Wandergliding: Reuniting in Waterloo

September 5^th, 2014

I figured I might as well continue my stepping stone hops back across the world from India to my hometown Victoria, stopping to visit family or friends whom I hadn’t seen for a long time, and the next stop was my university stomping grounds in Waterloo, Ontario. This would be my first time setting foot on Canadian soil since the middle of 2010 so I was excited yet slightly trepidatious about it. While I was still stuck in India many foreigners raised the issue that I might experience “reverse culture shock” on finally returning to my homeland. I hadn't really thought about it but it was possible that they had a valid point.

It was a nice flight from New York to Toronto, arriving on Friday around 2pm. My friend Sid, being a self-employed guy, was able to come and pick me up. I had seen him since we kayaked the Broken Islands in BC back in 2000 or 2001 and it was great to see him again. Unfortunately things didn’t start out too smoothly as we returned to his car in the airport and he had a flat, the first one he’s supposedly ever had (pretty damn lucky guy that way). Being a reunion weekend of three engineering buddies this almost seemed appropriate. It didn't take us long to get the spare on but it was a bit low on air so our first mission was to find a gas station to pump it up. Exiting the airport we hit the first garage and wouldn't you know it, their air pump was out of order, and so was the second station we went to! We spent the next 25 minutes searching for a gas station while cursing under our breaths. Finally finding one we quaffed down a piece of pizza and hit the 401 highway for the hour long drive back to Waterloo…depending on the traffic. It was getting a bit late on a Friday afternoon and sure enough we got caught in some classic Toronto traffic. It was hot. It was unpleasant. And it was what I was glad to have avoided by moving away from this area of my country. I’ve had a few jobs where I had to buck this kind of traffic for 45 minutes each way…and I don’t miss it. It’s incredible that millions of people do it, day in and day out.

My first glimpses of my country in over 4 years:

Cheers Canada!

Finally back at Sid’s house in Kitchener, which is a twin city with Waterloo (it’s hard to tell where one city stops and the other one begins), I got to meet his cute little dog Comet. Sid got Comet when she was already 5 years old but he has amazingly been able to teach her to walk with him without a leash and she’ll never cross a road without his permission. He lives on a busy road and he’s never taken her across it. In her mind, there’s an invisible wall there that she can never cross. Pretty smart little canine.

Cute Comet

We headed over to Slick’s place that evening (his real name is Aaron Sawicki but back in high school I shortened his last name from Sawicki, to Sawick, to Slick). He married Paula, another engineering student from Waterloo and it was great to catch up with both of them and see how grown up their kids are. I was also introduced to my first game of “Cards Against Humanity” that evening and wow, what a crazy fun game…especially if the booze is flowing.

My favourite beer!

With Sid and Slick:

On Saturday, Sid, Slick and I went for a walk about our old stomping grounds, the University of Waterloo where we graduated 20 years earlier. The guys still live in the city and although they haven’t been on the campus for a while, it was more of a shock for me to walk down memory lane. We began by entering the engineering side of the campus, our old stomping grounds. Most of it had not changed much at all and the memories of good times, and the odd bad one started to flood in. One of the biggest differences was a new engineering building called, quite creatively for engineers, as “Engineering 5”. But my oh my, it was an impressive looking building. It was on the outside of Ring Road, the sort of circular road that encompasses most of the university buildings but it had an enclosed overhead walkway to minimize the trouble in accessing it during the winter months. We carried on past the engineering section of the campus to the campus centre, a meeting place for students, and the sports complex and finally the residences where we lived in first year. I’ll now tell a silly story from back in my university days…

Felt like a "Stand By Me" moment:

In the Engineering section of the campus:

This massive auditorium is where I first experienced what a cult was. We were introduced to the "Tool", a five foot long monkey wrench which is the department's mascot. It was all dark with some dry ice smoke at the bottom and then these fourth year students dressed all in black, almost like the Ku Klux Klan raised it up as lights beamed on the tool to the theme of the 2001 A Space Odyssey (Also Sprach Zarathurstra) and we all went nuts...and I was completely sober!

Slick checking out his pic:

Off to the new Engineering 5 building:

Inside the new building:

In the fancy overhear walkway:

It is pretty:

I was actually in second year and living off campus with five other engineering buddies. However, a former boarding high school mate Paul, with whom I lived with in grade 11 before he went off to Pearson College which is an International baccalaureate school which put him a year behind Slick and me going to university, was living in res. I went by to visit him with my buddy Rich (who is now a professor at McGill) late one night around 2:30am after a heavy drinking night at the campus nightclub but there was no answer at his door. We continued to walk down some of the hallways of the residence and for some reason: a) I had a lighter and b) I decided to try and light plastic message boards on first year students’ doors followed by some socks drying on a clothesline in the bathroom. We continued to walk on but then all of a sudden the fire alarm went off. Shit! I just bolted. I don’t know what Rich did but I ran out of the building and hid behind a grassy berm looking back at the residence, trying to recall where I had locked up my bicycle. Within minutes hundreds of first year students clad in pyjamas and t-shirts began to flood outside. Soon after a fire truck appeared on the scene and this is when I realized I’d really messed up and decided to ditch the bike and walk home. The next morning, a Friday, I was too hung over to go into classes so I remained at home in our basement watching some crap TV. There was a knock on our backdoor and at first I dismissed it but the person was persistent. All of my roommates weren’t home so I reluctantly climbed the stairs to the door. Looking out the window I was shocked to see that it was some kind of fire marshal. My heart began to race as I wondered how they had figured it out so quickly. My fingers shook as I fumbled to open the door. The middle aged uniformed man said hello and then stated that he understood that this residence was a rented one and he simply wanted to check the smoke dectectors. Oh my God…of all days to show up for that! As you can imagine, I felt that I had received some warranted punishment for some of the previous night’s debauchery.

The residences:

After our campus tour, by my request we ventured to the Huether Hotel in Uptown Waterloo for some beers and food. That evening we had a barbeque back at Sid’s place with Slick’s wife Paula and the next day I was to fly out to Victoria.

At the Huether Hotel: