So, while in China, the Harper’s did the polite thing to do and stopped in for a cuppa tea. This is the reaction he got:

He wouldn't even get this kind of reaction in downtown Calgary!

The Star reported that the Harpers were practically swarmed with adoring fans, both locals and tourists, as the PM stopped into a small tea shop to buy his mother some tea.

I've actually tried those cookies. Not bad!

Unlike Barack Obama’s Byward market pit stop in Ottawa, which seemed like a genuine surprise, this visit was completely pre-planned. The Star reported that a local official had been to the shop last week, followed by a phone call on Friday. Where’s the element of surprise?

Anyways, spectators in the crowd called Harper “handsome,” and the people seemed genuinely thrilled to have him there.

Any bets he winds up moving the prime minister’s office to Shanghai?

Horse-drawn carolling in the ByWard Market passes by Christmas decorations

Starting this weekend and extending until December 20, the ByWard Market BIA offers free horse-drawn carriage rides through the neighbourhood. What’s more, they provide song sheets and encourage everyone aboard to sing Christmas carols during the tour!

It’s a great way to get in the spirit of the holidays. The rides are offered between 1:00 and 4:00pm on both Saturdays and Sundays. They depart from the Moulin de Provence bakery on York Street between ByWard and William.

You can also listen to local choirs sing Christmas carols at the corner of George Street and ByWard between noon and 4:00pm on those days as well — throw a few coins in the hat!

And finally, bring the kids to see Santa on the second floor of ByWard Market Square on Fridays from 1:00 to 4:00pm and Saturdays and Sundays from 11:00am to 4:00pm. Ho Ho Ho!

FAMTripTV.com is a new tool allowing meeting planners and group travel organizers a chance to suss out a destination from the comfort of their office chair. Ottawa Tourism was thrilled to work with Jennifer Wood, host and producer, to inaugurate this new service.

Jennifer and her crew visited Ottawa for four days and were able to visit major hotels such as the Westin Ottawa, Fairmont Château Laurier, Brookstreet, Ottawa Marriott, Crowne Plaza and the Hilton Lac-Leamy.

They discovered impressive off-site venues such as the National Gallery of Canada, Canadian Museum of Civilization, Canadian War Museum and Casino du Lac-Leamy.

They ate at Restaurant e18hteen and other great places in the ByWard Market.

Of course, they also met with the folks behind the brand new Ottawa Convention Centre, to open in April 2011.

Check out the results at FAMTripTV.com!

The hike with a couple friends on Sunday went extremely well. First, we stopped at the Gatineau Park Visitor Centre to drop off our application forms to spend a night in one of the park’s cabins in January — we should know soon if we’re successful. (Hopefully more on that later!)

Then it was off to P12 (parking lot #12) at O’Brien Beach on Meech Lake. Off we went on Trail #36, part of the TransCanada Trail. A little steep at some points and with a healthy population of hard-working mountain bikers to watch out for, the trail was a delight, winding up and down through woods, marshes and along Meech Lake.

After an hour, we turned around and retraced our steps, enjoying the intermittent sunshine (though it was cool in the shadows).

We felt we deserved a treat, so we we headed back to Ottawa and indulged in burgers at Chez Lucien on Murray Street in the ByWard Market neighbourhood. Made with beef from O’Brien Farms south of Ottawa, and topped with carmelized onions, jalapenos and cheese, they’re delectable. And you feel virtuous because they’re served with both salad and fries! A great end to a great hike!

(from left to right, top to bottom)

1. Leafs vs. Sens, Leafs won – obviously.

2. Worst smell ever =’s burnt popcorn.

3. Would you sleep on this mattress? EW!

4. A rainbow of makeup possibilities.

5. Wedding flowers.

6. On Set on TSC.com.

7. Would you like some fruit with your whipped cream?

8. An Ottawa River sunset.

9. Check out her new body.

10. Byward Market Street performers

11. Jason Mesnik – What a loser!

12. Loafers.

Check out September’s Collection!

