Studying and Travelling in Canada

Monday 20th Feb’23

As I write this, I’m in Montreal, exploring the snowy city in the afternoons and studying in the mornings. I have a midterm exam and an essay due the day after I get back, but hey, it’s spring break, and probably a once in a lifetime opportunity to be this close to another province in Canada.

Before starting the first semester, the concept of study in study abroad, while in the name, is often overlooked. It’s easy to glance over the studying part and immediately glamorise the element of freedom of the year. I don’t condone it because it is true, the things you remember the most are going to be the times when you go on adventures, but good things always hold some responsibilities. We are still, in fact, students.

Without a doubt, studying in North America takes a while to get used to. In the UK, I’m used to having all my exams at the
end of the year, but here, there are at least two weekly assignments and occasionally monthly midterms. It can be a lot, but it’s good to remember that it’s only 15% or even just 1% of the total grade. If it’s a really interesting course, the
frequent learning and hands-on aspect can become something quite enjoyable. Some of my favourite and most vibey study spaces are the Nest, IKB and Koerner! To keep up with the UBC life here, I like to follow @ubc_studentlife.

Monday 27th Feb’23

Now, to the fun part. It’s the end of the trip and this holiday has probably been the most memorable break in my life. As someone who didn’t travel much before this year, it has been a lot of excitement and learning. Along with my
personal item and carry-on luggage, all the emotions you can think of were also packed into this week.

We started our holiday in Montreal. We were hosted by my friend’s lovely friend who goes to McGill for her study abroad, a university in Montreal. We stayed there for 4 days and did a fair amount of travelling. We planned our morning trips to the university library (actually a consistent highlight), afternoon travels around the city, and evenings to hang out with our host’s friends. We climbed up Mount Royal to see the view of civilisation from the top of the mountain, went
in circles on the Ferris wheel, explored the oldest neighbourhood in Montreal, and visited the magical Biodome. On the plane to Montreal, we sat next to a lovely middle-aged guy who helped us put our puffy coats in the overhead cabin. We struck up a conversation using my broken Chinese and learnt that he ran a shop called Miss Kiko in Chinatown, so that’s where we went the second day we landed.

On the fifth day, we rolled out of bed at 4:55 am and bumbled into the Via Rail train heading to Toronto. I sat next to a student who is a first-year at McGill but was heading back home to Toronto for reading
week and we had lovely chitchats between work and naps (strangers are so open for a conversation!). During the 6-hour ride, I grabbed a banana loaf and managed to finish a draft for my assignment. When we
arrived, the first place we went to, after checking in at the Samesun Hostel, was the iconic CN Tower. At 4 pm, soaring up 300m of infrastructure, we arrived at the doughnut ring of the tower. As we walked around, the sun was beginning to set at 5 pm and we watched the sky turn golden, pink, blue and black. The nightlife began to wake up, windows flickered with white light and red car lights glowed, tracing the edges and interior branches of the city. We stayed there for a couple of hours and took as many photos as our phone batteries allowed, before heading back down for $10 tacos in Kensington Market.

The next day we had a road trip to Niagara Falls. We took the GO Transit bus and walked 40 minutes to the waterfall, stopping by a Wendy’s on the way. Many things happened on this day that might end up on my board ranked as one of the most unforgettable days of my life. I recreated an image of 18-month-old me at Niagara Falls, we witnessed a proposal and watched a rainbow form and vanish right in front of us. On the journey back to our hostel, we found out that we had mistakenly booked our flight back to Vancouver a whole month later instead of the very next day…this was stressful for many reasons, one being that even though we wanted to, we didn’t have the funds to stay in Toronto. Also, we had exams in two days. But, if there’s anything I’ve learnt about this year, it is that there is a solution to almost any problem you face. So, after various calls and google searches, we booked another flight back home for today. I’m actually on the flight back to Vancouver now. Looking back, I can laugh about this memory. This story will definitely be kept in my box of stories to pull out and tell my grandkids about the crazy adventures their grandma took back in 2023.

On the plus side, the extra day that we ended up staying in Toronto allowed us to finish our assignments and revision for the next week! If you can, travel, book your tickets for the right date and finish your assignments!