Ottawa...or rather, 'Cold-awa'
Trip Start
Oct 15, 2007
1
10
97
Trip End
Aug 24, 2008
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Ottawa,
Ontario,
Canada
Monday, October 29, 2007
When we arrived in Ottawa, we checked our e-mail at the internet 'phone box' thing in the station to confirm where we were to be meeting Matti, our host for the next few nights. We gave her a call and made arrangements to meet in the mall near their place, then took the bus in to Ottawa. Jacob made friends with a fairly special lady named Mary-Ann. Mary-Ann is the kind of lady who starts a conversation with complete strangers on buses with
"Are you going to a Halloween party?"
Was she trying to say something about Jacob's hat?
We found the mall and the food court and shared a plate of substandard Teriyaki rice and read our guidebook until around the time that we were expecting Matti. Unfortunately, Jacob had misunderstood Matti on the phone and so she was waiting at the other end of the mall. 45 minutes and a phone call to Matti's boyfriend Karim later, we followed his directions to their place and he met us on the way.
Matti and Karim's apartment is really lovely - small and unusual. A little bit like Amélie's place in the film. We stayed in as the Ottawa weather had turned nasty and chatted to Matti and Karim. We had showers and they cooked us a meal and we all watched 'The Illusionist' and then chatted some more until the wee small hours.
The following day we went and explored Ottawa. We wandered over to the Byward market area and pottered about having a nosey. We bought silly hats as it was c-o-l-d and Jacob had cold ears. We then wandered over to the Rideau Canal area and took some photos of the canal and the Parliament buildings, agreed that yes, it was now definitely snowing and got chatting to an artist who was selling his pictures on the bridge.
Wandered on to Sparks Street, an area with lots of interesting shops (apparently) but being Sunday, it was somewhat deserted. So instead we found a payphone in an almost deserted mall and called Matti to arrange to meet up for drinks.
Went to a nice bar called Woody's and discussed how ridiculous American Football is and why they have to stop play every 2 seconds. We tried local beers (Creemore Springs, Keith's Red) and after a while, decided to head back to the apartment. We went via the mall and Matti treated us to a vist to the horribly creepy Christmas department of one of the big stores (this is still pre-hallowe'en), where we spent a silly amount of time looking at the most disgusting Christmas decorations and trying to out-do each other in how nasty an object we could find. Lots of Victorian looking things, which immediately suggested an echoing soundtrack of a children's choir singing plaintive nursery rhymes, the screen fading to black and the narrator saying "...and they were never seen again." The 'cherubic' little boy carol singers probably won, although it was a closely run contest.
We got some bits and pieces for tea and headed back to the apartment for the evening. Karim played us some of his music - he has a studio in one of the rooms and spends every spare moment he can find creating and producing songs. It's like N.A.S.A. in there!
The following day we headed out to the Royal Canadian Mint and took the tour. They showed us the process of squishing the silver into really long thin strips and cutting out coins, then punching in the designs. The Mint in Ottawa now only makes the commemorative coins, including some for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics with holograms pressed into the coin (odd) and a really fancy, only 10 in the world, man-hole cover sized $1,000,000 (Canadian) coin made of 99.999% pure gold and weighing 100kg. It was made to celebrate the fact that their gold refinery can manage 99.999% rather than the regular 99.99%...the sort of achievement celebrated only by those who don't get out much. Still, not one for the average wallet. The gift shop didn't sell packets of Royal Canadian Mints, which seemed a bit of a waste.
We headed across the Pont Alexandra back in to Quebec to Gatineau (or 'Hull' in English) to the Museum of Civilisation and found it to be closed. No civilisation today - we only do anarchy on Mondays. Instead we walked back to the apartment to check out the cooking facilities. Having done so and investigated the local supermarket, we abandoned the idea of making toad-in-the-hole (no measuring or weighing equipment in the apartment and the cost of self-raising flour coming close to requiring one of those man-hole cover sized coins) and instead bought the ingredients for spanish omelette, spicy bean and chorizo stew and salad. We cooked all of this up into a meal for Matti and Karim. Another lovely evening.
Next stop, Toronto.
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PS
For those of you already gnashing your teeth about the intended use of self-raising flour for toad-in-the-hole (people can get silly about their Yorkshire Pudding recipes), I say bollocks. Self raising flour works perfectly well (think about it...you want it to rise, so use the one which rises), whatever anybody may think!
Jacob
Comments
toad in the hole
Hey, Jacob. Don't forget that you always need 2 eggs for the perfect T in the H. but i bet you knew that already. xx SB
Ahhh!
I just missed you! Too bad, you guys should've stopped in at the TravelPod office for some beer and snacks on Halloween. Louise Brown TravelPod Community Manager
Also!
Karim and Matti are my great friends! They are both gone back to Holland now. That is also a shame, I miss them. Glad you guys had a great time with them. Louise