September 17, 2014 by Rae

Regina To Saskatoon To Ottawa To Montreal To Chambly

It was a good flight day, with no delays and a layover that was just the right length.

The first bit of the flight took us northwest to Saskatoon, where I did not have to deplane. I wound up being grateful for the detour because I didn’t have time in Regina to get comfortable for a long flight since a lady who really should have bought two seats made it impossible for me to get my boots off, remove my cardigan, and get my luggage sorted in a way that would give me some leg room. She got off in Saskatoon and I had time to settle in before my next seatmate arrived.

As it turned out, the Tim’s at the Regina airport only makes breakfast sandwiches, so my only options for food were bagels, pastries, and convenience store items. I decided not to bother and satisfy myself with the Cliff bar I got from the b&b.

But by the time food service started, I was feeling nauseous from the carb crash from the morning’s breakfast and no protein to speak of. So I decided to buy an on board chicken wrap and wound up being super impressed with it! I won’t be annoyed by my Visa bill for it at all. 🙂 It was loaded with crisp dark lettuce, a sharp cheese (likely Asiago), and chewy sun dried tomatoes. The wrap itself was lovely and fresh. I paired this with a cup of surprisingly decent (complimentary) coffee and ended up with a much tastier meal than Tim’s would have provided.

The flight was smooth and I was thoroughly engrossed in a novel I bought (used) just for the occasion. My seatmate asked me what the book was about and I told her to read the jacket because I couldn’t discuss it aloud. It’s a John Nance novel about a series of terrorist attacks on airplanes! What can I say, I’m not a nervous flier! 🙂

We got to Ottawa a little early. I wonder if I will ever get the “I’m home!!!” feeling landing in Regina that I have always gotten in Ottawa and never in Montreal…

I had about forty minutes to kill before boarding for the last leg of the trip, just enough time to grab an okay slice of pizza and treat myself to a magazine. I was too tired by this point to keep reading the novel, but the flight would be too short for a nap.

The weather was bad between Ottawa and Montreal and there was turbulence, enough that I was a little nauseated and glad to land when we arrived.

Dorval Airport is one of the larger ones in Canada, so I had quite a ways to go to get out beyond security, enough that there is even a moving sidewalk that surprised me and almost made me face plant!

My mother was waiting inside the terminal and we hurried out to the car. The drive to Chambly felt super fast.

I’m glad to be here and am beat! It’s late here, midnight, but 10:00 my time, which is my normal bedtime, so hopefully I’ll actually sleep and wake up at a reasonable hour.

September 17, 2014 by Rae

Waiting For My Flight

I left the Dragon’s Nest at about nine and decided to make a quick run to Walmart for some litre (quart) sized zip bags for my liquids. I had them packed in a gallon bag and was worried that I wouldn’t get through security even though I really didn’t bring much since I can get what I need at my mother’s. I’m a little finicky about sharing tooth paste, like to carry sanitizer gel on the plane, and recently received a sample size of my favourite hand cream so that’s all I have.

I had to drive around long-term parking for a while until I found empty slots, all near the exit and ‘far’ from the terminal entrance. I made sure to snap a picture of the sign telling me what row I’m parked in. 🙂

Regina Airport is TINY, so it was quiet today and there was no wait at security. I decided to use my iPhone as a boarding pass and am not sure yet that I like that. Even though I left the ‘Passbook’ app open, I still had to swipe a few times to get to the boarding pass. The lady at the first security checkpoint said I did it like a pro and thanked me for being organized.

Security people were nice, but I was there a bit and got felt up. Ladies, no underwire at the airport! 🙂 It was also my first time with a belt and I had to remove it as well as my boots.

I find it interesting that computers get singled out for special screening, but not iPads.

I also find it interesting that I haven’t yet had to produce ID.

There’s not much beyond security, just a Tim’s and a convenience store. I grabbed a coffee and will get a sandwich to go before I board.

Finally, I tried to get my new bag into the rack that lets you check the size. There was some smooshing involved, but it’s definitely okay. I also have a tote with my electronics and I stuffed my purse into the tote! If I have to gate check the big bag, I have everything I need in the tote.

So on to Saskatoon (stay on the plane) and then a short layover in Ottawa. No time to go there for a visit this time, but at least I’ll see my beloved city from the air. I’ll be in Dorval in about seven hours from now.

October 26, 2012 by Rae

The Canadian War Museum (Very Briefly)

My eight year old nephew, R, expressed a desire to visit the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa. I decided that it would make a nice day out for us and mentioned this to my mother. She came over last night to let me know that today was R’s last day off from school for a while and that he had nothing planned. So if I wanted to go to Ottawa with him, I had to decide immediately. Needless to say, I was on board!

