Weekend Exploring

Second week at work and settling in, getting to know the town and able to start and get around without programming the GPS.

We ventured to Little Italy for dinner on Thursday night a great authentic Italian restaurant.

The weather is incredible at the moment, 30+ on the weekend. On Saturday we ventured to Carp, about 30 minutes out of Ottawa to the Carp Fair, it was similar to a country town show.

Sunday was a road trip to Gatenau Park and beyond, the park has a number of lakes and lookouts. Lake Meech has a narrow road that skirts the park.

The view from the lookouts was clouded with haze but still visible was the Ottawa river winding through the countryside.

Settling in

The weather has been beautiful this week, everyone here is saying this week has been better than some of the summer months. Last weekend was the end of summer, so we are now in Fall, we have been told there are some great places to visit to see the change of seasons with the changes in the colour of the leaves.

We have been successful in getting an apartment in the Byward Market area, we move in on the 29th September, Chris looked at a few, furnished ones are hard to come by so we snapped this one up.

Because of the good weather we have spent a few nights out during the week, on Friday night we went to a light show on Parliament Hill celebrating Canada 150, it was a spectacular light show, different to Vivd but none the less well done.

During the week visited MosaiCanada150 in Gatineau, it was a spectacular horticultural celebration celebrating the art of mosaiculture and a tribute to Canada's 150 years of history.

Canada's 10 provinces and 3 territories, as well as First Nations Québec and Labrador, united to present 33 masterful works over five historical sectors. The horticultural friendship uniting Canada with Shanghai and Beijing has also led to coloured works of art which will delight your eye.

The weekend was spent exploring Ottawa and the surrounding countryside, we ventured off to Perth Ontario, a change from Pert WA.

At Christmas we have planned on the Neal's going to Calibogie Resort for a skiing holiday so we checked it out, it will be interesting to see it in the winter.

Summer ski fields.

Ottawa

We have spent the last few days getting oriented with the city and getting organised for work by opening bank accounts and getting tax file numbers. We were shown partially around the city to get an idea where we might want to live.

The weather is beautiful at the moment, we went exploring to find the Rideau Canal, it is hard to believe that it freezes in winter and people ice skate on it.

Second leg to Ottawa

Up early today as we had to be at the airport by 7.00am. A little bit of drama on checking in as two of the bags were a couple of kilo over the 23 kilo allowance even though the total of the four bags was within the 92 kilo allowance so we had to move some of the clothes to the hand luggage. We checked into the Air New Zealand lounge until it was time to board. Premium Economy is the way to go if you cannot afford Business Class, bigger seats and more leg room. Flight was ok but didn't get much sleep. No issues in Vancouver getting my work permit only took about 15 minutes. 

The flight to Ottawa was basic and seemed to go forever after our initial 14 hour flight. We took a cab to the address where we were to pick up our keys only to find out we had to go to another apartment block, not impressed after a long flight and we had let the cab go. Luckily the Sales Manager for Corporate Stays arrived and she took us to the apartment and showed us through it. 

Hungry after the flights we headed downtown to Joeys restaurant and ended up being waited on by a young guy from Perth whose brother lives in Coffs Harbour, he was a wealth of knowledge as it was his  third time working in Canada.

First Leg to Ottawa

Today we left Coffs Harbour on our way to Ottawa. A sad time leaving Cindy, Chris, Luke, Tom and Max, oh and we forgot Buster who we heard has escaped already but was brought home by some good neighbors. It won't be long before they are all over for Christmas.