Settling in

It has been a while since my last post.  Life can get really busy with the ol’ 9-5 taking up your days!  Working at Finance has certainly been a challenge these past few weeks.  There is just so much to learn the biggest obstacle has been learning the acronyms.  It’s difficult to get a feel for a job when your coworkers seem to be speaking a different language! But I do seem to be getting the hang of things.  I actually have responsibilities, which I haven’t seemed to bumble yet go me! It’s very different from jobs I’ve had in the past.  Not to mention the massive amounts of power I have – mwahahahahahaha – just kidding, I actually have no real power whatsoever.

(A picture of me on my first day of work!)

On weekends Lee and I take some time to explore the city.  Now that we have our bicycles we can see a lot more.  We’ve been to Mooney’s Bay beach, Westboro beach, Britannia beach and the Greenbelt (area of parkland/swamp that surrounds the outskirts of the city).  Ottawa really is a beautiful city and I don’t think there is a single thing I don’t like about it (other than the lack of my friends and family)!  I don’t even mind the bizarre humming anymore.  The trees in Ottawa occasionally produce this strange electrical sounding humming.  I asked my coworkers about it and they had absolutely no idea what I was talking about but Lee hears it too, so I can’t be going crazy.  Lee thinks it is from some kind of insect, but I am unconvinced.  Anyways, I’ve posted some photos from our latest cycling adventure below.

(Along the Ottawa river there is an outdoor art exhibit, which features rock sculptures held together by stacking rocks – ie no clement.  It was pretty rad.)

 

(Rocks and geese)

(Along the Ottawa river)

(A farm in the Greenbelt)

 

Last Saturday I went to Ikea and bought the last of the furniture that we needed - so I’ll post pictures of our apartment once everything is assembled (which at this rate won’t be for a while)!

Our First Week in Ottawa

After all the packing, stress and sad goodbyes, we finally made it to Ottawa.  It wasn’t easy though.  Monday’s travels were fraught with cancellations, lightning storms and unfortunately long layovers in Winnipeg.  We arrived at the airport at 5:00am only to
find out that our flight had been cancelled.  A Westjet staff member put us on the next flight, which had a 7 minute connection in Winnipeg.  Perhaps not the best idea as a storm was lighting up the sky all around the airport.  Needless to say our flight was delayed until the storm passed… one hour later.  When we arrived in Winnipeg, we found out that our connecting flight had left without us (of course!).  Two boring hours later we got on our flight to Ottawa, which in 6 hours also stopped in Thunder Bay and Toronto.  After arriving, we were then faced with another challenge: having missed the appointment to pick up the
keys to our new apartment, we had to sneak the birds into the hotel room that we booked from the Winnipeg airport.  Thankfully, the birds were quiet while we snuck them up to the tenth floor after we checked in.

The next day we got the keys to our new place and we moved our luggage up to our empty apartment.

After some cleaning and a trip to Ikea, our place became a little bit more like home.  However, the apartment was becoming unbearable in the heat.  Thursday was a record hot day with a humidex of 46 degrees, so we decided to go to the mall downtown to stay cool in the afternoon. 5 hours and one impulsively purchased air conditioner later we were back at home relaxing in the blessed cool air.  When it’s hot, our days essentially follow the same pattern: wake up and do outside things in the morning, come back to the a/c for the afternoon and then go for a walk at night.  On Friday night we went for a walk to Dow’s Lake, which is about 8 blocks from our apartment. It was beautiful!  After 8:00 pm is the perfect time to walk around here!

 

 

Saturday morning we went to the Farmers’ market in Little Italy.  It only had 6 tents making it, by far, the smallest farmers’ market I have ever been to- but it was great!  We had time to chat with a couple of the farmers, were invited to a farming potluck and found out that you can deep-fry fresh zucchini flowers.  After the market we explored the neighbourhood a bit.  Little Italy feels as if it is in the middle of being gentrified: there’s a starbucks and two new condo buildings going up but also some quaint, kind of run-down places as well. It definitely has an interesting feel and I think it is my favorite neighbourhood so far.

On Saturday night we stopped in for a beer at this Irish-Italian-Abbey themed pub in Little Italy.  With 32 beers on tap, this might be our new pub! It is super-kitschy but lots of fun.

On Sunday morning I walked down to the Glebe to go to the Farmers’ market in Lansdowne Park.  It was a gorgeous walk.  The Glebe is full of beautiful brick houses and little parks scattered around.  I hung out with some ducks by a pond for a bit.

All in all, it was a pretty great first week in our new town!  I’m looking forward to what this next week will bring.