You are here

last-minute travel plans

Art fair last year kinda got me down, so this year I skipped it.

Saturday night we played games at the Isamans, including pandemic. Which was fun, partly for being played cooperatively against the board, and for being difficult (at least so far--we lost all three games we played).

Saturday I also made my travel plans for OLS: a good thing, since I needed to be in Ottawa by Wednesday morning! I planned a complicated train/bus/airport shuttle trip that would also let me stay overnight with some friends and relatives along the way, and reserved a single in the University of Ottawa dorms.

Sunday I got ready to go, and spent a couple hours at the new library branch.

Monday I took the first four legs of my trip--airport shuttle to DTW, another airport shuttle to Windsor--a lot of web researched turned that up as one of the only practical ways to get from Ann Arbor to Windsor without a car--a city bus to the Windsor train station, then one train to London. It all went fine. One of the few glitches was inadequate Canadian change for the bus fare. I tried giving the driver a 5, but she insisted that was overkill (the fare was something like $2.50, and they can't give change), so I just emptied my pockets of what change I had and she waved me on.

The wait in the Windsor train station was long, but it was air-conditioned, the wireless was good, and I got some minimal work done.

I had a good time with my friends in London. Graham made a super meal of home-made tamales, rice, beans, zuchini, corn on the cob, and wine from a mutual friend who dropped out of grad school to move to California and work in the wine industry. We watched Totoro with Azalea, who insists on the dubbed soundtrack (apparently 4-year olds don't like to read subtitles; OK, OK).

The next morning at breakfast Azalea complained about the sun. (To be fair, it was in her eyes a little). I accused her of being a vampire. She told me I talked too much. That's a first!

Then the remaining three legs of my trip--train to Toronto, connecting train to Ottawa, then bus to the University of Ottawa campus--all went like clockwork. I met someone on the way with a suite in the dorms to split (and a travel partner that had ditched at the last moment), so cancelled my reservation to split theirs.