My good friend Ele moved to Ottawa a year and a half ago with her partner Dave and their son Luke. Dave is an Ottawa native and they wanted to make sure their son grew up knowing both sides of the family and both of his heritages. While I hope that one day they will return to New Zealand (either briefly or more long term) I knew that visiting them in Canada would be a great time.
I flew directly to Ottawa from Chicago and was so pleased to see Ele and Luke greet me at the airport. The comforting thing about seeing a best friend after a year and a half is it doesn't feel like it's been that long. It could really have been a day and a half, it's all the same.
Ele lives in a family friendly suburb about half an hour out of Ottawa. It's a nice area with lots of parks for two year olds to play in and bars for Mum's and their friends to enjoy on nights off.
I throughly enjoyed being off tour, having no timeframes to stick too and being able to sleep in (much to Ele's annoyance - no more 9.30am crack-of-dawn calls when you have a two year old I guess - haha.) We spent lots of time catching up on life, talking with the freedom that being in the same place and the same time allows, and that alchohol allows. Yep, we drank Ele's house dry on the first night and turned to her neighbour Erica for drinking assistance.
During the day we entertained Luke, a sweet and energetic two year old. He's not much of a talker, but boy can he move. He's fast, he climbs like a monkey and he's a pretty good boy to boot. His Grandmother took him one day so that Ele and I could go to the local water park. She talked me into trying a rather tall and fast ride, which I actually enjoyed. I especially enjoyed the long rides through the 'Kongo'. Ele and Dave showed me around downtown Ottawa and the parliament buildings, in the pouring rain. And we decided that a trip to the local Zoo would be not only touristy, but a great way to entertain Luke. Only, it took several stops at petrol stations to find it at 70 kms out of the city. Once there, it wasn't quite what we had expected. Rather than a commercial zoo like Wellington (and what we were expecting) it was more of a family run farm park (kinda like Lindale farm). Not that that was bad, just different.
I had the pleasure of meeting Dave's best friend Adam, his wife Darlene and their six month old daughter Brynn at a BBQ on my last night in Ottawa. We stayed the night at Dave's parents place (they were away in Toronto for the weekend) which really is in the middle of nowhere.
To be honest, there isn't as much to Ottawa as any of the other Canadian cities I've visited and I can see why it's bypassed on the commerical tours. But Ottawa wasn't about Ottawa for me, it was about visiting my great friend and having some down time with her and her gorgeous family.
I was sad to say goodbye after four wonderful days and head off for a full day of flying to LA via Toronto. That update yet to come. . . .
No comments:
Post a Comment