by Lola Bianchi, University of Guelph, Canda
It’s the end of November and I swear I can already smell the pigs in blankets and mulled wine from across the pond. Like I said in my previous post, I still have an insane amount of work, and it’s very frustrating as everything is always worth 10/15% of your total grade and as such it makes it hard to tell how much work you are supposed to put into it or what the expectations are. However, all my grades have been very good so far, which in a way is frustrating as I never do this well at home, and this is a pass/fail year.
If you do end up coming to Guelph, I would totally recommend making the most of the geographical location of the town. Although there’s not much to do here, there are lots of airports nearby which means you can get to so many places for a very accessible price and time/distance. I just got back from a weekend trip to Miami and had so much fun. We met so many fun people at the hostel and in all honesty, even though there was only one room of 54 people, I slept significantly better there than I do here. The mattresses they use on campus are like primary P.E. matts that you fall off climbing frames onto, so they are pretty much rock solid and the so-called ‘mattress topper’ that the university sells you in the bedding box is just a mattress protector, so it doesn’t help it be more comfortable at all. Miami was also a lot of fun as it was a complete change from Guelph, with way more things to do. The people are genuinely so friendly and looking to help you however it was soooo expensive. I don’t even know how I managed to spend so much money as we also got a lot of freebies from people we met whilst we were there.
Safe to say, I need to go immediately back to work after I get home as Guelph is also very expensive. A friend and I found a very cute wine bar in downtown that is very nice to go for a relaxing evening, but you end up paying $10 a glass so it adds up quickly as that is without tax and tip.
It has also finally started to snow in Guelph! Whether this is good or bad, I’m not sure, as all the Canadians keep telling me how warm Winter and Fall have been so far, so I am hoping for a very warm December and January. However, it also makes me worry that it might even be colder given that it hasn’t properly kicked in yet. It was already a big shock to the system coming back to Guelph from Miami so I hate to think what it’ll be like to go home for a month over Christmas to then come back at the worst time of winter!