In several hours I will be going to Ottawa to register as a full-time Master's student at the University of Ottawa. The drive is roughly five hours long, and knowing this only makes clearer just how far away I will be from Mississauga, where I have been living for well over a year.
I know a little bit about Ottawa, tidbits of information I've picked up from either conversations with friends or mindlessly surfing the net on slow days at the office. Ottawa is the capital of Canada, and houses Parliament Hill, the seat of federal government roughly equivalent to Malacanang Palace back home. It is, supposedly, the second-coldest capital city in the world (the dubious top honor goes, understandably, to Moscow.) People who have grown up in Ottawa are generally bi-lingual: they start off with French, but if you speak to them in English they can easily switch over, and that this is sometimes even a requirement for certain jobs (waiter, bus driver, front desk, etc.) I suppose it is because Ottawa is a gateway of sorts; south and east is the rest of a largely Anglophone Ontario, whereas cross a bridge to the north or west and you are in Quebec, where the domination of the Francophones begins.
People who have been there all agree it is a lovely city. Most of it, they say, has a bit of a 'small-town' feel; it is supposedly nowhere near as congested as, say, Toronto. I wouldn't know from the criss-crossing downtown streets on MapQuest, so I suppose I will have to see it for myself. I am excited.
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I've come to realize that whenever I start a new chapter of my life, no matter how thrilling the prospect, there is always a sense of sadness for whatever I leave behind. Like I said, I am beyond excited for graduate school, but still couldn't control that feeling of wistfulness as I shut down my computer at GSK for the last time; I quit my job last Friday.
All throughout the day co-workers dropped by my office at the corner of the warehouse, offering congratulations, well-wishes, anecdotes of Ottawa life and tips on how to get around the city. Try to get a class schedule that didn't start until 9am in the winter, they said; that way, the major roads would surely have been plowed by the time I leave the house. There is more: until you learn a competent level of French beyond that three-unit summer course in university, "parlez-vous anglais?" is your best friend. Try to learn how to ice-skate, because in winter the Rideau Canal turns into the world's largest skating rink, and you don't want to miss out on that. Try beavertail; if you're going to be in Ottawa, even for a week, you can't not try beavertail.
I will miss those people who gave me all that sage advice, as I will miss the ever-present smell of toothpaste, the splinters of wood always littering the floor, the drivers who would greet me with a box and a smile, the automatic door that never seemed to notice I was there, the blue cart with the squeaky wheel. As I look back now, I am grateful for that experience, for having held that job at GSK for over a year. It was not always easy, and not always pleasant, but I think I can safely say now that everything worked out for the best in the end.
We finally realize what downtown Ottawa reminds us of: New York. From the street performers to the parking meters placed everywhere possible, to the general mood of the town: people are sensitive to one another, but in a sort of 'distant' way. Back home, it's 'walang pakialaman' - you generally mind your own business, but if somebody trips, or needs directions, or drops her purse and sends coins scattering all over the sidewalk, you (along with everyone else) stop to help. And then, when the situation is taken care of, you go back to your own life, no more questions asked.
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