True to testimonies from family and friends, downtown Ottawa has a kind of pleasant small-town charm that instantly makes you fall in love with the place. Modern high-rises share the streets with quaint novelty shops and aged rooming houses sometimes over a hundred years old. French and English chattering fill the air wherever you go.
The registration process involved less actual walking and more typing: everything was done online, and twice I showed up at University offices unnecessarily. Back when I was doing my undergraduate studies at the Ateneo, registration involved an "Amazing Race" of sorts: making your way from station to station, building to building, hauling paperwork and frantically searching for the next step.
==========
Highlights of day 1:
- We met with my 'foster family,' whom I will be living with while I am staying here in Ottawa. They are in Nepean, a good twenty to thirty minutes from school, depending on the traffic. But it's a nice neighborhood, and much cheaper than living downtown.
- Driving here, I foretell, is going to take a lot of getting used to. Especially downtown, the streets are narrower, and complete lanes are blocked off for buses and bicycles. Disobeying this rule slaps on a $150 fine. A lot of the streets are one-way, every other street going the other way. Construction going on at King Edward and Laurier presented even more of a headache for getting around town. Walking everywhere is starting to seem like a very attractive option.
- Farmers, and other vendors of flowers, jewelry, and knick-knacks, offer their wares at Byward Market.
- A colorful bus ferries fellow tourists around. Summer seems to bring a lot of people over from all over Ontario, and even beyond.
- We found a stall selling beavertails just steps away from our hotel, but weren't able to try any. Yet.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment