Quebec, Canada

Mont-Tremblant, Quebec, Canada

For the second part of Spring Break, my family and I went to ski for a few days in Mont-Tremblant, which is just a bit over 80 miles north-west of Montreal. I believe it was time to something else in the snow after shovelling snow for a few days due to Winter Storm Stella. I had already been to this skiing resort when I was younger.

I think it is my favorite mountain on the East side of North America. It is not comparable to the height of the Canadian Rockies or Colorado in the West, but it is a great mountain. The village is awesome and you have the feeling of being in Vail or Whistler.

Beautiful sunset over the Mont-Tremblant village just after our arrival at the hotel.

Beautiful sunset over the Mont-Tremblant village just after our arrival to the hotel.

The village has all sorts of restaurants, coffee shops, hotels, boutiques and ski equipment stores. While we were there, it was also Spring Break for many high schools and universities in Ontario. I felt like I was in the United States since I was only listening to people talking in English.

The village during day time.

The village during daytime.

IMG_3880

The village at the bottom of the slopes becomes lively in the afternoon.

The Fairmont Tremblant is right by the slopes and is "ski-in ski-out."

The Fairmont Tremblant is right by the slopes and is “ski-in ski-out.”

Even though Mont-Tremblant is mostly a winter seasonal destination, I heard many tourists come visit in the summer. There are many activities to do in the warmer months of the year such as golf, mountain biking, wall climbing and hiking. The is also a lake where you can  fish, go canoeing and kayaking. I have not been in the summer but I hope to do so next summer!

If you want to visit Mont-Tremblant, you can either fly to Montreal (YUL) and drive to the resort, or you can fly directly to YTM seasonally via Montreal, Toronto-Pearson (YYZ) or Toronto City (YTZ).

Until next time!

Nicolas

Spring Break with my Friend Stella

Posted on by
Reply

Hi all!

As I mentioned in my last post, the northeast of Canada and the United States received a lot of snow at the beginning of last week. Winter Storm Stella cancelled and delayed thousands of flights while airlines and airports were working on reestablishing operations. I spent the first part of the week home, in Montreal.

The winter storm arrived on Tuesday but snow continued to fall until Wednesday. I basically shoveled snow for three days in a row. On Tuesday afternoon, my mom and I tried to take the car to go buy salt at the store. We wanted to melt the snow in the driveway which is in a hill. It never happened since we didn’t even pass the first stop sign on our street. The car got stuck in the street that was covered with snow. After a few minutes, we just decided to go back home as the streets downtown would be slippery and narrow due to the snow. The snow on our street eventually got removed a few days later.

IMG_0940

The snow plow truck pushed the snow on the sides of the streets making walls of heavy snow. The snow blocked the sidewalks and the entrance to my house.

IMG_0941

We weren’t able to even pass the stop sign with the car because the ice and snow between the car’s tires and the asphalt was making the car slip to the right of the street in the snow walls.

IMG_0942

Snow piles make the streets in the city very narrow.

I remember when I was a kid that I always loved snow storms. I’m sure you have an idea why? Because schools sometimes closed due to the snow fall! But that rarely happened as school only cancelled once or twice per year. In Canada compared to some parts in the United States, it has to snow a lot to make classes cancelled for the day. A few inches of snow won’t make you stay home for sure!

And you, what did you do for spring break? Did you go skiing or did you enjoy the beach and the sun in the south? In my next post, I’ll talk about what I did for the rest of the week. Hint: it involves a mountain!

Nicolas

Winter Storm Stella – Travel Tips

Posted on by
Reply

As some you know, Winter Storm Stella has made its way to the northeast of the United States and Canada. It is the worst snow storm of the season and some areas got up to three feet of snow! The worst of the blizzard came yesterday but it is still snowing here where I am in Montreal, Canada. According to FlightAware, close to 6,500 flights were cancelled by U.S. airlines yesterday. Today (Wednesday), flight operations are getting back to normal slowly but there are still 1,000 cancellations and more than 3,000 flights delayed.

Checkout the video above and learn how airports remove snow on taxiways, runways and other movement areas!

Thousands of airport and airline employees are working very hard and doing their best in order to get passengers safely and as quickly as possible to their final destination. If you are flying in the next few days, look at your flight status before heading to the airport. Your flight(s) might have been delayed or cancelled.

If you flight is delayed or cancelled, stay calm and be patient. Do not be angry at the airport customer service employees. Airlines and are not responsible for weather related delays. The employees are just trying to help passengers to get to their destination. I doubt that they will be willing to help you more if you shout at them!

