Royal Roads University

Beautiful Hatley Castle

I'm back at school. I decided to do a Master's degree since, really, everyone and their dog has a Bachelor's degree today and finding a job is quite difficult. After much deliberating, soul searching and hair pulling, I set my sights on a Master's of Professional Communication at Royal Roads. So far I am very happy.

The program is online which is convenient as it allows me the flexibility to live wherever I want. There are two residency periods for the whole two years and each one is three weeks long. I am, in fact, writing this from my dorm room at Royal Roads during residency number one in lieu of doing work.



Royal Roads University is situated on the stunning grounds of Hatley Park and smack in the middle of this park is Hatley Castle, a 100 year old (haunted) 15th century inspired castle. Surrounding this castle are carefully tended gardens inhabited by peacocks, rabbits, raccoons, Canada geese and massively obese squirrels. There are also countless trails through the surrounding gardens and forests, the most impressive of which is Charlie's Trail, a beautiful stroll revealing small waterfalls and massive felled trees. I'm sad that I don't get to spend more time here.

Tiny waterfall off Charlie's Way

Victoria itself is fantastic (well, the little of seen of it anyways). There are some great restaurants and shops as well as a beautiful harbor surrounded by unaffordable, elegant hotels. Oh to be rich.

Sadly, the beauty of this place is marred by the fact that it never stops raining. My dorm room provides a view of the ocean and a mountain range located in Washington, however, I have only managed to have glimpses of this amazing view since it is generally too cloudy to see anything but grey. Sadness.

New friends

I have one more week in residency and so far I am impressed with Royal Roads. The profs are fantastic, very knowledgeable and all able to provide real-world application for concepts learned. Engaging assignments provide motivation for learning, especially one entitled "The Communications Challenge" where, as a team, we examine a communication problem from a real organization and provide an anaylsis and solution. I've also met some fantastic people and learned a lot from them. And the best part: the raccoon family that nightly resides in the doorway of my dorm building. I love them.

The raccoons

So far, so good.

Olympos

The beach at Olympos

The first place I visited in Turkey (after Ankara of course and Istanbul) was Olympos. Drawn by the idea of sleeping in a tree house by night and lying on a beach by day, Heather and I took the long bus ride to Olympos. Upon our arrival we were horrified at the tree houses because they weren't bug proof (I'm not sure what we were expecting to be honest) so we quickly changed our room choice and got a bungalow instead. But seriously, who wants to awaken in the middle of the night with a big-ass insect on their face, an insect most likely intent on inserting poison or eggs in to their ear? The bungalows in Olympos offer air conditioning (woo hoo) and a toilet and shower. The shower is pretty much unusable since it is positioned directly above the toilet, but it's nice to know that it's there.

Lycian ruins

Olympos is not a town, it is merely a street lined with pansiyons - all offering tree house accommodation, and, for the less adventurous and bug haters like myself, bungalows. Most of the hotels (or all of them) offer a room, breakfast and dinner included in the price so it's actually a pretty good deal. The pansiyons are not located right on the beach because of the Lycian ruins but it is a beautiful walk to the beach. You have to pay to use the beach (but its really cheap) and that ensures the protection of the ancient buildings. As you walk to the beach, you will see ruins: walls, houses, bridges etc and if you venture further back in to the foliage you will find streets, more houses, some mosaic floors, tombs, an ampitheater and a very impressive gate. The ruins have never formally been excavated and it's very interesting to explore the ancient city in the state that it is in now, without any reconstruction.

The Chimera Flame

I love Olympos, not because there are tons of activities to do, but because there aren't. It's a good place to hike, relax and swim. There are boat trips available as well as sea kayaking (great fun but hard work). At night people can walk to the Chimera - a place which has natural, continuously burning fire coming out of the rocks. It's pretty cool. I've heard stories of people coming for a day and ending up spending weeks there - it's just that great.