Walking in Waterloo Region

[plam]

I'm sure I can write down some more of my experiences, but the point is that while 95% of the time things are completely uneventful, I've had enough shocking experiences that I can't go without wondering when the next one will be. I do what I can to avoid them at this point, and nighttime is just another factor that is under my control. Things might be safe, but I can't help but feel differently.

That sucks. In some sense I think it's that there aren't enough average people on the street to prevent unpleasant encounters. I'm not a super big fan of adding to the police budget to get more police officers downtown, but if it had to be police, they should not be in cars. Probably better is something like what I saw in Wellington the other day: there were these people who had vests inscribed "Maori Warden". They are not police officers but their (volunteer) job is to encourage Maori to stay out of trouble. It may work better when there is more of a culture of listening to elders.

We find many things of interest on our downtown walks. There are lots of houses from different eras, architectural details, renovations, parks, gardens, construction projects, cats, giant tortoises (OK, only one of those). But it of course depends on what you find interesting.

It really depends where you go. We have some great residential neighbourhoods around downtown, and even the more modest houses are usually nice to look at. I also find north of Weber there is a very high concentration of dogs, and south of Charles I often run into 5+ cats on my walks. Always a treat with either.

I'd really like to know where I can find this giant tortoise.

We only occasionally run into cats in Waterloo (although they're pretty bad for birds in general). My spouse isn't super into looking at houses (which is also a minus when walking in the wrong places in Montreal, at least in the sense of being interesting). There are more views in Wellington (which also comes with downsides: climbing hills, and wind). Shops are, I think, usually interesting, in part because they also attract people.