Pre-Departure Training in Ottawa

Hello everyone. Back again. In Ottawa sitting in the hotel figuring I should write a bit on my time here since my pre-departure training started 3 days ago.

Here are a few highlights:

Thursday

-I went out with Jeffrey and the boys Thursday which was nice. We had a bbq then went downtown for a drink. It was good to meet up with some friends and have some non-restaurant food a bit.

Friday

-went to Empire GRill Friday night for dinner and after ordering a $20 burger and 1.5hrs of waiting, we were going to walk out but the manager came and we ended up getting all the food for free. Good right? Well ya, it was a $20 burger, but by the time I got it (2 hours later) I was so nauseous from not eating for 9 hours (since lunch) that all I could stomach was a few fries.

Saturday
-Got invited to a wedding and went to a wedding...I know, so sudden? Let me explain. I met with my 'country resource' person (a recent immigrant from Burkina Faso) and got to talk to her for a couple hours to get the inside scoop on the country and the 'faut pas' in the country. Well she ended our encounter by inviting me to join her wedding reception which was the following day in order to taste some traditional Burkina foods and get a feel for Burkina tradition. I was pretty taken aback to be honest. I don't even really know this person and she's inviting me to her big day? Needless to say, I went and brought another friend whom I had met at the training session (who is going to Ghana, just next door to Burkina). In the end, it went really well. The reception was small but the food and people really nice and inviting. We had some great conversations and made a bunch of contacts.

And so this brings us to the present. Just chilling the rest of the night in my room and off to brunch tomorrow morning before checking out something during the day (got Sunday off woot!).

Alright folks. THat's all for now.

Ciao

Tiana