It's been a while but I will try and cover what I can and will add photos later.
I will start with a story about a skunk. A few months back we started smelling a strange odour coming from the air conditioning unit of the car while driving back from Montreal. This smell would only appear after long trips. I thought it may have been out of refrigerant, but the air was still cool. So we took it to the mechanics the next week, they looked over it and couldn’t find the problem, ‘but we’ll take $120 please for the labour, thanks’. Yeah thank-you. The smell went away, so we didn’t think much of it after that – however the smell returned on our next long journey to Quebec City. 'What is up with this car', we thought. Then one day when we were driving back from ultimate frisbee with friends, one of them said ‘smell that skunk, someone has run over a skunk around here’. Ahhhh, it all of a sudden it dawned on me – I remember when we were coming home from Montreal (it was late evening), a black and white animal ran out across the front of the car – we missed it by a few feet, but it must have been shitting itself and let the musky perfume shoot from its behind – and the perfume must have sprayed on the radiator of the car. That skunk cost us $120!
OK, so in the previous post I said we were going to do the Ottawa half marathon. Well Miriam and I did it, and we were quite happy with our results. It was a scorcher of a day, and we joined over 9,000 others at the start line. The race took us over to Quebec, and then back into Ontario, along the canal to the finish line. Miriam did an awesome time – 2:11, I ran it with another kiwi and had a time of 1:43 – a good effort for both of us, considering the heat and considering it was our first half marathon. Toronto half is next – October 19. Then another friend and I may attempt the Ottawa Full next year – which means training in Winter – (running in –20C highs).
The climate over here is different. We had record snowfalls last winter (over 4m), and it disappeared within the first 2 weeks of Spring. Summer’s here, and we are getting the hot humid, thunder storm weather. Extremes at its best/worst - I guess that's what you get in a continental climate.
It has been busy over here – we haven’t had a free weekend since the June, and won’t have another until October. But it is all good, as we are getting out and about. In a few weeks both of us, and 4 others, are taking a house boat around the Thousand Islands (on the St Lawerence river, right on the US Canada border) during that long weekend. So, we'll be bbqing, swimming, guitaring and hitting golf balls from the top deck into the river. Then at the end of August, my folks are coming over, so we'll be driving them to Montreal, Quebec City, Lake Placid, New York City, Niagara Falls and then Toronto (where they will fly out from). Then 2 weeks later, we are off to Greece for a wedding! My annual leave will be used up in the space of 4 weeks.
Work wise we are doing well – Miriam is getting good reports, and I may be off to Vienna for a conference (or at least DC for a tour of the State Department). We have had a few diplomatic duties to do - I had the chance to meet the NZ Governor General a few weeks back (filled in for Miriam, as she was over seas for work).
Went on a rave boat cruise along the Ottawa river a few weeks back. It was organised by a friend of a friend and it was a huge night (the theme was ‘naughty-cal' - so there were some nice costumes – I didn’t wear anything naughty, but did have some googles and arm floaties). Some guy jumped off and went surfing behind another boat (he wasn't allowed back on the rave boat though). There are some pics here – we are about 7-8 photos in, and I’ll add some soon (which will show below this paragraph).
I picked up some golf clubs at the 'Glebe garage sale' (an annual event where everone in the rich suburb of Ottawa (the Glebe), sell there old stuff). So I've been out on the course a few times with the some friends. Also playing ultimate frisbee, beach volleyball and hockey. The biking is going well, I try to get over to Gatineau Park, just across the river in Quebec, as often as I can - haven't seen a bear yet this year, but have seen plenty of deer, groundhogs, and beavers.
Summer in Ottawa is about festivals – because really it the only time people can get out and enjoy the weather and get some much needed vitamin D in them. OK, so we have had Italian week, Canada dance Festival, WESTFEST, festival franco-ontarien, Ottawa Fringe Festival, Ottawa Dragon Boat Festival, Ottawa Jazz Festival, Canada Day, Ottawa Air Show, Bluesfest, HOPE Volleyball Summerfest, and there are still another 22 festivals to go (some bigger than others). Check out http://www.ottawafestivals.ca/e/festivals.html for festivals. And that’s just Ottawa. Montreal down the road also has a lot of festivals too.
I’ll talk about a few of the ones mentioned above and the Independence Day party.
July 1 was Canada Day. Like last year , Canada Day was huge. All the inner city streets were blocked off, people from all over the country (and the States) came to Ottawa to join in the celebrations. The canals were choc-a-block full of boats – many from the US. You could hardly move in places – it was huge. We started the day at a friends house for brunch and some beers, went to some other friends place for a swim and some beers, and ended in downtown Ottawa to watch the fireworks. Long day – and it was a Tuesday, so we all had to go back to work the next day. But I get the American stat holidays as well, so Friday – July 4 – was also a holiday for me - Miriam took the day off - (although I volunteered to work for 1 hr at the Ambassador’s party – the party of the year, according to a few).
Yep, Independence Day, July 4, Friday, was a great day. The Ambassador invited close to 4500 people to his house for the July 4 celebrations. The invites went out to politicians, business leaders, diplomats, celebrities, media, and of course the staff. Now you have to see the Ambassador’s residence to believe it. For a start it has 32 rooms. It also has a landscaped front yard the size of about 3 rugby fields. He even hosts his own Winterlude – with ice skating rinks in the Winter. Anyway back to the party. There were 8 food tents with the finest food, 3 beer and wine tents, a huge marquee with tables and chairs, and a band tent with a dance floor. After the speeches and National Anthems, there was a flyover of two Canadian and two US fighter jets. As you would imagine, the security of the event was high. Someone from Macleans magazine (Canada’s equvilent of TIME), did a minute by minute blog of the party – check it out. Also video here, photos here.
July 3 – 11 was Bluesfest – the 7th biggest music festival in the world (hundreds of bands, thousands of people). There were names like Snoop Dogg, The Wailers (with a guy that sounded exactly like Bob), The Tragically Hip, Tal Mahal, Blind Boys of Alabama, Feist, Steely Dan, Primus, James Taylor, Tokyo Police Club, That 1 Guy, Michael Franti, Beach Boys, The Black Crowes, Great Big Sea, Akon, Wyclef Jean, Donna Summer, Sean Paul, David Maxwell band….the whole list is here . Some stand outs were, The Wailers (very cool – with Bob Marley – well he sounded like him), Great Big Sea (check the videos – Dad you would like them – from Newfoundland – very Irish, they have a massive following over here), That 1 Guy (amazing – one guy playing a homemade instrument – awesome – check him out), and Hamell on Trial (comedy/political singer from New York). It was a great couple of weeks – we were kind of Bluefested out by the end of it (even though it is called Bluesfest, it aint all the blues).
So that makes us up-to-date now I think. I’m sure I have missed out a lot – so in the future I’ll try and post stuff as they happen (or weekly), so that all is remembered.
I’ll leave you with some great well known blogs:
http://lifehacker.com/
http://gizmodo.com/ - check out this amazing vid of the moon passing in front of earth: http://gizmodo.com/5026633/video-of-the-moon-passing-in-front-of-the-earth-taken-from-31-million-miles-away
See ya!