Airlines are receiving more calls than usual during this period so the wait time will be very long. Your best bet might be to try to contact the airline via social media, such as Twitter. They might be able to assist you. Once your flight has been cancelled, some airlines have a system that automatically rebooks you to the next available flight.

If you don’t have to go anywhere, just stay home and stay away from streets as some of them are still covered with ice and snow.

Until next time!

Nicolas

First Trip of the Year

Posted on by
Reply

I started off my first day of the year by travelling to London-Heathrow for a family week vacation in United Kingdom’s largest city. I think the winter season is a good time to travel to Europe because there a lot less tourists than during the busy summer season. Streets are less crowded and the wait time to do some activities is reduced. The temperature during winter varies between 0oC (32 F) and 10oC (50 F). We were lucky to get a few sunny days during our stay.

Below is my Top 5 of the things I love to do or see in London.

London Eye

The London Eye is one of my favorite attractions in London. The 135 metres (443 ft.) high Ferris wheel was completed in 2000. It was first sponsored by British Airways for many years, but now Coca-Cola took over the branding.

The London Eye

The London Eye

From the cabin, you can see most of the city from above. You can see the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Bridge, Big Ben and the Shard just to name a few. One wheel rotation takes 30 minutes so you will have plenty of time to take pictures and enjoy the view.

If you would like to experience London with a 360 degrees view, regular adult tickets sell for £23 (US$29). When it is crowded and there are long queues, you can purchase a Fast Track Ticket for £32 (US$40).

Tower of London

img_3505 img_3528

The Food

You will eat well when traveling to the capital city of England and the United Kingdom. London is a multicultural city with people speaking over 300 different languages. You can basically find a variety of food from all around the globe. I love the food in London!

Poached Scottish salmon with fennel, grapefruit and dill pickled cucumber.

Poached Scottish salmon with fennel, grapefruit and dill pickled cucumber (Starter)

img_0187

Braised jowl of Tamworth pork with bacon marmalade, cider pickled cabbage and apple (Main course)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Harrods

Harrods is a luxury department store with more than 330 departments. There, you can find  almost everything such as restaurants and a bunch of stores. I visited twice in a week!

2c6a718700000578-0-image-a-6_1442507398217

Big Ben

Big Ben, also known as the Elizabeth Tower, is the famous clock in London!

img_3440

I hope 2017 brings you to new exciting places!

Nicolas

Holidays Travel Tips

Posted on by
Reply

Here are a few travel tips as we go through this holiday season:

Before The Trip
Pack light: You should only bring the necessary stuff you need for your trip. If you are allowed a free checked-bag on your airline, use it instead of bringing a carry-on. This will accelerate the boarding process and reduce delays at the gate.

Carry-on: You should pack your travel documents, medication, car keys and spare lithium batteries in your carry-on or in a bag as your personal item. If you are bringing liquids, they should be 100g/100ml (3.4 oz.) or less. Make sure your carry-on luggage has the right dimensions and weight depending on your airline. Many air carriers are strict about this and will make you check your bag if it’s too large.

Bringing gifts?: If you are carrying gifts onboard the aircraft, you should keep them unwrapped until you go through security. It’s just easier for the security officers if they have to inspect your gifts.

Flying international?: If you are flying out of the country, make sure you have all the documents you need to enter the foreign country such as passport and visas. Ensure your passport is valid and is not expired prior to your trip.

24 Hours Before The Flight
Check-in: One day prior to your flight, you can check-in on your airline’s website or on their mobile app.

Flight status: Enable your notifications on your smart phone so you can know the status of your flight. If it is delayed or cancelled, you will know before heading to the airport for nothing. Winter weather delays can be expected even if you are not flying to/from the north as your inbound plane and the crew might be coming from Minneapolis for example.

At The Airport
Arrive early: If you are flying early in the morning or out of a major hub, definitely arrive early before your flight. There are a lot of people at the airport checking-in for their flights, dropping their bags and going through the security check point, which means longer wait times. Early for me means between 2 hours and 3 hours before departure.

Security checkpoint: To expedite security, I would recommend that you put your phone and wallet in your bag or your carry-on. You’ll have less loose items in the bins that you can lose. If you have a laptop, put it in a separate bin. Keep your boarding pass and ID with you as you go through screening. If “TSA Pre” is written on your boarding pass, just put everything in your bag and go through the walk through detector with your shoes and belt.

Boarding the Aircraft
Boarding time: Only go closer to the boarding area when your boarding zone is called so you won’t block any passengers in line that are boarding an earlier zone than you. To increase the odds your flight leaves on-time, only board when it’s your turn. I was boarding a flight earlier this week and a passenger tried to board during  Zone 1 while he was Zone 5…

Onboard: If you have a carry-on, store it with handle out or wheels out to make space for everyone on board. If you have a winter jacket, don’t put it next to your carry-on. Squeeze it on top of your carry-on or put it under the seat in front of you with your personal item.

