The welcome package of MITACS complete with a GSA (Globalink Student Advisor) was nothing short of spoon feeding. I am not against it, and infact it was great that they saved us the trouble of opening bank accounts, getting an insurance, and a phone card to call back home. We right away got some substantial money to start off.
The institute is a 20 minutes walk away from the Columbia Lake Village. It is all about getting used to everything all over again - keeping doors open to let people behind you enter, calling professors by their first name, pressing the button at street corners for crossing, straining your ears to follow conversations for the first week or so, absence of water in the loo (a good example of irony in the name of the place)...
We are in that part of Canada that is trying to force its way into the US, after a straight line drawn using a 500km long ruler. Detroit, Cleveland and Buffalo (in the US) are very close by (only a few hours drive). Waterloo is very peaceful and green. It is a student centric small town, surrounded all around by the countryside and numerous lakes, big and small.
Canadians are said to be trying hard to form an identity by themselves, trying to prove to themselves that they are a race different from any other, especially Americans. But their European connections run too deep to get rid of. A person landing in Toronto coming by the flight from Delhi, said that he is going to London. I was like 'Excuse me?!?'. Other passenger: 'It's two hours from here'. It took me some time to realize that there is one London here in Canada as well. Right in the state of Ontario, we also have a Paris, a Heidelberg, a Mannheim, of course Waterloo and even a Delhi (pronounced as Dell-hi) !!!
Anyway my first impression is that there is a lack of cultural depth here as compared to Europe. It seems like this is an ultra-modern civilization in the making. Just like in Melbourne, there is a huge population of Mongoloids and Punjabis here. Additionally there are many people from the middle east, from north Africa and from southern parts of Europe too making this a very diffused culture.
The institute is a 20 minutes walk away from the Columbia Lake Village. It is all about getting used to everything all over again - keeping doors open to let people behind you enter, calling professors by their first name, pressing the button at street corners for crossing, straining your ears to follow conversations for the first week or so, absence of water in the loo (a good example of irony in the name of the place)...
We are in that part of Canada that is trying to force its way into the US, after a straight line drawn using a 500km long ruler. Detroit, Cleveland and Buffalo (in the US) are very close by (only a few hours drive). Waterloo is very peaceful and green. It is a student centric small town, surrounded all around by the countryside and numerous lakes, big and small.
Canadians are said to be trying hard to form an identity by themselves, trying to prove to themselves that they are a race different from any other, especially Americans. But their European connections run too deep to get rid of. A person landing in Toronto coming by the flight from Delhi, said that he is going to London. I was like 'Excuse me?!?'. Other passenger: 'It's two hours from here'. It took me some time to realize that there is one London here in Canada as well. Right in the state of Ontario, we also have a Paris, a Heidelberg, a Mannheim, of course Waterloo and even a Delhi (pronounced as Dell-hi) !!!
Anyway my first impression is that there is a lack of cultural depth here as compared to Europe. It seems like this is an ultra-modern civilization in the making. Just like in Melbourne, there is a huge population of Mongoloids and Punjabis here. Additionally there are many people from the middle east, from north Africa and from southern parts of Europe too making this a very diffused culture.
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