uOttawa – Canada

It has been over a month since I arrived in Canada to start my year abroad experience. I am based at the University of Ottawa in the capital city. Whilst I haven’t been here that long, I have already managed to fit so much in to my time here.

First Week Organisation

Don’t be unorganised like me and book a flight last minute (2 weeks before you have to be there) as you’ll end up with a long stopover on an indirect flight. I flew from London Heathrow to Detroit and had a seven hour wait. Thankfully, I met two other students from the University of Kent at Detroit airport who happened to be doing their year abroad at uOttawa too – what are the chances!? That is one thing I have noticed about travelling and a year abroad, a lot of you are thrown into similar experiences together and you can become close very quickly.

The university is only a 20 minute drive from the airport, which was great after I had been awake for over 24 hours, plus jet lag. I got my act together when I arrived at uOttawa and got myself more organised. Setting up a bank account can be quite stressful as so many students are doing the same thing and you won’t get an appointment for a week or two after you stroll into the bank requesting an appointment. So that should be first on anyone’s list! I went with Scotia Bank which is great if you have an account with Barclays as they are affiliated with them in Britain.

I was fortunate enough to get a place in residence. If you apply for residence at uOttawa, it is one of the most stressful experiences because, as an international student, you don’t have access to the online portals to register. I am living right next to the Rideau Canal and can see it from my bedroom window. At the moment, Fall is happening in Canada so the trees are beautiful shades of red, yellow, orange, green and copper.

Sports

Sport is HUGE here! Both in Canada generally and within the Universities. The uOttawa team is called Gee-Gees (named after a race horse and the original colours of the teams – garnet and grey). I have been to two American Football games already. The Panda game is the biggest, between Gee-Gees and Ravens which is the rival team from Carelton University (Southampton/Solent equivalent). Unfortunately we lost, however the atmosphere was amazing. It was at TD Place Stadium which is home to the RedBlacks CFL Team. Over 18,000 students attended, all to get behind their teams and wear the colours.

Trips

A group of us from the residence (mainly Brits, but one Kiwi and a Canadian too) trekked to Niagara Falls for the weekend. We took a greyhound coach to Toronto and then on to Niagara Falls. It took us around eight hours to get there. I would have recommended greyhound just from the outward journey as it had Wi-Fi and plug sockets to charge your phone and ample leg space; however, the trip on the way home was far too cramped and full (bearing in mind this was at 1 am). Furthermore, having just taken a trip to Toronto this weekend, I used car share on craigslist which was much cheaper than greyhound.

Niagara is just beautiful. It’s hard to explain in words the breath-taking views you see and experience through the boat trip and walking behind the Horseshoe Falls itself. The only issue some might view as a negative, if not prepared for it, is the tacky tourist area in the adjacent town.

I have written more about Niagara Falls on my blog website, the link to which I have attached at the bottom of this blog.

This weekend marked Thanksgiving in Canada. My Canadian friend who lives on the floor above me invited me and my New Zealand friend in residence to his family home for the celebrations. We travelled to Toronto where we were picked up by his Mum (or ‘Mom’). It was so great to experience a truly Canadian family home in the suburbs, as opposed to the student housing in Sandy Hill.

We packed so much into the weekend so it has been difficult to get back into classes on Tuesday (the Monday was a bank holiday). We went up CN Tower, experienced pumpkin picking for the first time, went to a Drive-in Movie and ate lots and lots of home cooked food – and of course this included turkey and pumpkin pie!

Classes

In Canada, lectures are known as classes (and even University is often referred to as school). To study Law in Canada, you have to have an undergrad before going on to Law School. So, for me, this is Law School and everyone is aged 25 and above. I am taking 5 modules, and they are proving quite difficult in comparison to Southampton but thoroughly enjoyable. My favourite classes include Forensic Science where firearms or toxicology experts come in and explain their field and how it is applied to expert witnesses in Court, and Advanced Criminal Procedure. In the second module, the lecturer is from the UK, so of course I was predominantly the student he picked on in the beginning when he heard my accent!

Mid Terms have started here, a concept that I am still struggling to understand. I started classes four weeks ago and am already being examined!

Overall I am thoroughly enjoying my experience here and am so glad I went outside of my comfort zone to come to University in Ottawa. Canadians live up to their stereotype of being very friendly and polite. It does help having a British accent, as the Canadians love it! I will get stopped everywhere just to be asked where I’m from and then, typically, the follow up question will be: ‘is it really like Harry Potter eh?’

I am trying to keep a weekly blog whilst I am here if you want to check it out:

Thelawexplorer

https://lawexplorer.wordpress.com