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My feet!

Oh my feet are killing me after a full day spent walking around the city. I'll have more to say about what we did on our first full day here in a later post.

On Tuesday night, our first here, we checked out a bit of the downtown scene and watched the Sound and Light Show, a slideshow presentation that projects Canadian-themed images and video with accompanying dialogue directly onto the Centre Block building. Pretty cool idea. We grabbed dinner at D'Arcy McGee's, an (obviously) Irish pub. What makes this one different from every other British/Irish pub is that it was actually designed and built in Ireland before being shipped to Ottawa. The decor and atmosphere did seem pretty authentic, although having never been to Ireland I can only guess what that may be.

Another full day of museums (read: walking) awaits us today followed by a dinner in Ottawa's ByWard Market.

I wrote my last exam this morning. As is the norm for our class, it was interrupted by a fire alarm (it happened in three of our finals in 3A). Someone in our class either (a) never gets enough studying in and wants a few minutes more, or (b) is simply a jackass.

Regardless, the term is over. It was a tough term, but that was due to an increased amount of responsibility I took on outside of my courses. I could ramble on about the term but don't feel like it and I know no one wants to read about it.

I did have 3 shitty things happen to me over a stretch of 3 days. On a Wednesday in July I woke up to find that my nice Sony car stereo had been stolen. Either the bastard picked the lock or I left a door unlocked. At least the window wasn't smashed in; the only artifacts are some dangling wires and a gaping hole where it used to sit.

The next day I received an email from my potential landlord telling me that, out of the blue, he decided to sell his house and move halfway across Toronto. Oh, but I was welcome to move in with him, his wife, young child, and visiting parents in the new house. It's just too bad it would have quadrupled my distance to work. Please.

And then that Friday after class I returned to where I had locked my bike to find it gone. In a possible warning sign that I blatantly ignored, there was a cut lock identical to mine lying on the ground next to the rack. I noticed it but locked my bike up anyway. But wait, there's a positive to this story! He left me my helmet, which I locked to the bike. What a final, suffocating kick to the nuts.

I had a depressing walk home that Friday evening. But whatever. $200 bucks out of my pocket and it never happened, right?

I'm off to Ottawa tomorrow for a vacation where I plan to immerse myself in culture before beginning work on the 15th. The 6-hour drive should prove to be a little dull with no tunes, but that's what talking is for!