Ottawa

We spent a few days in Ottawa this week where Mark had a job interview. It really is a beautiful city, at least in May. We enjoyed strolling around the historic downtown area and thinking about how it would feel to bike along the river if we decide to call this home. Camilla was not happy about traveling for hours in the car, but she was thrilled to get to ride in her stroller while we wandered. She adores that thing, even though she usually glares the whole time she's in it. As long as she's quiet, we know she's happy.

We were excited to learn that Ottawa has a Little Italy. Of course we headed down there for dinner the night we arrived. It was very clean and fancy, with tons of restaurants offering expensive pasta plates. So what did we decide we just couldn't miss out on? Shawarma of course. We ate this a couple of time in Italy, and Mark loved it when he was on his mission. Now he can make a pretty decent dish of pasta, but so far we've never found Shawarma in the US. Camilla even enjoyed it, including the magenta-colored pickled beets that the guy told me were very important as it complements the chicken very nicely. In fact, I ate it again the next day for lunch while Mark was interviewing. So delicious.

What struck me most about Canada? Well I think I was expecting it to feel very familiar and similar to the US. It actually felt very European to me. Sort of multicultural, pedestrian, and historical. Plus they use funny money, print everything in English AND French, and post their speed limits in kilometers. So even though it's not terribly different from the US, there are little differences that kept catching me off guard. It's sort of difficult to look at the small number on the speedometer and to realize that 100 km/h is NOT very fast.

We're glad that we at least got to take a quick trip to Canada, regardless of where we end up. Oh, and I've decided that border guards are interesting people. You sort of think of them as scary and unfriendly, but who else asks you all kinds of questions about who you are, where you're going, and how long you plan to be in their country--and is actually very interested? They just rattle off those questions, and change their tactics depending on how you respond. You almost feel like they care, despite the temptation to be snarky and make their job harder. 

Here are a few pictures of things. . . we don't know the names of anything. I do know that in the bridge pictures, the other side of the river is Quebec. Camilla and I drove across the river once so we can claim we've been there, but then I was too afraid of getting lost in a country whose main language is French so I turned around and came back.