I was in Kitchener/Waterloo for campus recruitment at the University of Waterloo and a career fair at Rim Park in Waterloo. Since the career fair was in town, the hotels in Kitchener and Waterloo were full and the Walper Terrace Hotel was the only one available. The hotel is praised on its website for being a quaint place to stay. That should have been a red flag in my mind right away. When I checked into my room, the word quaint became associated with small, dirty, lacking amenities (i.e. a pool or gym), having a poor view from the window, a hard and uncomfortable bed, a small bathroom. I could go on and on about what was missing. As I mentioned, there is no pool or gym, but you are given a complimentary pass to a Goodlife Fitness Gym. This gym is a two-block walk from the hotel. I can't imagine having to walk there in the winter. It would have been nice to have an on site gym and pool. When I look for hotels in the future, this will be the deciding point for me from now on. I must say that the staff was very courteous and they made up for some of the shortcomings of this hotel. I would not recommend this hotel because there are better priced/equipped hotels in the area. It just happened that they were full at the time I made my booking.

after a good sleep and with some jetlag we woke up around 6am. after dirk woke up we went out and had a great breakfast at "Benny's". then he showed us around in kitchener and we drove to St. Jacobs. it is known for his big mennonite community. man, this was like being back in the late 19th. couldn't believe that there are places like this in the year 2006! i found it quite amazing. unfortunatly the touristinformation was closed. would love to get more information about the little village.

after that we drove to Laurel Creek Reservoir and it looked like winterwonderland. the temperatur felt like - 30°C but it was only about -20°C. we had such a great time and the weather was great, too ;).

driving back to Kitchener we drove through "Heidelberg" and "Cambridge" and had little shopping stop at a mall.

at 8 pm we had dinner at "Morty's". a good place to eat and watch the winter olympics ;).

after a cold night we checked out around 9am (the staff was very friendly, we could leave our lagguage in a special room and the car on the parkin lot) and took the people mover to visit General Motors and the baseballstadium (home of the lions) . it was ok, but all of us 3 felt not very comfortable because there was no one around (even only a few cars drove by). seemed that we were the only tourist in detroit. strange...

being disappointed from detroit we drove back to kitchener. crossing the american/canadian border took us about 10 seconds ;). not to compare with crossing the boarder the other way the day before. on our way home we stopped at a chicken fastfood restaurant and val found sth in her chickenburger (seemed that this thing belonged to a wing).

back in kitchener we spent the rest of the day on wilfried laurier university campus and in the bookstore, preparing dinner, talking and having a few beers.

Easy border crossing with our passports.  Toured the Roadtrek plant.  Enjoyed that beyond words..feel very secure in just how well they are made.