Ottawa

Had some major difficulties with internet and being able to post stuff so this is from Friday at 1pm.......

So thoughts on Ottawa. The other YPs are awesome, we bonded really quickly and now it seems weird that we aren’t all going to be working together. It’s surreal that the routine we created in Ottawa almost instantly isn’t actually our jobs. But I think we’re all going to stay in touch over the web etc and some people might get to see each other (especially me and Jessica living in the same city and then there’s a possibility that Allie who was going to Lebanon will be going to Geneva like Sarah as a replacement position). The staff in Ottawa are totally cool and it’s amazing how young everyone is in mine action. So we had a ton of really great guest speakers including Anna the woman who interviewed me so it was really good that we got to chat and she told me all about the office and the people I am going to be working with. We all finished the week of training totally excited about our new jobs and all the things related to the campaign. Crazy to think that I’m actually going to be putting international law and all that stuff I studied into practice, (implementing the Ottawa treaty) while some people are working to universalize the Mine ban treaty – Dr. Cutler would be so proud – I’ll have to email her! There’s also a lot of pressure on us – we’re the only mine action internships on the planet and there are super high expectations so hopefully we can live up to it all. At some points this week it was definitely like oh shit I’m so in over my head – what do I know about writing funding proposals or designing survivor assistance programs???? But we have a ton of support from pretty much the whole campaign, had a chat with Paul the director last night at the BBQ and we had a teleconference with one of the international directors in Rome – she knows who we are and where we’re going like most of the campaign apparently we are really sought after. Crazy!!!! It’s been really nice that everyone keeps saying how great an organization I’ll be joining.
So about stuff other than work. We determined that staying at the UofO res was a plan to aclimatize us to our host countries because we were on the 7th floor of a building without AC on days when the humidity made it over 35degrees!!! Can’t say I slept well…… clammy! Besides the heat Ottawa is a very livable city – you can walk all over etc but I’ll let you know what I think after I see it in January on the way home.
Funniest thing ever Liz’s office is across the street from the building where we had training! Got to hang out with Liz the other night and we’re going to hang out some more tonight when I sleep on her floor and tomorrow before I fly out. We tried to hang out more but we both have stuff going on plus I didn’t really have a phone to get in contact with her – felt so bad one night when we had plans because I didn’t get through before we all headed out then I had to no way to call and tell her where I was so I pretty much ditched her. Sorry again Liz (because I’m assuming you will one day read this)!!! Not having a phone to receive calls on (not even a landline) is ridiculous……
Flying out tomorrow via London and Dubai. Not too keen on the spending 10 hours in London I just hope I can leave the airport. So it turns out my apartment won’t be ready til the end of the month so I’ll have to find a hotel room or something for a week or so…….. The long and short of it is at the moment I have no where to sleep on Monday when I arrive. I’m hoping to hear soon about some suggestions. At least someone is picking me up at the airport – man am I going to look pretty after two red eye flights and then an early morning flight. Ok this has gone on too long plus I have to go do some laundry so I have clean clothes for work next week……

Now have already stayed at Liz's and we're just doing some touristy stuff eg. tour of parliament before I head off to London etc.