Day 18 - Carleton, UOttawa

Hello friends, after a very long drive getting to Ottawa yesterday, it was really nice to only have to drive for about 15 minutes at a time today. And I really do have to say that Ottawa is just absolutely beautiful, and I'm glad that I get to spend a few days here.

I started my day by picking up my roommate for the past 5 year, Charinda, and his younger brother who goes to Carleton University, Charaka. Charaka was nice enough to show us around Carleton campus with a rather unorthodox tour to say the least, but it was such a nice campus to visit. We started off by going to the Engineering buildings, one of which actually looked like an 8-bit walrus from a certain angle, so that was pretty neat. We stopped by the CSES (Carleton Student Engineering Society) office, which had a pretty cool layout looking from the outside in, but unfortunately couldn't get in because no one around had access to the office. It was a shame too, as I would have loved to take a picture with the Carleton Gong. We then went and saw LEOS, which is basically the C-Eng Lounge (the equivalent of Waterloo's POETS), and it was cool to see it after hearing about it for so long. The one person there wasn't too happy when I put a Waterloo sticker on their door, so I had to take it down immediately after, which was kind of a shame. Charaka showed us some key aspects of the university, including the Rideau River and some of the main lecture halls that Engineering students have class in. I also remembered being at Carleton once before for FYIC 2014, so I asked him to take me to their campus pub, Oliver's (which was the only place I recall visiting), so it was quite nostalgic in that sense. One really cool thing that Carleton has that I was not aware of are the murals that are all over their underground tunnels, most of which looked expertly done while also being very comical. I was very impressed, and couldn't help but be in awe at the work that went into a lot of them, and it really speaks a lot to the culture that is fostered at Carleton. 

After finishing up with Carleton, we made our way to the University of Ottawa, where we met up with so many friends. Kelly Brannen and Charbel Choueifaty gave us the main tour of the Engineering side of campus, and I was told that I had to take the "Classic" UOttawa photo on the staircase of the SITE building near the wall of windows, so that was basically the first thing we did. We then stopped by the UOttawa Engineering Students' Society (ESS) Office, where we took a bunch of pretty cool pictures and were given some swag to take back with us, which was really nice of them. Viran Daluwatte and Megan Vandermolen then joined us on the rest of our tour, and they all then showed us the rest of their campus. We walked under the "Pointless Tent" (or so I was told) on our way to the Social Sciences Building, which is home to a 6-story high living wall. We went up to the 14th floor of the building and saw an amazing view of the entire city. As we continued our tour, we walked by Tarabet Hall, which is the building that is most associated with the university's history and is the one on the official UOttawa logo, which was really cool to see.

Just as we were finishing our trip of UOttawa, we ran into my friend Josie and she joined us for the rest of the day. I was told that while I'm in Ottawa, I needed to go to the Byward Market, so we went there for a late lunch. We ate at "The Warehouse" and then got "Sweet Jesus" ice cream for dessert. From that point on in the day I mainly wanted to be a tourist, so that's exactly what we did. We first went to a place called Nepean Point, which overlooked the Ottawa River, Parliament Hill and the bridge over to Gatineau, which was quite a captivating view. I had heard the significance behind the annual Canadian Tulip Festival that happens in Ottawa, so we walked around and saw tulips everywhere of a wide variety of colours, all just so beautiful. We walked through Major's Hill Park, and then took a walk around Parliament Hill. I am hoping to get a full tour tomorrow, so we'll have to see how that goes. Cassidy then joined us in DT Ottawa and we went to a board game cafe, which is always a delight.

Today was exactly the kind of day I needed after all the traveling we did over the past few days, and I look forward to seeing what the rest of my time in Ottawa will have to offer.

 Carleton: www.instagram.com/p/Bi6BMTclXfD
UOttawa: www.instagram.com/p/Bi6CeO6FZKm

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