Lost in Translation - June 01
This morning I spent a good amount of time chatting with Niclas and Pooria about a variety of topics. After we finished the conversation I headed out on yet another walk around the city. I’m beginning to think that I’ll injure myself if I keep this kind of physical activity up for too long.
First on the list was bagels at Farimount. Worth the walk, but the best bagel was off course the fresh sesame seed bagel. Go check them out. With that said, however, I’m realizing that I’m not blown away by food recommendations these days. Sure, the food is delicious, but I’m not having any epiphanies because of them. Anyway, good bagels are good. I then walked around Place des Artes, Quartier des Spectacles, and the surrounding area. This is a varied city and everything I saw was cool. It is deifinitely a downtown. I can for sure say that. After wondering for a time I began the search for the Black’s Photography store where I would surely find the answer to my camera woes. I got to the cross street I had jotted down earlier but had no luck finding the place. I walked into the bank building and asked someone where the store was located and she told me that it closed a while ago. Damnit, Google Maps, why didn’t you tell me!
I sat down, sadly, in the courtyard for a short while before going to Crescent Street where I was promised bars, restaurants, and English speakers. I decided to sit down for some late lunch and beers to drown my sorrows. I managed to sneak in a couple chapters of HP during my two beers and fish and chips and headed out again. I decided it was time to go back to the apartment as I was getting tired again, probably still a bit worn out from the day before, and also a bit sore in the foot region.
I met up with Pooria and Niclas, chatted with Nick for a bit and then Pooria’s boyfriend, Matthieu, showed up and we headed for dinner. Niclas and I finally spoke Spanish and both he and Pooria were impressed with my accent and ability. Yay! I do like a bit of praise, but not too much. I’m still no good at taking compliments. After dinner we walked around and I convinced everyone to come get a hot chocolate at Cacao 70, a place Pooria had suggested on my first night. We continued our chats. We went through Swedish, French, English, Spanish, and even some German. Of course, since Niclas and Pooria are the polyglots they did most of the heavy lifting here but the whole night was a huge reinforcement of my love for languages and learning them. So cool to be around so interesting sounds, accents, and expressions. I can’t wait until I can do the same! But I think I may have mentioned this before. Correct me if I’m wrong.
Rain Makes Your Cares Go Away - June 02
Today it was rainging. Everyone was out of the apartment before me and then I too decided to depart. I tried to drive down to Verdun and see some things but the traffic to get out of downtown was abismal. I came close to overheating my car a quite a few occasions. I dilly-dallied (spelling?) for a while at a grocery store somewhere and decided to call it a day. I hit traffic a second time, this time seeing some vapour come from under the hood of the car. I stopped to let it cool and then went back to the apartment. We spent the rest of the day doing next to nothing. I watched a movie and did some language learning research. Mostly, I’m thinking about the language I would like to learn after Swedish, if I end up getting that far. Hindi is an extremely strong competitor because of it’s unusual script and it’s number of native speakers. Other candidates are Arabic and Russian but, of course, I can’t make any decisions at this point. I don’t even know if I’ll get through French. It’s all just a plan. That’s all it ever is.
I Missed Engineers, But Not Hangovers - June 03
I spent the morning hanging out with Pooria and Niclas while I did my laundry and made plans to leave for Ottawa. Niclas left on his expedition for the day so we said goodbye. Pooria told me about all the cool festivals and events coming up in Montreal, most notably of which, Just For Laughs, that I would be missing this year. Which is fine because I’ve been missing them for my entire life but it does kind of seem like I could spend a bit more time in this city if I wanted to. But I’m kind of OK with leaving.
After my clothes were finished I handwrote out my directions to Doug’s place and the bar he said I could meet him at and headed out. The beginning of the drive was poor as I had some difficulties, as per usual, with all of the signage in the city. I ended up doing a couple rounds of a small section of town, giving up and just following things for “Toronto” which turned out perfect and got me back on my charted course. I arrived in the Ottawa section of the highway in about two hours and was greated by some insane traffic. Luckily my car didn’t over heat and I made it to The Brew Table to meet Doug and his friends Mac, Lynn, and Ryan.
