Up to Ottawa

This weekend, I took a little trip up to Ottawa to visit some of my family that I have not seen since Christmas, on account of the fact that I was in England the rest of the year. After work on Friday, my Mom, Dad and I packed ourselves up into the Buick for the five-ish hour drive. I decided that since I've been showing you all how beautiful the UK is for the past year, that I'd like to remind you hoe gorgeous our homeland is, too. So, I got out my camera and took some shots of the rural landscape along the highway.

The next morning, I got up around 4:30 am to catch a bus from my Grandma's house in Cobden to Ottawa to see my cousins. Oh man, that was early. I couldn't really sleep on the bus either, since the seats are pretty small and there was a lady sitting beside me.

When I arrived at St. Catherine Street in Ottawa, my blue-eyed and freckled cousin, Alexis, collected me. She was bundled up in a winter hat, coat and mittens because it was so cold in her car. We stopped at the nearest McDo's for some Egg McMuffins before heading to her beautiful apartment downtown. Our morning was pretty relaxed, we just sat on the couch for a nice, long chat.

But in the afternoon, we joined Alexis's boyfriend and a few of her friends from teacher's college and headed to the stadium at the University of Ottawa to see their football team, the GG's, play the McMaster Marauders. Because of our near-frozen experience of the morning, Alexis and I layered ourselves in warm clothes, rationalizing that we didn't want to get cold bottoms from sitting on the hard, plastic seats. However, a mere ten minutes after beginning our stroll to campus, we had peeled off our jackets and sweaters. Not much later, we were regretting wearing tights under our jeans. In fact, I was already sweating. When we arrived at the stadium, we quickly made our way to the ladies' room to shed our legs of another layer. One of Alexis's friends picked up a foam football-shaped hat, a GG's t-shirt and a couple of 'thunder sticks' to display her spirit. She wasn't the only one. I couldn't believe all the U of O students who were dressed up and painted up and cheering for their team. They even had chants and songs, a la Premier League! The crowd were on their feet for most of the game, shouting and really getting into the game.

At first, Alexis and I were concerned about the sun— it was so bright and we had neglected to protect our porcelain, freckly skin from it's burning rays. I got my picture taken with the GG's mascot and we got some delicious stadium food and beer for lunch. Luckily, the temperature began to drop again, so we were able to cover up in our wooly garments.

The game ended up being pretty exciting! McMaster were winning for the first three quarters, but then Ottawa was able to score a couple of field goals and the running back ran almost the whole length of the field to score a spectacular touch-down!

Later that evening, another cousin, Sascha joined us for some curry at Alexis's apartment. We went for a swim and a hot tub at Alexis's boyfriend's apartment and we slipped out for a drink at the Royal Oak as well.

The next morning, Alexis and I headed back to the Ottawa Valley for lunch at her parent's house. On the way, we picked up some apples, straight from the orchard. I'm going to have to go apple-picking some time soon! It was great to sit and catch up with my Aunt, Uncle and Grandma at the farm. The countryside up there is just so beautiful. I took a few pictures of the farm to share with you!

 We drove back to Newmarket that night and we arrived home just in time to enjoy this sunset!