It had been awhile since I visited Shafali Indian Foods Bazaar in the Byward Market, and now I am wondering why I stayed away so long.

I love the chicken tikka wrap, perfectly cooked chicken on a bed of lettuce with spicy mayo wrapped in delicious, blistery, naan. It’s like comfort food, only the kind my grandmother didn’t make. The naan is baked fresh and continuously throughout the day and I was lucky enough to arrive when a new batch came out of the oven. The chicken is perfectly spiced and grilled, with a side of fragrant rice, this is the best lunch in town.

The family that owns it is friendly, and always willing to accomodate (their butter chicken is great too!).

Shafali Indian Foods Bazaar, 55 Byward Market (in the market building)

And in this episode, we weren’t allowed to look through the viewfinder of the camera. We were to guesstimate where we’d be shooting, press the shutter without benefit of framing the shot or satisfying our natural desire for order and balance. Just shoot – and have fun.

Okay, so here goes!

This is Dave, our instructor for the four-day workshop.

And miscellaneous people/things…

And I did a mini cellphone series (I did one in Tokyo once too) —

Isn’t she gorgeous??

For this, Dave said hold up the camera, shoot yourself, spin.

I was hanging out with Sue, a lovely woman who lives nearby, so we carpooled. Her assignment was to ask a dozen strangers to take their photo with her, and mine was to document the process! (I definitely liked my assignment better than Sue’s!)

At the Beaver Tail stand!

One of many beauty sunsets in our nation’s capital.

Living in Plattsburgh, Ottawa was a great trip to drive for the day. This is Byward Market. In GIMP, I did a fake high dynamic range, and the other shot is the “b” luminance layer inverted…..Blue Pumpkins!!!Living in Plattsburgh, Ottawa was a great trip to drive for the day. This is Byward Market. In GIMP, I did a fake high dynamic range, and the other shot is the “b” luminance layer inverted…..Blue Pumpkins!!!

Well, after Mouse left we had to start getting settled into life in Canada.

I got a bank account and started trying to get life going! Luckily, I was able to get my old job back at Oh So Good Cafe in Ottawa’s Byward Market. For those of you on the other side of the pond, it’s a lovely dessert and coffee cafe that only serves cakes, pies, tartes and the like. Yes, Carina…I will take you there! But, it’s a lovely romantic place and we always get to see first dates, engagements, anniversaries and, unfortunately, break ups! My favourites are always the “girls night out” and I usually have a great time with them. 

The back room of Oh So Good Cafe

So, I started last Wednesday and it has started to come back…slowly. I’m working again tonight (Friday) and that should be a little tougher…more customers, more orders, longer hours and all in two languages! Fun! But it’s kind of a nice break from “Mummy-land” and the new staff seems really fun. And luckily, my old friend Iva is working there so I know those shifts will be great fun!

On Thursday of this week, Freddie and I moved! Don’t get excited we only moved next door! The neighbours are also in the foreign service and are currently stationed in Kenya. So, we have offered to take care of their house for them while we’re here. This means we have a beautiful cottage overlooking Lac Bernard all to ourselves! We are definitely being spoiled!

All our stuff has been moved over, but I’m still organising and putting stuff away. It’s going to be a beautiful place to stay and as I put Freddie to bed I get to watch the most beautiful sunsets. Absolutely heaven!

So life is getting set up! We get to talk to Mouse every day, or at least we can until he goes on ship! So, we have a number of activities planned for the coming weeks including Freddie’s first trip in a motorboat and we’re joining a “Mummy and Baby Bootcamp”! I assume Freddie will be lifting weights along with me! Will let you know how it goes!

Until then, I’m off to waitressing…please let there be good tippers tonight!

