How Parliamentary

Last night we went out with Mark and Marina's work friends. I had a great time. Between the good people they work with and how great this city is in general, I can see why Mark decided to stay here. Even though Ottawa isn't much bigger than Winnipeg as far as population goes, it has a much more vibrant culture and has so much more to see and do. I'm pretty sure that being the capital of the country has something to do with it. After just being here for a few days, I know that if I were to move out of Winnipeg I'm quite sure that I'd move here.

Mark took me for a personal tour of the Canadian Parliament building. I was surprised at how the public was just able to walk through our capital building. I was standing on the floor of the senate and under the archway where the press interviews the Prime Minister and cabinet members. The whole place felt so important and made me proud to be Canadian.

One thing I found strange as soon as I got here is that downtown Ottawa doesn't really have any tall office buildings. Even in Winnipeg, you can look up and orient yourself to the middle of downtown by looking for the tall office towers. While I was up at the top of the Peace Tower today I mentioned it to Mark, and apparently none of the building in the capital are allowed to be any taller than the top of the Peace Tower on the parliament building. Crazy.

It's nice being friends with the tour guides at somewhere important like this. Mark let me take a picture from the stacks in the library. Something that I really shouldn't have been able to do. I ended up with this picture that I'm extremely happy with.

I spent the rest of today shopping. I found some great sales at some stores that we don't have back home. Grace would be proud.

The capital of more than just Canada

Ottawa has a surprisingly large amount of the following things:

1. Well dressed young people: Somehow the young people all seem to have a grasp on fashion. I don't know where they're all shopping, but I want to go there.
   
2. Pubs: Pubs have out numbered any other type of bar or social club that I've seen here (with the exception of coffee shops) at least 2 to 1. No complaints.
   
3. Money: Numbers 1 and 2 probably correlate fairly strongly with number 3. I'm told it's because so many people here work for various branches of government.
   
4. Shawarma: I had no idea what shawarma was till actually went and tried it. It was served with a whole bunch of veggies and sauces I couldn't identify. The once sauce I swear was just mayonnaise and lots of garlic. But the whole plate was delicious. But there's seriously a shawarma place within five minutes of everywhere I've walked so far. These were the places I passed on the walk home today:
   

Today, I'm a tourist!

I'm so glad I decided to bus yesterday. The transit system here is so well put together. I took a bus down the Transitway and that got me most of the way here. The bus started right at the airport and traveled down this walled in buses-only road. It made less than a dozen stops and in a matter of minutes it passed through the heart of downtown.

Once I was off the bus and made my transfer, I found Marina and Mark's place no problem. They have the top floor of an old house in a nice old neighborhood right by the Rideau Canal. Their place is big and extremely cozy. I really like it here. The two of them also seem to get along very well. I'm happy for them.

I decided to make supper for the two of them when they got home from work, because that's just the kind of thing that I do. I went outside and started walking. Be it fortune or an impeccable sense of direction, I found a grocery store no problem.

In the evening, Marina and I went for a drive and a walk through the market district. Most of the shops were closed, but I was just happy that she showed me around. I have been to Ottawa once before with a high school trip, but my exposure to the city was very limited. Over the past six or so years my mental map of various landmarks has become less accurate and more distorted and fictional. It was such a relief to finally clear up where all these places are in relation to each other.

The plan for today is to be a tourist. I'm going to go to the National Art Museum, and probably the Museum of War. This evening we're going out to a pub with a bunch of their friends.

I've played that game

It never really clicked with me till the wheels left the ground that if we're taking off in winter, that also means we'll be flying over the city in winter. You could make out roads and houses as little marks poking through the fresh dusting of snow. In a matter of maybe one or two minutes we left from the airport, passed my apartment, passed my mom's house, then got too high up to even see the ground below us through the snow. It really puts the speed of these things into perspective.

My window is pointing away from the sun but my view of the clouds is clear. The top of this weather system is perfectly flat and the plane is flying not far above the surface. It looks like staring out across the frozen lake in the winter, wisps of clouds pretending to be blowing snow and the horizon on a clear day splitting the world clean in two.

As we left the airport, we taxied to a deicing station, which I didn't even know existed. Our plane stopped in a big flat open area where it was to be sprayed down. These two tanker trucks pulled up with big arms poking out of the top. At the end of each arm was a an enclosed cockpit-like cabin containing one worker. Attached to the front of this cabin was a pressurized spray nozzle. Each of the arm, the cockpit, and the nozzle could be controlled by the guy inside who moved his machine around robotically and skillfully.

That guy's job is startlingly similar to a whole bunch of video games that I've played. Except this time, rather than shooting robots or space ships, he was spraying the wings of an airplane with ethylene glycol and water. He looked like he was having fun.

The clouds are breaking below me and I can see patches of snow cover. I wonder how far we are? I'm sure all of Manitoba is covered in snow, but most of what seems to be the canadian shield below me is exposed ground. Even the bodies of water are frozen but have virtually no snow on them. You can see the patterns of how they were blown by the wind as they solidified.

Flight 2470 to Ottawa

It has been years since I've been on any type of aircraft. My family rarely traveled, and I've only done it once when I was really even old enough to remember anything. And I most certainly have never flown in the winter.

This morning it is at least twenty below in Winnipeg with blowing snow. I'm sitting in a windowed in lounge watching the planes attach themselves to the big boarding ramps, but once they've started moving away from the terminal they disappear into a blanket of white. All I can see is the blinking lights of dozens of snow removal vehicles running up and down all the runways and taxiways. It's so amazing to me that the planes are even able to take off in weather like this, let alone land.

One thing I do remember clearly from my limited flight experience is bursting through the clouds after take off. I'm lucky enough to have been assigned a window seat so I'll get to see us break through the white out and stare down on the clouds.

Airplanes still always make me think of my father. Flying was such a big part of his life and so as a result it was a big part of mine. I spent more time in non conventional aircraft than I have in commercial aircraft by about two or three fold. From two seater recreational planes, to helicopters, and even a hot air balloon. I was lucky to experience all of that, regardless of the fact that we didn't really go anywhere but up.

A nice old man who appears to be an employee here just asked me if I was doing my homework. I really miss being a student. I guess I still really don't look like a “young professional”. Which is actually good.

I don't really know why I'm going to Ottawa. I had told each Marina, Mark, and Eliot at different times that I'd come out to visit them. I guess January seemed like a good time to do it since it's such a quiet month. I only got to visit with Eliot and Marina for a very short amount of time when they were in the city over Xmas. Mark not at all. It's also exciting to see where each of them live and get them to show me around a new city. But other than that, I don't have any real reason for going. My life has been a little crazy in the last couple months so I think I'm just going to be happy to be out of the city. A change of scenery will be therapeutic.

When I land it's going to be around zero degrees. Nobody can come pick me up at the airport, so I've decided to take the bus. I have some questionable directions and guidelines from Mark and Marina on how to transit to their place. I'm going to have to transfer and know nothing about the city, but I'm not too concerned. I'm armed with my discrete travelers map that Grace got me and I tend to have a good sense of direction. I'm always up for an adventure, and the worst that will happen is that I'll have to call a cab to pick me up at a random street corner!

Adventure. This is going to be a good week.