I picked him up at about 8:30 this morning and we set off westward. Getting out of Montreal was tricky enough for R to actually worry about whether or not we’d make it. He was very relieved when we finally hit the open road!

I asked him why he wanted to visit the War Museum and his answer was delightful; he was just curious. He’d been to the Nature and Science & Tech museums already and felt that his education was missing a visit to this museum.

At some point along the way, the subject of lunch came up and I mentioned that we would be eating at a restaurant. His eyes lit up and he said, “Sushi!” Ah, R and I are kindred spirits! 😀

I really should have done some research ahead of time about Ottawa sushi restaurants as I didn’t eat sushi back then, strangely enough. Now that I think about it, I really can’t figure out where my sushi obsession came from, but I digress. At any rate, I decided to just head for the heart of Chinatown, where I knew I’d find several suitable options on Somerset.

We parked at the corner of Arthur right in front of Koreana, a Korean BBQ place that also serves sushi. R said that there was no sense going any further, or crossing the street, so that’s where we ate. We had a great lunch!

I ordered a combo meal with nigiri, tempura, delicious glass noodles, veggie pancake thingies, and more. R asked for ‘shrimp with rice’, which I correctly guessed was ebi nigiri without wasabi, as well as ‘cucumbers with seaweed’, which I also correctly IDed as being kappa maki. I thought that there would be more than enough food for the two of us, but I wound up having to order him another six pieces of the kappa maki, of which he ate four, and I had the last two.

What I most appreciated was that the meal came with a complimentary delicious miso soup and a bunch of Korean sides! I had a chance to try radish pickles (YUM), kimchi (it’s true what they say, the stuff needs to grow on you…), potatoes with a sweet glaze, and some unidentified tasty green veggies with sesame seeds.

Our Koreana spread.

Chinatown is tiny, but then again, so is Ottawa proper. But there’s no mistaking you’re there as the area has the ubiquitous arch:

The second to last time I went to the War Museum I actually left my car parked in Chinatown and hoofed it, a distance of just a couple of klicks, but I didn’t want R to be tired before we arrived. The last time I went to the museum, I lived just north of it in Gatineau, within even closer range, so I just ambled over.

So we piled back into the truck and I drove us down to the museum, which is located at the intersection of Wellington and the John A. MacDonald Parkway (no, dear, he did not launch the McDonald’s restaurants). I didn’t get to take a picture of the exterior, so I’m borrowing this one because the Canadian War Museum is housed in a spectacular building!

http://www.navy.forces.gc.ca/cms_images/centennial_images/events/canadianwarmuseumnightview_530x352.jpg

Parking is underground and I worried that my truck wouldn’t fit. My mother scoffed at that, but my fear was justified. I had only a couple of inches of clearance from the lowest points in the ceiling, but my roof rack brushed against the clearance signs! I parked right at the bottom of the entrance since I just fit down the ramp and figured I could just squeeze back up.

There is now an admission to the museum, and it’s not cheap when you factor in parking. Admission for the two of us was $23 and then I had to add another $12 on top of that for parking!

The museum feels like a bunker:

Lobby area.

The theme of the museum is Canada’s place in global conflicts. So it starts right at the beginning with wars against the Native Americans and between European powers before Canada was even a nation, then moves to the Boer and First World Wars, the Second World War, the Korean and Cold Wars, and then modern conflicts. This year, there is a special exhibit about the War of 1812.

R liked this exhibit and the beginning of the main museum a lot because he is currently studying the Iroquois at school and he got lots of information for an upcoming project. He especially enjoyed an activity where we were shown how to do ‘wempum’ style beading like the native peoples did. It was explained to us that the beads and patterns all told a story.

Arts and crafts are fun! I beaded this purple and white key chain. 🙂

The interpreter teaching this activity told us to keep an eye out for a blue and white belt symbolizing two powers (as rivers made from blue beads) sharing one land peacefully (white beads). I dryly commented that Quebec could learn something from that belt and the guy burst out laughing. This is the belt:

We moved on to the US Civil War era, where I found my gaze falling onto a Gatlin gun. I still can’t believe that machine guns like these existed that early on!

the first machine gun, US Civil War era

The WWI exhibit has a fun bit where you can determine if you would have been eligible for service by making you check your height, foot arch status, eyesight (I’m apparently blind), and teeth.

We have normal feet; not flat, not over arched!

We spent some time at a computerized display listing all the Canadians who served in WWI. I typed in Henry Blake and my great-grand-father’s listing showed up:

My great-grand-father’s enlistment papers for service in WWI.

I tried to convey to my nephew that this was his great-great-grand-father and that he, R, wouldn’t be here if this man hadn’t existed, but I don’t think that sank in.