Comment below if you have other good #traveltips to give to our readers!

Happy and safe travels!

Nicolas

A Quick Winter Vacation Update

Posted on by
Reply

Happy New Year Folks!

Here is a quick update on my winter break. After the Christmas celebrations, my family and I flew to South Florida. My parents rented a condo in the Palm Beach area until March. We spent about a week there and I felt like home since Daytona Beach is only 190 miles up north.

During my stay in Florida, I went to the BB&T in Sunrise to watch the hockey game between the Montreal Canadiens and the Florida Panthers. This classic matchup happens annually before the end of the year.

This game is very special for both teams. This game happens at the end of the year because there are many Eastern Canadian hockey fans that fly to South Florida to enjoy the warm weather. The arena is usually filled up when the Canadiens are in town. However, the attendance is of only about 50% on average during other regular season games.

During the National Anthem before puck drop, there were more fans singing the “Oh Canada” than the US Anthem! The Canadian National Anthem was even sang in French. I would actually say there are more Canadiens fans in the stands than the local team. There are a lot of noise and cheers when the Canadiens score a goal. Way more than the Panthers!

We ended up losing the game, but it was still fun to be there!

A few days before New Year’s Eve, some of our Texan friends came to visit us for a few days in Florida. I haven’t seen the family for the past year in a half. The last time I saw them before I moved back to Montreal, after I graduated college in San Antonio. It was great to spend some time with them even though it was only for a few days. We played golf and celebrated the beginning of 2016 with them!

One night, we all ate dinner at “Chez L’Épicier,” a French Canadian restaurant owned by a reputed chef. Even some of the waiters spoke French! Below is a picture of one of the dessert they have on their menu. It is called “The Club Sandwich.” Carved pieces of cake replace the sandwich, fried pieces of pineapple act as the fries, and shredded honeydew melon plays the role of the coleslaw. It was delicious!

The Club Sandwich

The Club Sandwich

I’m currently writing this story at 33,000 feet above sea level on my way to Canada. I will spend the end of the week up north before returning to Daytona. I plan to see my friends and go ski in the cold weather!

Until next time!

Nicolas

Winter Break

Posted on by
Reply

It’s almost time for the Spring 2016 semester to begin which means that the end of Winter Break is near. It has been nice to be off for a few weeks, but I am looking forward to classes beginning.

After my last final on Wednesday, December 9, I worked the rest of the week in Career Services which was actually a lot of fun as I was able to help out a lot with all of the internship paperwork. Plus, it is a unique experience being on campus when most of the students are away, and even the squirrels disappear. Although, I couldn’t wait to go home that Saturday, but unfortunately, some weather impacted my flight which caused me to have to stay until Sunday morning.

With my extra afternoon in Daytona Beach, I wanted to make the most of it. I hopped in my car and drove out to Ponce Inlet and visited the Light House. It was a nice sunny and warm afternoon, and I was treated to some spectacular views. I am glad that I had some extra time in Daytona Beach as who knows when I would have made it out to the light house or explored Ponce Inlet.

12376424_797093680416921_387950547295556986_n

Finally, Sunday morning came around, and I was able to fly back home. There, I spent about a week running errands and hanging out with my friends, but then it was back to South Florida for a week for a family vacation.

10606013_803620133097609_5787281226699126932_n

 

After returning home, I enjoyed about a week-and-a-half at home, spending most of it with friends, but then in what seemed like a blink of an eye, I was boarding my flight to return back to Daytona Beach.

12507193_809428839183405_4791773568502331801_n

I hope everybody had a very Happy Holidays and has a great 2016! Stay tuned!

It’s a Wrap!

Posted on by
Reply

The 2015 Fall semester has just ended! After a stressful week and a half of studying and testing, you can now relax for more than a month until school starts again in mid-January! If you did not know, ERAU has added an extra week of break this year compared to the previous years.

My last final was on Tuesday and it had a speech. As I mentioned in a post in October, Speech is definitely not my easiest and favorite class since I am shy and dislike public speaking. My last final consisted of an impromptu speech. The professor makes you pick a few topics from a bag. You decide which topic you want to talk about and you have three minutes to prepare to present in front of the class. Trust me, it goes by very fast. The subject I selected was for communities to be more bicycles friendly. Can we find peace? I just had the time to write the few key points I wanted to talk about that it was already my turn to get up to the podium. About half way through my speech, I ran out of ideas and paused for about 25 seconds without knowing what to say. Then my professor suggested me that I could just sum up my speech. I felt so bad about my speech when I back to my seat. I got my grade a few days later and I did not do bad at all to my surprise! I was happy about it.

