A view of Kingston

It's been nearly 3 weeks now since I first landed in Canada and it's flown by incredibly quickly. Oddly enough, despite being 5262km away from home, it's felt very homely since day 1.This may be simply due to having another English person, 2 Scottish, 1 Finnish, 1 Norweigan and a Canadian all under the same roof, but also due to the lifestyle and relaxed nature in general in Canada's first Capital.

Kingston, with a population of around 125,000 people, is geographically placed around 3 hours from Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa, while also being located on the coast of Lake Ontario. While, I haven't taken much advantage of these relatively close travel opportunities, I'll be sure to check them out at some point!

I've been fortunate enough to find a house ideally located within a 5 minute walk from the main University campus and about a 15 minute walk to the coast. This has made life much easier on a day to day basis, but it was nice to find time to finally explore other areas of the town! The first place I wished to tick off my list was Fort Henry, only about a 45 minute walk away from the house. With the weather as beautiful as you can see in these pictures, it really did feel like I was on a movie set while making my way across town and over the other side of town.

There's a significant deal of historical military importance here in Kingston, particularly due to its position on the mouth Cataraqui River.With the United States succeeding in their war of Independence in the late 18th Century, the War of 1812 was seen as an opportunity for the US to gain more land from the British in Lower Canada. As a result, British Naval troops were based in Kingston at Fort Henry to protect the newly built Rideau Canal to offer a waterway not at risk from American attack.

While it was interesting to walk around the exhibits they had there and also watch some of the weapons being used, it was the views that stunned me most across the lake. Even though I feel like I've settled into living here, sometimes I do forget that I'm in a different part of the world, so it was nice to get out of the University bubble and explore!

The next local places on my list are the Thousand Islands, which are located about a minute boat ride from the mainland, while also hoping to take a trip to one of the main cities nearby in the next few weekends before the cold weather kicks in!

That's all for now, if you'd like to see some more photos, click here!