And then came my favourite exhibit. I remember seeing it at the old war museum way back yonder with my dad and it never ceases to fill me with a sense of awe that it is here, in Ottawa:

Hitler’s car

That caption is correct. This is the car you see in photos of Hitler standing in a car saluting his troops. Through some miraculous circumstances, the car survived the war and was shipped to Canada, where it is now available for all to see. That car gives me the shivers.

Believe it or not, R walked into this exhibit area and said, “Oh, Nazis!” He actually had a little bit of knowledge about the era and a sense of who Hitler was (“A very bad man with a little mustache.”) What amazed me the most was when I told him that the car is Hitler’s, he asked if it was “built for the museum to be like Hitler’s car or an artifact?” I was stunned! He casually replied that he’s studying artifacts at school and understands that some things in the museum are reproductions and others are real. Wow!

This exhibit also includes a captured Nazi flag:

captured Nazi flag

I was disappointed to not find the exhibit that completely ruined Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade for me. In the movie, there’s a scene where Jones literally runs into Hitler and gets his autograph. ‘Hitler’ signs his name using a pointy A for Adolf. The old war museum had a bunch of documents signed by Hitler, showing that he made round As. (Yes, I’m a history nerd and this kind of detail fascinates me!)

There is also a sad reminder of Hiroshima in this exhibit:

This was a temple roof shingle that miraculously survived the atomic bomb while the temple itself was destroyed.

I rushed us through the more modern era stuff as R reads really well and some of the texts were very graphic, as were the photos. It’s all well and good that he learns about the dark side of human nature and another to bring him home completely traumatized. Moreover, I started to get emotional as we went through exhibits of conflicts that have occurred in my life time, including the Rwandan genocide and the current conflict in Afghanistan.

At the end of the exhibits, you can enter the ‘point’ of the building:

And then you enter a huge space filled with just about every military vehicle ever used in conflicts Canada has been involved in. R said this is what he will remember most, and with good reason. This section is impressive!

Just a tiny corner of the vehicle exhibit.

Me: “I want one of these amphibious German vehicles to tow behind my motorhome!” R: “You’ll need to go back in time and ask the Nazis for one. That doesn’t sound like a good idea.”

Both of us in unison: “Hey, it’s the Bat signal!”

This vehicle’s front end was destroyed when it hit a landmine in Afghanistan in the early 2000s. Thankfully, the vehicle was so well armoured that everyone survived.

Just a few of the tanks on display.

R noticed that this tank was missing its chains.

We did a quick tour of the gift shop on the way out (he asked for and received a $1 post card!). By the time we headed for the truck, it was past 4PM and I had said I would bring him home by 6. So I called in with the change of plans and that we’d be getting supper en route.

Getting out of Ottawa was a little tricky because of traffic and construction, but I know that part along the Queensway so well that I just wound and wend are way around until we could finally get onto the highway. It was stop and go to the Orleans junction and there was a bit of construction along the way, so we did not make good time.

By the time we hit Rigaud, R needed a break so I decided to stop early for dinner. He wanted poutine and I decided that he’d had a nutritious enough lunch, so I agreed. We split one, but it wasn’t enough for him, so he asked for something I have seen in years, a pogo:

pogo

I think the English world calls these corn dogs. I can’t stand them, but R was thrilled with the treat. I’m just glad that’s not the first thing he mentioned to his mom when he got home! 😀

Today was completely off the cuff and unplanned, like a proper adventure. R is a great kid and I couldn’t have imagined a better companion today. It’s been a very long time since I’ve gone on a day-long adventure with a youngster and I enjoyed it!

August 5, 2012 by Rae

Major Chaos For Major Improvement

WHEW. My mother and I are done with the last bit of the hard core renos we planned for the summer. Now, we have all the little details to finish up as well as the inverter and battery monitor projects. So I really don’t have much to show off just now, but some is better than none!

First off, my new desk top. OMG. I didn’t even know I needed this until my mother informed me that I did:

Hopefully, third time will be the charm for the desk. 😀

What we did is cover the existing desk with two layers of 1/2″ MDF glued together (no 1″ sheets available). We then covered the new work surface with cloth-backed vinyl. The colour is delicious. It’s sold as ‘plum’ but looks like chocolate in artificial light and wine in natural light. It contrasts perfectly with the green and the red tones can be found in the flowers of my curtains. The lady at the fabric store told me three times that I had made an excellent choice of colour and she was right!

I am worried about kitty claws, so I’ll be covering empty swaths of the desk with a mat or blanket.

There is now a gap between the top of the little bookcase and the new desk and I have a wooden ‘in box’ that fits perfectly there. I’ll show it off once it has a handle and latch. There is also a gap at the other end of the new desk top, at the end of the mattress:

My mother thought that my extension cord management idea was good, so she improved the idea, building a new bed frame with gaps for holding cords. We covered it with plastic trellis to give the mattress a flat surface to lie on. The trellis is rigid enough to be a good surface, is light, and will wear well. It was expensive, but the best product for the job.

