On the Rocks.: ottawa

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Well, we're back from our trip to Ottawa and not super happy to be, to be quite honest. We had an awesome time. Last year's trip to Ottawa was so rushed and busy that we hardly had any time to enjoy ourselves. This year, we made a point of enjoying every day and spacing the annoying stuff out enough so that we could fit in all of the things we wanted to do and, with a few exceptions, we got it all done. It was great.

The whole time I lived in Ottawa, I was missing Victoria. And now that I'm on the Rock, I miss both. Sometimes one over the other, like now. And surprisingly, it's not my lovely hometown that I'm having a hard time being away from. Ottawa is full of so many happy memories for me, and most of our memories as a couple...special spots, favorite restaurants, stuff we used to do together...I guess after everything that went down this summer, I'm finding myself feeling nostalgic for those times. Not that the Rock doesn't have it's high points. But we had a blast doing "normal" stuff, like wandering around Chapters with hot pumpkin spice lattes, and driving down the Queensway listening to music. Sounds pretty blah, but seriously...it felt so familiar and nice to be able to live our old lives for a week or so.

We wandered the Market, ate Beavertails, shopped for beads (ok, that was me), did many, many laps of the Rideau Centre, sorted through boxes of stuff from our house that we left behind, had pho at phive (or mid-afternoon, anyways) with Shan and Jaia, BBQ'd some salmon, visited friends, caught up with the ladies of LUNLF over Thai food, photographed KKB and her new main man, Myles, and topped it all off with Mike and Krystal's wedding in Quebec. All in all? An amazing trip. And now we're back, moping around the apartment and wistfully making comments about what we might be doing if we were still there.

We are so geographically challenged. Sometimes, it's just too much. TOO MANY MILES. I'm so bored of airports. I wish we could just have our roots down somewhere and have our families and friends close by. Unfortunately, this is impossible.

I can see us going back to Ottawa, sometimes, if I think really hard and forget about everything that happens in Ottawa between December and April. Our Ottawa friends are a special bunch. I'm hating that we're missing out on so much of their lives, but happy that we're able to get there in 4 hours if we need to.

Anyways...I digress. I'm going to move on from my Ottawa love fest. The goodbye is still somewhat raw.

Speaking of raw, remember my root canal retreatment? Well, that was fun. Yesterday morning, I made my way downtown from the Toronto Airport on the subway (an experience all on its own), found my way to the endodontic specialist I was referred to, and spent 3 glorious hours in the chair, having my tooth fixed by the best of the best. Or so I've been told. And according to the internet. I felt pretty confident, but woke up today with a chipmunk cheek so I'm feeling sorry for myself now. Mostly because I look like I took a punch to the jaw. But, I suppose it was a pretty big infection and I'm not in any pain, so I'm feeling pretty good about it all. I'm hoping that this is the last I hear from this effin' tooth. If I have to go to work looking like this tomorrow, I'm not going to be very happy.

OK, I have to get to bed ASAP. I had a fab sleep last night in the most comfortable bed either (thank you, Hilton Toronto Airport), but it was cut short by my flight back to the Rock, so I'm more than just a little bit exhausted!

August 25

Well, as you have probably guessed, Bill was a bit of a pussycat. We got some pretty crazy wind and rain late Friday night, and our car got covered in a layer of salty slime, but other than that...Bill was a non-starter. Which, of course, is good news. We chickened out and went to a friend's house to spend Hurricane Bill drinking, playing games and watching movies because she had power and we lost ours at around 6:00 p.m. But, seeing as her landlord didn't close her shutters and they banged against the side of the house ALL NIGHT, we probably would have had a better sleep at home. Oh, and our power apparently came back on right after we left the house, so we even would have had A/C if we'd stuck around. Next time!

A special thank you to our CayMAN correspondent, Ass, who kept us up to date with all pertinent storm announcements.

The photo above was taken the morning following the "hurricane". The water was insanely angry and dangerous and the hurricane washed away most of our favorite beaches. The sand will be back soon...but it's weird to see what beaches look like without it. Mostly rocks, actually. Who knew?

I got up early today for the first time in a few months and went out for a brisk walk with my former running buddy. We figured that we should ease back into our runs, given that a) we haven't ran in at least 8 weeks; and b) it's approximately 40 degrees out there, PLUS 94% humidity. HOT. We leave early enough that the first part of our walk was pretty OK, but the sun had come up by the time we were headed back home and we were both dying. Good times! I love fitness.

2.5 weeks from now we're headed to Ottawa for a week ending with a very large wedding. I've been pretty busy organising our "to do's", which so far include the following (in no particular order):

- Rideau Centre, St. Laurent & Place D'Orleans (I need to shop)

- IKEA (I need new cutting boards)

- Mama/Baby photoshoot with my friend and her brand spankin' new son, Myles

- Haveli (I need Indian food)

- Lunch and/or drinks with the ladies of LUNLF

- Kurt and Kris day. We don't know what this means yet, but so far it includes a morning at Le Nordik

- Pho at Phive

That's it for now. The list will probably be a bit longer by the end of the day.

Fall in Ottawa.

A small tribute to this beautiful city, which I have been lucky enough to call home for just over five years. It is never prettier than at this time of year, with all of the fall colors. I took these photos from LUNLF's deck, approximately 4 minutes after my new camera finally arrived.

Restaurants that I will miss.

Because our new country is ridiculously expensive, we realize that our weekly dates will have to temporarily become a pleasant memory as we attempt to save our pennies and dine on such luxuries as canned soup. We're mostly fine with this. We have come to terms with it. Still, we're trying to fit in (without going overboard) all of those places around Ottawa that we always said we would try and never got around to (or remembered) when it came down to the actual date.

Ottawa has a pretty awesome selection of great places to eat. Since we are the anti-"meat, potatoes and rice" people (because living that way is 100% boring), we have always made a point of trying a new place, a new food, a new recipe...whatever. Since we won't have the pocket change necessary to sample all that the island has to offer right off the bat, we've been even more aware of some of the awesome places that we'll be leaving behind. In no particular order, here are the places that I'll be pining over whilst enjoying my Campbells' Cream of Tomato goodness (at $4 a can, no doubt):

Haveli in the Market. The most amazing Indian food ever.

Chahaya Malaysia on Montreal Road. A mix between Indian and Thai. I heart Malaysian food.

Singapore in the West End for sesame chicken, shrimp curry and spring rolls.

Suisha Gardens on Queen or Takara on Dalhousie for sushi.

Pho Truc Lien on St. Joseph...for pho. Special shout-out to Pho Bo Ga 2 & 3 on Somerset, though a mental image of a certain winged creature will never leave me.

Groovy's Roti Hut on MacArthur.

Carmello's on Cooper for pasta...the one time per year I actually want to order pasta.

Flippers on Bank - our new favorite seafood restaurant, discovered last Friday.

Green Papaya for the best Thai food around.

Moxie's/Milestones' bellinis. I will miss you, bellini.

A'roma Meze on Nepean for Greek tapas.

Of course, there are a lot of things about Ottawa that we will miss besides the restaurants. Like our friends and our house, for example. But the restaurants will be missed.

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August 25

Fall in Ottawa.

Restaurants that I will miss.

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