At around 8 p.m., we arrived in Kelowna on the Greyhound bus—and it was still hot, around 26°C, which felt completely unfamiliar after a day at around freezing.

Fortunately, a New Zealand guy on the bus was also going to Kelowna, so we were able to share a taxi, as the bus station is (as usual) quite far outside the city center.
Then we quickly checked into the SameSun, showered, ate a snack (snubbing an Australian in the process – just because I didn’t understand him and thought he was Irish… oops 😉 ) and fell into bed, exhausted.

The next morning at breakfast, I was ambushed by Tracy, from Michigan (or Minnesota??), whom I had already met in Banff. She is writing her thesis in Toronto and is currently on vacation. She wanted to persuade me to go on a brewery tour with her—I must be the only German who isn’t really interested 😉
Instead, I preferred to have Luigi pick me up and take me by shuttle service to my new home, the Kelowna International Hostel (KIH). The KIH is so far the only hostel that offers shuttles of any kind, whereas in New Zealand it was actually relatively normal…well, different countries, different customs….

At first, I didn’t feel particularly comfortable at the International Hostel because everyone seemed to know each other and everyone wanted to be cooler than the next person – it reminded me of my school days 😉 So after checking in, I headed straight for the beach, which was conveniently only two blocks away from the hostel and became my second home for the coming week. From the beach, I walked past many other smaller beaches towards the city center, to the city park, the large holiday resort, and on to Waterfront Park, where I parked myself nicely in the shade with my towel. For lunch, I had a delicious burger on the beach and an overpriced (and not even particularly tasty) scoop of strawberry ice cream for $4.

On the way back, I stopped by the Japanese Garden, enjoyed the tranquility in the middle of the city, and watched the koi fish gasping for air or insects 🙂

The next day, I rented a bike from the bike rental shop around the corner (about a 15-minute walk) and set off for my mission „Knox Mountain“. The ride to the park entrance was no problem, even though it was already quite warm. As always at the foot of a mountain, there was work to be done: pedaling uphill…. I was able to use the road to get to the first parking lot and viewpoint, then I switched to a trail (once again in bear country), but it seemed to be designed more for going down than up, so after 10 minutes I rode back the way I came. The next attempt wasn’t really successful either, so after a snack break at Bob’s Grave (whatever that is, because I didn’t see a grave anywhere near), I made my way back.

And as I was leisurely cycling along the lake, I heard a familiar voice, obviously speaking German on a public phone.
I turned around and my tired eyes saw Anja, with whom I had suffered in a cramped, stuffy room in Banff. Yippee, it’s a small world—and that’s a good thing.
While Anja was still finishing her phone call to Germany, I made my important hair tie purchases at the nearby drugstore and then met Anja again in the park, where we relaxed until she had to catch the bus back to the fruit-picking farm where she was currently working.

Since renting the bike for 24 hours only cost $10 more than if I had returned it in the evening, I spontaneously decided to attend a baseball game of the top-class Kelowna Falcons.
What I remember most is not so much the score as the fun games that a highly motivated young lady played with the children of the stadium visitors between innings (e.g., racing against each other from base to base or rolling a car tire from A to B). In the end, Kelowna won or lost by a narrow margin, and with my fast race bike, which may not be able to climb the hill but is lightning fast through the dark streets of Kelowna, I was back at the hostel just 10 minutes later. Awesome! 🙂

The next absolute highlight came the following day:
Since the International Hostel was fully booked, I had to move back to SameSun for a day, which worked out quite well because Jan, whom I had met in Calgary with the two Namibians, also arrived in Kelowna that day. So I checked into SameSun and then took a short tour of the city with Jan.
When I checked in, I found out that Elton John (yes, Sir Elton John!) was going to be performing in Kelowna that evening (I know…everyone is wondering why) – unbelievable. Of course, the concert was sold out, but that didn’t stop me from stopping by the stadium on my way to the second baseball game – and this is what it looked like two hours before the concert:

Absolute emptiness!!! Who would have thought that? However, there were signs on the doors saying that the concert was sold out and that no gifts should be brought (BOOOOOOOOO!!!!) – poor Elton, now he has no lasting memories of Kelowna ;-(.

On the way back after the Falcons‘ second game against the Wenatchee Applesox (wonderful name!!!), which the Falcons won decisively 8-0, I had to stop by the scene of the action at least once more. And this is what it looked like:

These were the smokers who actually missed out on a few minutes of musical bliss for a smoke *eye roll*… but it gets worse: there were even some philistines who actually left before the end of the concert (people, are you crazy???????).
Unfortunately, it was still impossible to convince the security guards that I absolutely had to get in 🙁
But I could HEAR him. SIR ELTON JOHN LIVE at his piano.
Another unforgettable memory of Kelowna 🙂

I have no idea what Jan thought of the whole circus, but he remained amazingly calm in the face of my little Elton John obsession (which even I was only marginally aware of before 😉 ).

I spent the rest of my time mainly at the block’s own beach, a 10-minute walk from the hostel, with an adjacent park, at and in the hostel with lots of nice people from all over the world, well, mainly from Quebec and Germany.

On my last evening, the hostel’s own volleyball group was ready to go. Unfortunately, or fortunately for me, the first “playground” was hopelessly overcrowded, so we had to go to City Park instead, where I was allowed to misuse the volleyball a bit to play basketball while the others waited for a free court.

Afterwards, I was able to admire the varying volleyball skills of my hostel roommates, but after 10 minutes, it wasn’t quite as exciting anymore. Instead, I decided to join two other volleyball-weary individuals in testing the waters of Okanagan Lake just one more time… and it was wonderful 🙂
So my stay in Kelowna ended in typical local fashion with a cool dip in the sunset.