I missed engineering humour. It was a blast. We had a couple of beers, Ryan took off, and the rest of us went to get some food at a place called The Butchery. Tasty. We grabbed some beer from the LCBO, Mac departed, and Doug, Lynn, and I went to Dougs to hang out. There I received the Nexus 5 that my friend, Dan (you goddamn legend) sent me as a backup for my broken phone. I can’t believe anyone actually took me seriously, let alone the fact that I had a couple of friends offer to send a phone half way across the country just to make my trip a little less difficult. You people are awesome. A few more bad jokes, some talk about travel and life and two more of Doug’s friends showed up, Owen and Adam. So many engineers.
Later on in the night we went to a place called The Lieutenant’s Pump. It’s a deceptively large pub with lots of room for regular pub activities such as standing and drinking, sitting and drinking, dancing and drinking, and the like. It was a fun night that ended around 4am. Not sure how many of those I’ve got in me for this trip. But definitely a few more.
A Walk About Town with A Friend - June 04
After Doug and I had breakfast and semi-planned the day we headed out together on a walking tour of Ottawa. We saw basically it all. Parliament, Rideau Canal, the market down the road from Parliament, a mall, Clarence Street where they are obsessed with patios, lots of old building, a small festival, and then a beer festival. Ottawa is a cool city and I like beer festivals.
I enjoyed seeing the architecture that a lot of the buildings have to offer but it is becoming a bit stale having spent the last five months travelling. The beer fest was a lot of fun, we tasted eight different IPAs in order to vote for a our favourite. Then we hit a liquor store because Doug had told me about some concoction of wine and Coca-Cola that I had to try. When we got back from the day out we had goals to meet again with some of Doug’s friends but it kind of fell through so I made the mistake of starting to watch Game of Thrones because I haven’t been keeping up. Three episodes, some Kalimotxo (the wine drink), and some shawarma later and it was time to get some sleep while Doug’s new air conditioner was bushing some glorious cold air into the room.
It was a good day and we plan on going to see Gaitneau park tomorrow which should also be good.
It Rained, Like A Lot - June 05
We had planned on seeing Gatineau Park today and those plans were quickly fooled by the ridiculous amount of rain that we got. Something about a nice walk/hike in a park with a few friends doesn’t seem satisfying when you’re getting drenched. Instead, we headed to parliament to get tickets for a tour. We got our tickets and had some spare time before the tour started so we decided to check out the Supreme Court. The courst is pretty cool, mostly in the fact that it’s a significant building. There’s not much else to it. We learned a little bit about the nine justices that reside, how often they sit, who decides how many justices sit, etc. We almost got the third and final presentation done, however, they presented it in English and neither of us are proficient enough to translate. We left for our tour.
The tour of parliament was pretty cool. We saw lots of dark rooms, lots of paintings, lots of sculptures, the top of the clock tower, and even the room where #elbowgate happened! I enjoyed the tour. I plan on going to see a question period in The House of Commons before I leave, just to see firsthand how our MPs act during the debates. Granted, you can watch them online but I figure what the hell, I’m here.
After the tour there was not much left to do with the town. I thought my days would have been a bit more hectic in Ottawa but much to my pleasant surprise they are going rather smoothly with few worries. Cool. We spent pretty much the rest of the day looking up parliamentary things, proccesses, memes, and other stuff, finishing off with some more episodes of Game of Thrones so I would be caught up.
Gatineau Park - June 06
Another late start to the day after seeing Doug off for work in order to grab the keys for his apartment and I decided today would be a good day for Gatineau Park. So, for the first time since I received the life saving phone from my friend, Dan, I was able to punch “Gatineau Park” into Google Maps and be guided by a soothing computer voice to my destination. It was pure amazement. It was like the first time I had ever used this technology. We’re so spoiled.
First, I went to Pink Lake. Here are a couple photos:
Oh yeah, did I mention that my camera started working for no reason the other day while I was having lunch with Doug? Yeah, that’s a thing that happened. I have no idea what changed. I was trying to show Doug that my camera was broken, even if you tried to take a photo during video mode. I took a picture and it worked. I don’t know, and I don’t care. I have a nice camera again. That’s what matters.
