Spring has Sprung

Coming from Toronto, I find Waterloo to be a perfect sized city. Despite what some people claim about Waterloo, it's a fair sized city. I spent a workterm in Goderich, Ontario, and I did not take well to the lack of everything. I expect there to be sushi places, and yarn stores within the city, even if not in walking distance. So living somewhere with public transit, and wide selection in restaurants and stores is a lot more comfortable for me.

I do, however, also enjoy the fact that Waterloo is actually smaller than Toronto. It's possible to WALK out of the city, from campus, out to where there's cornfields on either side of the road. I've done it once, when I needed to go to market and wasn't able to bike. Actually there's also at least one cornfield in the city itself, which is another thing I like. There's also more wildlife. Not that I didn't have geese and ducks and groundhogs and rabbits around in Toronto, but I'm used to seeing them mostly in parks. Well... parks and in traps that the annoyed gardeners leave out. (Just as an aside for anyone from the country reading this: in the city you don't kill the critters that attack the garden, you trap them and take them to a park).

The other day, for example, I watched a duck fly across a major road, and then come in for a landing on the green strip next to the parking lot at a local business. To me, that's really cool. If I wanted to see ducks back home I had to pack up and go out to the park. Here, I walk to the uptown business park and they're just there on the way.

Even around campus there's some places that are more like parks. Around engineering it isn't bad - I've run halfway across in about two minues (we had a project due), but if you walk around other parts of campus - say over the creek by the church colleges, or around the Physical Activites Complex - you're pretty likely to scare a groundhog which is trying to tell if it's safe to come out. Or get stopped by a goose while the goslings cross the pathway.

All in all, it's quite a nice change. I'm going to be sticking around Waterloo for a while longer and get my Master's degree, but I'm going to miss this place when I leave.