Well, we made it in one piece to Ottawa. Yesterday had to take the TTC to
Union station, and then jump on the Via for about five hours, and the
train was about half an hour late. Melissa met us at the train station,
and we took a cab back to her place. It’s a pretty nice little apartment,
and it’s not too bad to get to downtown on the bus.
An aside about the Ottawa-Carleton transportation system, or “OC Transpo”.
The system is different in a number of ways from Toronto and Guelph.
First of all, there is a semi-tiered fare system. There’s only one kind
of bus ticket, which are 85c each. For an adult on most routes, you need
two of these tickets. Children only need one. There are also some
premium routes that require three tickets. Transfers seem to be the same
as Toronto (get one where you pay your fare, transfer as many times as you
want) except that transfers in Ottawa are all timestamped (they’re printed
with a little thermal printer on every bus) with the time they are valid
until. I guess this means that (unlike Toronto) you can get away with
making a stop along a route, but only within a reasonable, enforced
time. In Toronto transfer times aren’t enforced at all, and are printed
with th time you got them. On the bus today, there were two transit
police checking everyone’s transfers or bus passes; I’ve never seen
that in Toronto, ever. Second difference: they have only buses, but there
is a main bus route, called the Transitway, that runs across the city.
For the most part, it’s a road dedicated to buses and other transit
vehicles. There are predetermined stops along the way, kind of like the
subway in Toronto. It’s an interesting idea, and was probably way cheaper
to build than a subway, is a lot more flexible, and they can use any bus
on it if need be, and other bus routes can get on and off it and coexist
with the main Transitway routes that just run along it exclusively.
So we figured out the bus system, which is good, because cabs here are
bloody expensive. Yesterday Sandy and I ventured downtown, I registered
for OLS, and we wandered generally
around the Rideau Centre and did some shopping. Came back to Melissa’s
and talked and drank the night away. Melissa’s a pretty cool person, and
being one of Sandy’s closest friends, I had to get her approval (which I
did :). Melissa’s boyfriend Tom is alright too, a little rough around the
edges, but they make a pretty good couple.
Today was my first day at OLS. I went to two presentations, which were
pretty good, but missed the third when I sat down to do e-mail and lost
track of the time completely. It feels a little different this year:
most of the guys I hung out with last year aren’t here (probably because
andover.net didn’t want to pay their way), and I haven’t been recognized
by any acquaintances I made last year, nor have I approached any of them.
There’s a few guys here from Guelph but I don’t know them that well, and I
ran into an old friend from UTS. Still have to find Stany. Oh well.
Everything just seems to have a bit of a different feel than last year:
the talks don’t seem to be that interesting, the atmosphere is just
generally different: more reserved. There are fewer parties being thrown
than last year, probably due to the current tech market depression. I’ve
already pretty much decided not to register for next year. Ho-hum.
Gotta run and meet Sandy and Melissa now. More tomorrow.