The walk around the lake took me a little while but it was peaceful. I appreciate peaceful these days. The rest of the time in Gatineau Park was spent driving around random roads, taking turns for things that sounded interesting, and stopping at the top of some hill’s lookout to take a few moments to do nothing. I also came across some “ruins” which are from some abbey that somebody built a long time ago. They’re pretty uninetersting. But they exist. Now you know.
I went back to the apartment at some hour before Doug got home so I could let him in and give him back his keys. We spent the night doing little, I watched the last two episodes of Silicon Valley that I had left, and prepared the latest episode of Game of Thrones. We got large amounts of sushi at a restaurant we probably took too long to find and decide on and came back to the place to watch Thrones. The show is still good, it turns out. I had no doubts. But I wonder if I should have gone and binged them like I always do. It is extremely easy to fall back into old habits, sometihng that I do quite effortlessly, which is a bit upsetting, considering I have been doing different things almost every day during this trip. I would prefer to bring in new habits that are more productive that unearth old habits that see me spending hours in one spot, watching a TV or computer screen, and taking into content that doesn’t help me learn anything other than how to chat with people about a show or spoil a show. I mean, I won’t stop watching my favourite shows but doing it in one go feels like a bad idea.
Any way, parliament tomorrow for question period should be good. Not underwhelming or upsetting at all.
Parliament and The Limestone City - June 07
I got my act together a little earlier than normal today. I headed up to the parliament building and asked when I would need to arrive to get a seat during question period in The House of Commons, and then made my way up to 24 Sussex, where the Prime Minister is supposed to live, though I hear JT doesn’t currently reside there. I then headed in Rideau Hall for a 45 minute tour. It’s pretty cool to see the things that our government uses on a regular basis in real life as opposed to TV. I remember the tour guide telling us to remember one year. 1848. There I remembered. I couldn’t tell you what it was about, but there you have it. Wait, I just Googled it. I think I got that wrong. Shit.
After the tour I walked back to parliament, had lunch and got in line. The line was fairly long due to a school group but after the saftey check I was in the room where you wait to be seated. This place seems extremely unorganized. Not something you want to see when your opinion of government is that it should be well run and organized. At any rate, I wasn’t able to get a seat during question period because they were full of people with reservations. You can reserve a seat if you get in touch with your MP, by the way. Something I probably should have done. Oh well.
I got back to Doug’s place and sat down to watch a bit of question period online. Turns out JT was there but the 20 minutes I watched had little to do with things that interest me. The questions were loaded or childish which seems to be the norm. It’s awfully surprising how these question periods are performed. At times the house is completely shouting, the responses do almost nothing to actually answer the question, the second question that is asked after the first rebuttle is basically just slander, and the second response is a repetition. It doesn’t seem helpful. Whatever, I’m sure they’ll get stuff done. After that, I packed up my things and hit the road to Doug’s work. I dropped off his keys, had a hug goodbye and a promise to see each other at our friend’s wedding in a month and a bit and I was off to the gas station for a fill up of gas and oil.
A couple hours later and I arrived in Kingston. I took a drive around The Royal Military College because it had been suggested to me. I also took a quick walk up to the closed door of For Henry, neat. Then I did a lengthy walk through Queen’s University, through buildings and beside the street, and also along the water for a bit. Then it was time to eat/drink. I found the main street, Princess, good one, and came across a busy, neat looking, brewpub called Stone City Ales. I decided to stay, I got some beers, their IPA is quite nice. It was then that I realized I could do little reviews of craft breweries across Canada and bring them back to the people I know at The Great Canadian Beerfest in Victoria. So, hopefully next year we’ll see Stone City Ales there.
I spent a good amount of time chatting with the three bartenders/servers and got some info on the brewery, the town, and Jasper of all places. It was good. I got some frozen yogurt afterwards, talked with the guy working there who was actually the owner about the affect of the huge road construction going on had on business and got back to my car. I found the nearest Walmart and got myself set up. While I don’t enjoy sleeping in my car, it is free.