Tara + Michael
Restaurant E18hteen, Ottawa

It’s kind of slipped under the radar here in Ottawa, but if you haven’t heard 2009 is the last year that buskers will be able to freely set-up shop in the ByWard Market to play for passers-by. That’s because—as of next year—they will have to purchase a permit from the City in order to play. Costing either $10 for a single day, or $100 for the entire season, buskers will then be able to play for up to six hours a day, provided they don’t spend more than one hour in any one location. According to the City, this will be put in place to minimize disputes that may occur between buskers over prime locations.

Now I don’t exactly spend hours every day observing the activities and interactions of the buskers in the market, but in the four years I’ve lived in this city, I’ve only ever seen one argument over whether or not someone can play in a particular spot (it was right in front of the Beavertails, incidentally). Furthermore, any time I’ve seen buskers interacting, it’s looked pretty amicable to me, and I can’t ever recall seeing a situation where City workers or the Ottawa Police had to intervene. This is all anecdotal, of course, and I’m an outsider to the busking world, but that’s my perspective on the matter.

At the end of the day, though, I can’t help but find this a little disturbing. Sidewalks, especially in an area like the Market, are one of the city’s most fundamental public places. It’s where urban-dwellers, suburbanites, tourists, the rich, the poor, and everyone in between brushes up against one another, and they are traditionally the place where people are able to excercise their right to freedom of expression. And, of course, their right to perform, which can include things like sidewalk chalk drawings, people pretending to be statues, and music, whether it be a beautiful classic violin piece or someone hacking their way through a Neil Young song. No matter what, buskers and street artists are invaluable in adding vibrancy and colour (sometimes literally) to the street.

This move to require buskers to purchase permits smacks of the City trying to manage just who comes out to busk. The Market attracts many highly skilled buskers, but also those who are less talented. The latter category, from my observations, seem to be more likely to be homeless or down-on-their-luck, and are precisely the sort of people who would likely be unable to afford to invest in a permit. It reminds me far too much of the way the underpass between the Government Conference Centre and Sussex Avenue is turned into a regulated art and performance space during tourist season in order to discourage homeless people from gathering underneath it. In both cases, an “out of sight, out of mind” attitude appears to be the prevelant one, which I find to be unfortunate.

My other major concern here is that overregulation has an unfortunate tendancy to negatively impact public spaces. I’m not expecting the death of the Market, but it might just lose a little bit of its vibrancy if buskers find it tough to set up shop. You only have to look at Sparks Street to see what happens when a public space is too tightly controlled; in that case, the National Capital Commission has regulated a formerly integral part of the downtown core nearly to death. It’s a cautionary tale, and a policy direction that should be avoided if at all possible.

Just one more quick note, I wanted to extend my thanks to Ottawa Start for including me in their list of 30 essential Ottawa blogs. There are some good reads in there, and I recommend browsing through and checking some of them out.

I attended my first ever Haiku North America conference (HNA 2009) and consider myself blessed that this particular conference was the one I chose as my first.

I arrived at the Ottawa International Airport (YOW)  just before 11:00 pm on Monday, August 3rd . . . and reached the Crowne Plaza Hotel just before midnight via the YOW Airporter shuttle.

AUGUST 4, 2009

Deborah P. Kolodji (Debbie) and I roomed together at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, which was so wonderfully situated in what we soon found to be an ideal “walking” city. Ottawa is the capitol city of Canada. We planned for two sight-seeing days before the conference began and put them to excellent use walking everywhere and seeing everything we’d hoped to and more.

 We walked to By Marche (Byward Market). Established by Lt. Col. John By in 1926, it is one of the oldest and largest public markets in Canada. Part of the charm are the many fresh vegetable booths comprising the Farmer’s Market. The vegetables are colorful and perfect, and are available to purchase 7 days/week. Coming from Southern California I had to admit that these vegetables could put our own rich farmland produce to shame.

When I commented on how white the cauliflower heads were, a local vendor told me that they don’t allow the leaves around the cauliflower to open up. When they begin opening the farmer ties them closed for protection from the intense sunshine that ultimately discolors exposed cauliflower heads.