At the end of the mattress, you can see a wide plastic drawer. I picked it up at the Ottawa Solutions store (I’ve never been to a Container Store, but I suspect it’s the same idea). The drawer spans the whole width and depth of the hole and is going to be used for archival storage (ie. old report cards, greeting cards, correspondence, and the like). I used to have all of that in a basket in an overhead cabinet, but this is a much better use of space. Over top of the drawer is just enough space for storing my laptop for travel.

Also at Solutions, I picked up what I needed to stop swearing each time I open the door to my wonderfully spacious medicine cabinet:

I like to open the door when I pass and just smile at how pretty and organized the cabinet is now. 🙂

The cabinet is well designed in that it has a lip on the bottom of each shelf, but everything would tumble out when I opened the door. I wanted containers that would fill the space and be retained by the lip.

So I brought the measurements for the shelves with me to Ottawa and went through the store until I found the cheapest items that could fit in the space. The silver containers were deeply discounted office supplies. There were three of the big ones left and without any real thought, I grabbed four of the narrower ones. Got home and discovered I still had a gap, perfectly filled by my brown basket. I couldn’t have designed this space more perfectly! Every space is sorted by use and everything is so apparent. No more opening up a tube of toothpaste when I already have one started.

To whet your appetites a little, my wonderful new dresser is now functional and just awaiting finishing details. The wall in the living room is up, but the door needs some catches and both need paint. There’s a new water pump access panel in the entrance stairwell, but it too needs paint. The filing cabinet still needs securing, but we think we have the solution. The office and dressing room both need paint touch ups. I also need tons of trim along the floor, but that will come with the electrical work.

My home was fine the way it was, but it is now ‘much better’ (said in my mother’s hilariously exaggerated French Canadian accent!).

August 2, 2012 by Rae

Catching Up With Friends in the NCR

Yesterday, Wednesday August 1st, I had a lunch date with my former colleagues at Industry Canada. I was delighted that what was supposed to be a quick meeting at the food court was turned into a proper reunion at a restaurant and that the organizer even remember that I love Thai food, so she reserved at La papaye verte (The Green Papaya) on Laurier right in front of the Museum of Civilization.

The old gang hasn’t changed, I apparently haven’t changed, and the work environment has changed. It was great to see everyone, catch up, laugh, and be reminded that I was lucky to work with those people for three years.

After work, I headed up to La Pêche (fishing), the community in the Gatineau hills where I lived for five years (one year in an apartment, one year renting my house, three years owning my house). The community has a number of villages, the biggest ones being Masham and Wakefield.

Wakefield is very picturesque and touristy. A popular thing for visitors to the National Capital Region to do is to take the steam train from Hull to Wakefield for a lunch at a quaint bistro and an afternoon of shopping in the boutiques. The steam train was having financial difficulties when I left and is not running this summer. I hope this is a temporary setback.

The drive to Wakefield along autoroute 5 was a little different as the autoroute is finally, after 30 years of planning, being extended. It used to stop at Tulip Valley, but not goes a few kilometres farther to Farmpoint, just before the grocery store. It will soon come all the way up to Wakefield and the junction with the 366 to Masham. There is no way that kind of road work won’t change life up in those sleepy little hamlets. Wakefield now has a Tim Hortons, a major sign that life is about to change radically.

I was early to meet my friend for dinner, so I decided to push on to Lascelles to see if the old homestead is still there. It is! There were cars parked out front, so I didn’t go up the laneway to get a better look at the house because I used to freak out when people did that.

Back in Wakefield, I parked outside the Black Sheep pub and grabbed an outside table at the Rutherford Bistro on the main floor of the pub. I had time to check out the menu before my friend arrived and was rather disappointed that my top two choices for dinner were sold out. I wound up having a decent buffalo chicken burger with delicious fries.

After gabbing for ages, I headed out to my friend’s house. She has been building it with her dad for six years as time and money are available. It is her dream home in her favourite place in the world.

The house is inspired by the Swiss chalet style, but is built with modern eco features, including walls lined with styrofoam and filled with concrete. The house feels really out in the middle of the bush, but she’s only a couple of minutes on a horrible dirt road from main highways and the autoroute. She can get to Ottawa in 25 minutes now and it will soon be no more than 20 minutes. The extra 10 minutes I had to drive to get to my house combined with the lack of services made a future there unappealing.

A lot of people, including politicians, have cottages in the hills and I think that the extended autoroute will bring more people to have their full-time home in the hills. Even without the autoroute, it takes much less time to commute from Wakefield to downtown Ottawa than it does to go from Orleans or Kanata (the eastern and western edges of the city respectively) to downtown.

The drive back from Wakefield was not without incident and I will get into that once I’ve caught up on sleep. 🙂