Day 27 - Regina

Hello friends, today I got to do a bunch of my favourite things: learn about more Engineering schools and their traditions, hang out with friends, play board games, and explore a new city. We started our day by driving over to Regina and dropping some stuff off at Kennedy's house. Kennedy and I then went to visit the Regina Farmers' Market, which was set up in downtown Regina beside Victoria Park. As it turns out, I actually came to Regina on the perfect weekend as so much was going on. Kennedy took me to the Cathedral Village Arts Festival, which is an annual event that celebrates local arts with craft vendors, street performers, artwork, and a lot of food. The festival took over a substantial amount of 13th Avenue in DT Regina (I would estimate at least 3 km), and had so many different huts set up, all of which were really quite fascinating. Kennedy and I had so many sweets while we were walking around, the smell of everything was just so enthralling and everything looked so good. We had a double chocolate raspberry cookie from "13th Avenue Coffeehouse", ice cream from "Dessart Sweets", and sugar cookies from "The Cookie Lady". We also stopped by the "Malinche Food Truck" for some really good Mexican food. There were so many live musical performances and works of art all around us, and it was so much fun to see the culture and annual traditions of Regina for the time that I was here for.

After finishing up with the Arts Festival, we then made our way over to the University of Regina (U of R) campus. What we didn't know when we got there was that U of R was hosting the 87th annual Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, which is a 5 day long gathering of academics, researchers, policy-makers, and practitioners from all across Canada discussing how to shape the future of Canada. The theme for this year was "Gathering Diversity", and it was actually really interesting as they brought in people from all across the country from so many different backgrounds to share their message with everyone in attendance. What this led to was a gathering in the centre of campus that included a performance by the Maritime Bhangra Group from Halifax as they shared a traditional Indian dance with all of us. They then asked for volunteers to join them, and I thought "Why the hell not?!", and I was in for one of the most intense cardio workouts I've had in sometime. Myself and the other volunteers (including Kennedy) were following their lead and dancing on stage, and it was a lot of fun. What I learned after the fact was that I was on stage in my covies dancing with the President of the University, which was surreal to think about.

We then met up with a good friend of mine that I had met at CFES Congress earlier this year, Tristan Heisler, who helped show me around their campus. They took me on a tour of their entire campus, and it turns out that all of their buildings are built in a circle surrounding the centre field where I was just dancing, which was a pretty neat layout. As it currently stands, U of R doesn't have any Engineering specific buildings, instead they have one building that they share with the education and business students (and more). While that may seem a bit weird at first, I think it really reduces the divide between the Engineers and everyone else, which I know has been a problem with a lot of other school (Waterloo especially). They showed me around the Engineering facilities and spaces that they have, I even managed to go see their EngSoc Office, which was really cool and full of memorabilia and swag from the past. I actually learned so many interesting facts about U of R today as well. The Regina Engineering Students' Society (RESS) basically stole their logo off a beer called "Calgary Beer", which has a Buffalo on it, with the only difference being that the RESS Buffalo is winking. It also turns out that U of R and USask made an agreement a while back that the two Engineering programs would not offer the same programs so that they don't confuse students over which school to go to (eg USask offers Mechanical, U of R doesn't), but together they cover most Engineering programs. RESS is also somehow in possession of a 60", chrome-plated, Ridgid Pipewrench... didn't manage to get a picture with it today because it wasn't on their campus, but it would've been interesting to see it. In terms of the University itself, it is the only school in Canada to have the First Nations University of Canada be a part of it, which was actually really cool. The building for the FNU has a lot of Tipi influence in its architecture, which I thought was very fitting. 

Tristan wanted to show me their "Million dollar sign", which is the school sign that the university actually spent about $1M on, which is insane to think about. It was a beautiful sign, but inevitably it became a meme among the students. As Kennedy left us to go to work, Tristan and I went to The Owl (their campus pub) for lunch. After grabbing food, we drove down to the Legislative Building and went for a solid walk around Wascana Lake, both of which were just awesome experiences. Tristan and I managed to have some really cool life chats throughout all of that. Tristan and his roommate Nick were nice enough to offer me a place to stay for the night, so we then went back to their place, chatted for a bit, did some laundry, and played some board games with some of their friends. Overall, I've had a fantastic time in Saskatchewan as a whole, and I feel like a huge part in that is the amazing people I've been able to spend time with. Tomorrow I head over to Saskatoon, the Capital of Saskatchewan, and I get to hangout with more awesome people while I'm there!

Regina: www.instagram.com/p/BjRfeb6FtJd