We visited St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church where one of the parishoner’s told us of the history surrounding this very old church, including ties to Holland and its royalty. We learned, in fact, that Ottawa has a tulip festival each year as a direct result of Holland’s influence. Holland’s current queen is Queen Beatrix. One of her younger sisters, Princess Margriet (3rd of 4 daughters), was born in the Civic Hospital and baptized in St. Andrew’s Church. (Archival film/story) Her mother was Queen Juliana (though she was still a princess at this time), and our parishoner guide showed us pictures of the royal family during the baptism. Princess Margriet is currently ninth in the line of succession to the Dutch throne.

Parliament Hill is a major part of the landscape in Ottawa. (Parliament Hill webcam) To the left is a photograph of  the “Centre Block” and to the right a photograph of the “Peace Tower” - the overcast conditions really enhanced the “eternal flame” situated directly in front of the Peace Tower. It’s an amazing sight. In July and August the Peace Tower’s fabulous carillon plays an hour of the most entrancing music, from 11am to noon each day. We were lucky enough to catch one of those concerts on our first day out. (Youtube Video by YourCTV, September 2008)

The National Gallery of Canada is located in Ottawa, featuring “Maman” – an enormous bronze spider sculpted by famed artist Louise Bourgeouis. (National Gallery webcam) We bought tickets to enter the part of the museum that houses artwork by “The Group of Seven” and Tom Thomson (Youtube “A Tribute to the Group of Seven” and close associates Tom Thomson and Emily Carr), often considered the 8th artist of the group, though he died before the group was formed. I wrote ekphrastic poems for each of three Tom Thomson paintings: “The Jack Pine” (oil on canvas), “Burnt Land” (oil on canvas), and “Northern Lights” (oil on wood).

Across the street from the National Gallery of Canada is the Notre Dame Cathedral Basilica (three guided tours). It’s an awesome presence to behold from outside the structure, and ten-fold more awesome once we entered this breathtaking structure. It’s ornate and the lighting inside shows off every feature in amazing depth. (Youtube video by YourCTV, September 2008)

 We stopped for lunch at a charming local Irish Pub “Patty Boland’s“ and soon realized we were also on an amazing dining experience in Ottawa. Many of these local spots have seating areas out on the sidewalks/walkways.

As we left the restaurant a thunder and lightening storm moved in. The lightning was startlingly close, so at first we ducked into a quaint bead and clothing shop and browsed around. Then we made our way to a charming tea shop on York called, of course, the “teastore” where we ordered a pot of tea and scone each, and visited until the lightning flashes and rumbling thunder had passed.

 Eventually it was time to return to the hotel. Along Wellington Street there’s an underpass located at Rideau Street next to the Rideau Canal. It had still been raining enough to have my umbrella open and the underpass afforded some shelter. A street artist was already there, painting a scene of the city alongside prints of the many others he’d painted.

After our initial greetings the street artist seemed happy to take a break and chat, so he opened up a notebook filled with his prints and guided Debbie and me on a tour through Ottawa via his paintings. Before leaving I bought two of his prints: one of an autumn scene looking down the Rideau Canal toward Parliament Hill and the other of the same scene but in winter, depicting the canal frozen over and filled with ice skaters (a winter scene photo  from About.com, showing a view similar to his painting). I understand Ottawans have a wonderful winter celebration each year called “Winterlude” (winterlude videos). There are ice sculpting contests, and if you search Google you’ll discover just how large and elaborate these sculptures are, each made from a single piece of ice. They also have snow sculpting contests, and vendor buildings line the iced-over canal.

Day 1, and I was already in love with Ottawa!

End of Day 1 In Ottawa, Aug 4, 2009

It’s been awhile since I’ve walked through the Byward Market, when I worked downtown it was an everyday occurrence. I have never however been immune to it’s beauty, the markets, farmer’s stalls and all the people, there is a connectedness about it.

When I get tired of shopping at grocery chains and want to indulge myself a bit, thats where I head, pasta and olive oil at La Bottega, fresh flowers and a latte at the French bakery. Just wandering about makes me happy.

