Eastward ho!

So it’s confirmed: I’m going to Ottawa. Making the best of a not-so-great situation, I will turn this into a whirlwind tour to visit friends out east. On Thursday, January 22, I leave Vancouver (at 4:25 pm), and land in Ottawa around midnight. Devin has kindly offered to let me crash on his futon, and so I shall.

On Friday, January 23, I visit the Embassy of Sweden to get my super-secure, biometric, digital photo taken (by an appointed employee from Sweden—local employees aren’t allowed to operate this high-tech photo booth). Then I bum around for the rest of the day, reading or working or whatever the case may be.

Friday evening or Saturday morning, Devin, Stacey and I travel east to Québec (which isn’t very far) and the Lennoxville/North Hatley area (which is slightly farther). Hopefully, good times will be had and friends will be met up with.

Sunday, January 25, I catch a plane back to Vancouver, leaving from Montréal at 7:55 pm. (It turns out that flying into Ottawa but back from Montréal is more expensive than a regular round trip to Montréal, but only by about as much as the train fare from Montréal to Ottawa. This is more convenient.) Hopefully someone can give me a ride to Montréal (with all these sudden expenses, I’ll bum what logistics I can off my friends…). I’ll land in Vancouver at 10:40 pm.

Now, as I’ve promised Stacey, I shall dedicate the next week or so to doing my very best to feel psyched about getting to see friends rather than annoyed that I must pay lots of money and take vacation days.