I was lucky to get to spend the rest of the week in warm Florida before heading back home in the cold for most of the break. Hey there is no snow yet at least! I will spend some time during Christmas Eve and Christmas to see my extended family, which I do not see often. A few days later, my family and I will board a plane bound to the Sunshine State to spend a week and a half in the West Palm Beach area. We rented a condo until March! I will definitely head there some time with my friends next semester. Just before the New Year, there is always a hockey game between the Montreal Canadiens and the Florida Panthers in Sunrise, FL. We bought ticket to watch the game. It is interesting to see that there are more fans cheering for Montreal than the local team. That is because many Canadians travel to Southern Florida to escape the cold winter.

After New Year, I have decided that I will go back to Canada for a few days since we will still have two weeks of vacation before school starts. When I come back to Daytona before classes start, I might go visit the Carolina Aviation Museum with my friend Jack. The Airbus A320 that safely landed in the Hudson River in January 2009 sits at the museum. Can’t wait to see it!

Sunset from above on my flight from Fort Lauderdale to Atlanta.

Sunset from above on my flight from Fort Lauderdale to Atlanta.

Well I’m about to board my next flight to Montreal. Now, I would like you to sit back, relax, and enjoy this month of deserved vacation. Come back well rested to Daytona Beach in January and be ready to start the next semester!

Until next time!

Nicolas

Autumn Break – Part 2

Posted on by
Reply

As I stated in Part 1, I spent Fall Break home in Canada. The first thing that comes to my mind when I think of fall are the tree leaves changing colors. I spent many hours outside raking leaves on the grass and walking my dog even though it was very cold outside. To my surprise, it snowed a few times during my stay!

King George Park - Westmount, QC

King George Park – Westmount, QC

First snow of the fall and it's only in mid-October!

First snow of the fall and it was only  mid-October!

For the first day of my break, I went to my friend’s house to watch the first home hockey game of the Montreal Canadiens. In Daytona Beach, I don’t have many friends who are big fans of hockey, so it was great to watch a hockey game with friends back home. It is even better when your team wins! We won the game 3-0 that night for a streak of five wins. The last time the Canadiens won five straight wins at the beginning of the season was in 1977.

The next day, we celebrated my Dad’s aunt’s birthday. She turned 90 years old so it was a big event. More than 20 of my extended family members came to our house for dinner. There were people present that I haven’t seen in over 10 years, so it was great to catch up with everyone.

On Saturday, I attended the Montreal Canadiens against the Detroit Redwings at the Bell Centre in Montreal. It was my first time going this season. I am excited every time I go because I love the atmosphere over there. The fans are the best in the league and we have the largest arena in terms of seat capacity. We ended up winning the game 4-1, which improved the team’s record to six consecutive wins (as of today we have 9 straight wins!).

Face-off after the Montreal Canadiens scored their second of the game in the third period.

Face-off after the Montreal Canadiens scored their second of the game in the third period.

The weekend of the break marked the median of the fall semester, but it also marked the end of another legacy airline. On Saturday, October 17, 2015, the last branded US Airways flight landed at Philadelphia International Airport. Click here if you are interested on the full report of flight US1939. From now on, all future flights will be branded as American Airlines. For those who did not know, US Airways merged with American Airlines in December 2013 to form the largest air carrier in the world. As time goes, we will no longer see the US Airways livery as the airplanes are being repainted in the new American livery.

AmericanUSAirScreen
IMG_6346

After I landed in Montreal, I made a detour to the departure levels and took a picture of one of the US Airways check-in kiosk. When check-in at the airport on my way back to Florida, the US Airways brand had already disappeared!

This wraps up my Fall Break. Next weekend, I will be heading to a destination in the Northeast of the United States. Check back in a week to see which destination it is!

Nicolas

 

 

 

Welcome to 2014!

Posted on by
Reply

Hello again, dear readers!

I hope you all had a great holiday. I will be blogging about my shenanigans throughout spring semester, so tune in here for that! Shall we begin?

Two days down of the “semester of death” (named so by previous generations of Engineering Physics students), although most of the classes sound less intimidating than their reputations. This semester I’m taking 15 credits, consisting of the following… My first course Monday morning is called Electro-optical Engineering, which is basically just a whole semester of optics (i.e. designing telescopes and such so that we can look at neat things in space, or really really small things.) After a three hour break, which I’ll probably spend working in my lab doing SCIENCE, my last course of the MWF day is Classical Mechanics, which I call “physics I for grown-ups.” Essentially you take all the mechanics from physics I and do the problem in the real-world rather than making assumptions, such as that a falling box is not just a single point with no air resistance, or calculating the air speed velocity of a swallow without assuming a spherical swallow in a vacuum.