I walked to the Irish Village this afternoon to meet the kid and her boyfriend for beers, sitting on a patio was the perfect start to three weeks holidays. Writing, blogging, cooking, walking the dogs, reading and a week of baseball in Cooperstown. Happy summer!

I just spent the most FABULOUS weekend in Ottawa with Middle-Sis (not to be mistaken with Little-Sis… she’s a whole other sis).  After everything she showed me this weekend, it seems that she would make a fantastic UptownGirl in Ottawa…  I smell a franchise!! 

I arrived on Thursday night, and after spending a torrential (yes, Ottawa is plagued with rain too) Fri-day reading Harry Potter (I know, lame), Middle-Sis took me out on the town with her friends.  1 – her friends are fantastic, 2 – she is hilarious when drunk on Revs, 3 – the Whisky Bar is a great place to dance on a Friday, 4 – Mr Mozzarella is perfect after-bar pizza!

Saturday we hit the ByWard Market, winding our way through the stalls of fresh produce & local artisans, and met up with my recently transplanted SJ friend for lunch at an Irish Pub.  For dessert, we crossed to the other end of the market for Piccolo Grande gelato.  I had the raspberry and mango sorbets, and I have never before eaten something so flavorful!  After lunch we got down to business, MS needing to buy fresh produce.  The market has an incredible selection of local produce and are even required to display what percentage of their stock is local.  The prices are good and the food is so fresh!

Due to the late night on Friday, we went for a rest and then off to a friends for a BBQ before hitting Lebreton Flats.  This weekend the National Arts Centre Orchestra held a series of FREE concerts on the flats for anyone who wanted to experience the Orchestra, and we saw them play alongside Natalie MacMaster.  It was a great taste of the maritimes and us east-coasters had a great time.

Sunday brought out the beaufiful sun and we went for a walk along the path beside the Rideau Canal and down to the locks, which were in the process of bringing up boats when we got there!  We continued along the Ottawa river behind Parliament Hill until we reached stairs in the side of the cliff and climbed to the top.  We sat at the whispering wall (crazy cool) and saw the stray cats of Parliament Hill…  poor things were having their food eaten by raccoons!

The day ended with a family dinner at The Works (a fantastic gourmet burger place native to Ottawa) with our newly arrived parents and hit the Lebreton Flats again for some Mozart.  So fun!    

Big shout out to Middle-Sis for the fantastic times and to Little-Sis…  wish you had been here!  Off to Montreal. 

Friend Mary and I decided to take a workshop this May (or during what was supposed to be spring) with a local pro photog, Garry Black (www.garryblack.com). It was supposed to have been two weekends, all day (and one day beginning around 5:30 am) and three nights.

The night classes were fine, they were held indoors, but on the second one the woman next to me decided to cough, hack, do a bronchitis/pneumonia thing all over my tubercular self. Result – I was sick by the following weekend. Of course my resistance was low since it was absolutely freezing out, I mean, we’d get bundled up and I’d even be sure to put my down jacket in the car and mitts and a scarf!! And tea, hot tea in a travel mug. And off we’d go, for hours in the rain, drizzle, mist, not a blue sky or fluffy white cloud to be found.

We sucked it all up. After all, this is what real photographers have to do, right? And we wanted to improve our skills, so of course this was important to get through. On my birthday, May 17th, we were at Upper Canada Village (think Williamsburg in the US but more natural and cozy and real) and my nose was running, I was coughing, wondering why I wasn’t at home in front of a nice warm fire… in May!! This was May. This was insane.

Anyway, we started our weekends with a trip to Ottawa’s very famous tulip festival, early one Saturday morning. Have I mentioned that I am not a morning person? It was good to be there early though, since by 10:00 am every human within a 50 km radius of Ottawa had descended upon these poor tulips all with cameras, and many with kids, in hand. A few smart parents dressed the kids to coordinate with the tulips too!

