Goodbyes are hard

I haven't quite figured out whether going visiting people before I came to Canada was a good thing or a bad thing.

On the up-side, I managed to see a bunch of people that I hadn't seen for a little while (some longer than others), and go to say goodbye to them all. On the down-side, I had to say goodbye to them all.

The real point I have to consider is whether going from one place to another, always with another person in mind was a good thing or not. Was it good that I was partially distracted when saying goodbye to each person, and had little time to consider it before I moved on? I've managed to get to UBC ok, met a few people (even though there's only two people on my floor at the moment), had time to look around campus and things like that. But I'm not as prepared as I could've been - my papers are everywhere - and I'm surprised that I haven't forgotten something vital (or it hasn't been brought to my attention as yet).

Goodbyes are hard, but I'm not sure whether four goodbyes are harder as yet...maybe I'll think about it for a little bit longer.

So, I'm here on campus, in my room, which is pretty nice - I'm happy with it. 4th Floor of Mackenzie house, Place Vanier.


That's the outside of my room. My room is the top right one (excluding the little bit of a window you can see in the top right corner). It looks into a couple of trees, so the view isn't that great, but it's bearable. The inside of the room is pretty good. The table and bed are fairly new, and are pretty good, but the closet is pretty old. Still in pretty good condition though.

My mailing address is:

Box Number 412
1935 Lower Mall
Vancouver, BC. V6T 1X1

Not that anyone will be sending me mail, but it's there for reference. Please don't send me bombs or anything, it'd be a bit hard to explain.

I'll show you a photo of the inside of my room later, because the ones I have at the moment picture my room in a fairly messy state.

Anyways, as I was saying in my last post, I go to Vancouver and took forever to get a shuttle bus. Took a drive through the traffic (by this time it was past 4 pm), and to UBC. It was at this point I realised probably my first real thought about Canada since I got here - they drive on the other side of the road =o This means that for the past two days I've been looking on the wrong side of the road for cars (still trying to get used to it). Hopefully I will before I get hit by one.

Continuing my story, we got on campus, and I didn't notice anything different. We had to be told we were there, which was a bit weird.

The campus is huge. Not as huge as I imagined it, but still pretty good. It takes a good 15 minutes to walk from one end to the other. It's like a little town. Fair few streets there. It seems a little empty, but there are a lot of trees, which are very tall, and therefore I'm guessing have been there for a long time.

There's a pic of the library, which looks pretty cool to me. Haven't been inside as yet.

Anyways, had dinner last night after a long day. Was very hungry by that time - my meals had been screwed up by the time changes and the waiting and what-not. Made my first purchase with Canadian money. It was a Pita from some place with Pita in its name. It was pretty good, although spoilt by the fact that the pita itself was just something out of a plastic bag that anyone could buy from the nearest Safeway (or Woolthworths or whatever).


Salad was pretty good - you got to choose your own, and I imagine you could make it taste quite different even if the same meat was used.

Umm... today I managed to sort a couple of things out. Bank account was made (now it just needs money), got my student card and UPass (bus ticket), and a sim card for my phone. I've got a feeling I was slightly ripped off though - $25 for the SIM card itself, a $50 'service fee' (he took 5 minutes to punch some numbers into a computer), PLUS tax. That's another thing I don't like around here - taxes are sometimes included in the price, and sometimes not. Me confused by it all =P

On top of that, I had to buy credit - which had a tax of some sort on it as well.

Having said that, the call rates are much cheaper than in Australia, so I guess I'll deal with it.

Watched a Anger Management at International House this evening, and then have come back to my computer, where I've chatted and stuff.

Probably about time to go to bed. Hopefully I'll go into Vancouver properly tomorrow and have a poke around.

And here's a picture of a squirrel which I saw running about campus today =P