callmenaomi

i'm at mac! the campus definitely has its charms: it's well serviced by buses (both city and inter-city), has green space, lots of services for students, a generous library, and a very decent food court. it's also in walking distance from restaurants, hiking trails, and various housing options. i should also add that the atmosphere is much less intense than, say, the uoft campus. in the mills library, for instance, you can talk on the phone while you're in the stacks! and eat wherever you like. there are designated quiet areas, rather than designated food/talk areas. it's a different sort of culture, and it takes some getting used to. (especially when i go back and forth between mills and robarts). though i moved to hamilton two years ago (a year before i started grad school), it's taken me a while to realize just how much the city has to offer: art gallery, concerts, sports teams, farmers' market, botanical gardens, bayfront park, beach area, yummy multicultural cuisine, fairtrade/indie tea and coffeehouses, and all the basic amenities you'd anticipate in a city of 500,000. that said, the downtown is a disaster, and some of the aforementioned amenities (say, a chapters bookstore or a movie theatre with more than four screens) are only accessible "up the mountain," a 20 minute busride from the downtown core. i pay $550 plus electricity, phone, internet for a spacious one bedroom attic with no laundry facilities and a 20 minute bus ride to campus. let me know if you have any more questions! *eta: a student ten-ride go transit ticket to toronto costs about $77, and it's one hour from downtown hamilton to downtown toronto.