As you can see, there were tulips everywhere.

And old photographers never die, they just find an assistant to push them around! This lovely couple was from Fife in Scotland, and we had a great chat with them.

We also walked to the Arboretum of the Experimental Farm, which had some great magnolia trees and buds and dogs and people. Just after we arrived the heavens opened up to bless us with a frigid rain shower. We retreated to our cars and took off for the lunch meeting location – a Tim Hortons.

And whaddya think – Georgia O’Keefe?

Then we went to Dow’s Lake, which has a great series of rocks and waterfalls and is particularly amazing during the spring run-off. Our trip was no exception. However, shooting white misty water and spray and white misty skies and grey rock wasn’t the most exciting photo experience we’d had. I didn’t even include any of those shots to share with you, I notice as I look into my folder of photos I’d set aside for this blog. Well, maybe one.

We did get into the Byward Market at some point, where we were supposed to do some shooting on the first weekend. Mary and I enjoyed that, the vendors were out (freezing) and the class was called off due to freezing and sniffling and whining… so we walked to the car and I shot a few things and we put on the heater and SMILED.

And I share with you only the veggies.

The following weekend was just as lovely. Amazing to lose the month of May (and later June and half of July) to unseasonably cold temperatures and rain, rain and rain. Guess it is all that global warming, eh?

We needed to be indoors, so we went to Ottawa’s National Gallery and then to the Aviation Museum on the Saturday. My birthday was Sunday, as was the Upper Canada Village trip on the St. Lawrence Seaway, about an hour south of Ottawa.

The National Gallery is lovely, on the Ottawa River and gorgeous glass, and a lot of great interior spaces. On a dark day with no light coming in through the windows, we pushed our ISO and did the best we could.

And we found a wee one, looking around for parents who weren’t there!

We parked right across the street from the Gallery, silly, but we didn’t know there was underground parking… so when the torrential rains came… We had to run. But before it got hairy I did like the colours in this set of businesses nearby.

We spent the rest of the day with the airplanes at the National Aviation Museum in Ottawa! Weird for me, since I don’t know the British or Canadian planes very well. There was one Cessna 150, the plane I had flown and soloed in, so that was nice to see. And an amazing Messerschmidt bullet holes and all, a German-built plane that took off like a rocket, used up all its fuel, sort of glided back to earth (like a rock)… not too many were successful in either direction, and they lost a lot of pilots.

It is harder to shoot in even darker light, no tripods allowed, the planes all smooshed together and then bad ceiling lighting, metal framing and people, people, people, but I got a few shots. One of my assignments was red (you can see that in the peck of peppers) and another was repetition, but the glass block/monster face graphic was for fun.

I am surprised I didn’t add a few more photos into the blog folder to share with you all. Well, maybe another time!

The second Sunday of this adventure, my birthday, found us at Upper Canada Village. The British army was in town (redcoats) to “protect” the village, there was a great big birthday cake with a Union Jack in icing (only child Patty thought it was for her, but it was Queen Victoria’s birthday too), we had sarsparilla (good for what ails ya) and we were supposed to meet for lunch at noon at the nicer restaurant in the village. I was ready at 10:30. Most others showed up by 11:30 since the weather was so bad, and we enjoyed an excellent lunch that I ended up taking home because I’d put pepper on my chicken and it got on my raw and sore throat… and the resultant choking and coughing was more than my classmates could bear. I got all warmed up until it was time to venture forth again and check out the village some more.

I do love Windsor chairs, and Shaker design too, so these chairs are so simple… so beautiful.

PS – That 5:30 am class meeting? Cancelled due to inclement weather! There IS a photography god!!

But this is what it looked like at out last house on the river at about 6:00 am. I shot this because I never really get to see this time of day.

PPS – I am surprised at how desaturated the photos are once I post them – if anyone knows how to cure that, please let me know. For example, those peppers are red red red red! But not on this blog once they are posted. Hmmm…