The city and UW
Waterloo is a small city, together with Kitchener (the sister city, K-W) having about 300ths inhabitants. It's about hundred km west of Toronto, and while looking to a map one can get little confused from finding Cambridge, London, Woodstock and Paris around ... Because the first immigrants who settled up here were from Germany, you can visit local Octoberfest during autumn and today I bought octoberfest barbecue sausages :D
Waterloo (especially University of Waterloo) has very international and multicultural environment. Most of foreigners are from China (that's why Waterloo in sometimes nicknamed as Water-hoo), but also many people have evidently origins somewhere outside Canada. The university is not particularly nice. If I compare it with TUT in Tampere, I'd even say it's ugly. The school is some 50 years old with total 22 000 students in both undergraduate and graduate degrees. It's not just a technical uni (like CVUT), but one can study also languages, arts, biology, etc. There is another smaller university in town called Wilfrid Laurier where, evidently, the bread-and-butter ratio is much more pleasant! :).
There are not many exchange students, most of guys come from China or Taiwan, we, Europeans, are in minority. They have ISC too, although not as big as back home, nor as actively involved in our daily lives. Anyway there are girls from Global Cafe responsible for weekly bar-hanging-outs. I study 3 courses, not too heavy load, but as every course has 3hours of lectures a week plus tutorials it makes me to go there almost everyday. Also the way of working during the term is very different: we've already written 2 quizzes, had due few assignments and another deadlines are approaching soon.
Living, food
During free evenings we're discovering local bars, restaurants, Grad House at campus, etc. One night we went (quite unexpectedly) to huge Revolution night club, which made me think where all those girls are during normal work-week ... :P Another great evening was our local brewery visit last week with all-you-can-drink $15 entrance. Last weekend Vincenzo shop with special food was moved to the next street. So I must make a visit there soon to find some good commodities (for example cheese, which is not really tasty here)! Unfortunately there is no real student canteen in campus, just normal fast food with commercial prices. Not so tasty (not talking about the healthy aspect) and expensive. How much I think back about finnish canteen! In restaurants the food is usually burger style, fries, chinese and so on in huge portions. Canadian specialty is poutaine - french fries with cheese and a sauce on the top.
Our home
I live off-campus, in Park street (for concrete address, pls contact personally) which brings some not-small advantages: It's close to Waterloo city centre and central King's street, where whole night life takes place. It's far cheaper than the dorm (I safe at least $120 a month), and I didn't need to purchase any meal plan (compulsory for a dorm, but not bringing any discount). Big supermarket and other amenities are nearby, including a brewery! We have a nice kitchen, laundry, barbecue and other accessories in the house.To be honest there are of course some drawbacks: It's further from the campus, but as buses are free of charge for undergraduate (and exchange) students, this doesn't really count. All other exchange students live in dorms, which kind of separates us. And yes!: my first nights were like sleeping outside, because my balcony door and windows didn't really make their function. But after some isolation work everything is perfect now! :) We are six in the house: Andy (the second czech guy), Bahman, Phill, Sandeep, Andrew (haven't met him yet, he's never at home) and me.
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