Train the Trainer

So I'm partway through my second set of training sessions, and this time all my living accommodations are funded, which includes travel cost, food, and a hotel room. On Sunday I set out for Oakville, where I would stay overnight and begin my training the next morning. I was a little sketched, because this journey would require me to take on another two transit systems, the Missisauga MiWay, and Oakville Transit.

Both took Presto cards, but they don't clock distance, as the Go buses do. So you don't clock off, you only clock on, and even though they have the same Presto machines as the Go buses do, none of them work. There's a different side-machine that takes it. So first time I got on the MiWay, I used the wrong machine. Then I tried to tap off when I didn't have to.

Looks like Presto takes off a flat rate in both Mississauga and Oakville, and it seems to act as a replacement for the bus pass. I take the bus enough that I can't imagine a cash rate ever being preferable to a monthly bus pass that offers unlimited use, even if you get a discount for Presto.

I was really disappointed that I didn't get to ride one of the accordion buses. At the transitway that connected me between Guelph and Hamilton, and Guelph and Oakville, I saw for the first time a strange form of bus, two bus-lengths wide, connected in the centre by a curving section that looked like the expanding and contracting centre of an accordion. Since I had to take MiWay to Oakville, I was hoping I could ride one of those since I'd just recently had the opportunity to ride a double decker, but I was unlucky and only got a standard-format bus.

I guess I've been in enough hotel rooms that the novelty has warn off and my eye has become a bit more discerning. They got me a room at the Monte Carlo Inn, and I couldn't help but notice that the base of the bathroom faucet leaked when you turned it on, that the floor-mounted door stop wasn't actually mounted to the floor... It was just kind of sitting there. The door-mounted doorstop was missing the knob at the end of it, so it was just a coil, and there were holes in the bathroom door where something had been mounted previously. In addition to the regular accommodations, they offered a safe, which I haven't seen offered at other places. Was just a bit interesting.

So the next day I head out to training. I show up, the woman sends me to an empty room and says this is where we're meeting. I'm about half an hour early so I'm not surprised I'm the first one, but at about five minutes to our starting time and me being the only one in the room, I get a bit concerned. A woman steps in, asks me if I'd got the email. I say I hadn't. She tells me everyone's meeting at a Tim Horton's down the street.

I think that's a bit odd. Who hosts a five day training session at a Tim Horton's? But I head down. They said the group would have signs up but I don't see anything like that. A man asks me if I was there to meet a group. I say yes, and he says they're leaving in a white car.

So I run out, flag them down and hop in their car. Turns out we're carpooling back to the office. The people training were just dropping their cars off since there wasn't enough space in the office parking lot.  Since I don't have a vehicle, it made it kind of a pointless treck but oh well.

So we get back, and the content of the session is a bit different from what I was expecting, so I ask if this is Train the Trainer. Turns out, no it isn't, that's in London Ontario, which is closer to Kitchener than Oakville.

I call my boss and she's really apologetic. She calls me an Uber and we go all the way from Oakville to London. By the time I get to the session, it's more than halfway through the day.

Got a new hotel room. Because of the short-term arrangements, she was only able to get me a suite at the Windermere Manor. Just for the first two days though, now I've transferred to a standard room. So in the past couple weeks, I've been in five cities (Kitchener, Guelph, Hamilton, Oakville and London), I've used three transit systems I've never used before (Go, MiWay, Oakville Transit, plus I'll have to work my way back from London and I've used Guelph and Grand River Transit as well) and I've been in three different hotel rooms.

I can even compare the suite and a standard room at this hotel, which I never really thought I'd have the opportunity to do. Basically the difference is the suite has a living room and the standard doesn't. The suite has two TVs and two sinks while the standard has only one of each. The suite has a microwave and the standard doesn't. The standard, though, has a desk while the suite doesn't. Not having a microwave is kind of annoying, but otherwise I wouldn't pay more money for the suite. I spent all my time in the bedroom anyway, didn't need the living room.

The hotel is right on a Pomemon Go Pokestop. It's like a hotel perk. I can collect items every ten minutes from the comfort of my bed.  This is how I learned I'm not technically in London. I caught a Pokemon and it was listed as having been caught in Arva, Ontario.