Why does my EP 391 book have a lion on it? What’s electrical about a lion? Textbook covers are so random.

Tuesday/Thursday is my longer day, starting bright and early at 9:45 am (early for me) with Spacecraft Systems Engineering. This course is about every single different system of a spacecraft, such as the cooling system, power system, optics system, etc. The professor told us that we will basically be learning a new system every week, resulting in net learning of like a bajillion things – in fact I already have four pages of notes just from the first day! (Disclaimer: In college, you usually don’t get a free “get the syllabus and learn everybody’s name” day.) Next up is my junior design class, which preps us for working on our final senior design projects that will take all of next year. Those tend to be like developing a numerical model or building a small satellite or something super cool along those lines – looking forward to it! Last, but almost definitely not least, I have Microcomputers and Electronic Instrumentation, which is more circuits and electrical engineering. Most of the class is a lab where we will be building some crazy electronics.

The coolest thing about this semester is that the new building is up and running… mostly. I know my lab currently lacks a desk, and a few of my classrooms got temporarily moved because the room is missing a wall… but I’m sure everything will be sorted out soon! I spent a good chunk of time yesterday wheeling a cart of very expensive computers over from the Lehman Building – good news is I didn’t break any of them! Once all of the moving and settling in is done, I will pretty much be spending all of my time on campus in that building – every single one of my classes plus my job. I wish they’d put a cafeteria in the first floor so I wouldn’t have to leave. The building is pretty fancy schmancy though; I should’ve taken some pictures but I didn’t get around to it – sorry!

-20F with -44F windchill. And this wasn’t even the worst of it. I was certainly happy to be sitting here in Daytona that day 😛

My winter break was pretty great. I spent about 10 days back home in good ol’ Minnesota – and managed to avoid the worst of the winter weather! It got down to about -50 wind-chilll on Monday; the entire state was pretty much shut down due to the fact that you will get frostbite in 5 minutes at that temperature. Uffda. And here in Florida it was actually below zero at night, and in the high-30s/low-40s the next day – I was sitting at the mall and I heard a woman say “it’s so cold out there, it’s unbelievable.” And I’m sitting there in a t-shirt because I had just spent almost two weeks in single-degree daytime temperatures. I guess it’s all relative. Nonetheless those single-degree temperatures didn’t agree with my new-found Floridian-ism, and I arrived back home with a 102 degree fever and a nasty cough. Probably not the greatest moment of my winter break.

Our new doggie Helen 🙂

Highlights of my winter break include seeing The Phantom of the Opera live in downtown Minneapolis, which was amazing! Live theater is always so great, it’s too bad it’s not a big part of our society anymore. We also got a new fur baby! She is a three-year-old rescue doggie named Helen, and is thought to be a mix of hound and terrier. She’s the sweetest doggie ever, loves to be around people and is super well-behaved. Everybody in the family has fallen in love. I’m definitely her favorite – my mom says she was whining and kept wanting to go in my room after I left. Awww.

I wanted to take her to Florida with me but the rest of my family just wouldn’t have it. I’m sure she would’ve liked it better here though because she can’t stand the cold!

 

Cooking! If I ever make smoothies and they somewhat taste like curry, this will be why.

Other winter break events included sleeping 20 hours a day, playing some Pokemon and Zelda on my 3DS, and basically just doing nothing and loving it. School is hard – it’s nice to have some time to chill and do literally nothing for a whole day. One thing I did do was attempt to make some Indian food from scratch – like actually start from spices, veggies, and water, not just cut up some chicken and add it to a jar of sauce. It actually turned out pretty good, although the spices were a bit off. I’m going to try again this weekend. That is like my crowning culinary achievement though, because usually my idea of cooking is Shake ‘n’ Bake. This took three hours, which included bawling my eyes out chopping onions, measuring a ton of different spices (and forgetting the difference between TSP and TBSP), and blending everything together into a curry in my fancy new blender. It was 11:30 PM by the time we ate – just in time for the new year!

That’s about it for my Spring semester update. This should be an eventful semester, so check back every couple weeks to read all about it! Also, my birthday is in less than a month, and I expect a present from each and every one of you.

And as always – my metaphorical email door is always open! schroel2@my.erau.edu

-Lynsey

P.S. More new doggie pictures…