(Ottawa, Ontario, Canada)

In addition to seeing the diplomatic buildings described in my previous post, we took advantage of Doors Open Ottawa to see two other very different locations: stately Rideau Hall and the somewhat creepy radar dome near the village of Carp.

Rideau Hall has been the home of Canada’s Governor-General since 1867 and hosts visits from all sorts of foreign and domestic dignitaries.  The Governor-General is the Queen’s representative in Canada and plays a largely ceremonial role.  However, as Rideau Hall is not quite in the middle of Ottawa’s downtown core, it is often overlooked by visitors.  Despite visiting, studying and working in Ottawa from time to time, I had never seen it before this weekend.  And, in a way, I still haven’t really seen it:  the impressive front of the building was undergoing renovations and I was unable to take any photographs there.

As you might imagine, Rideau Hall has some rather spectacular rooms.  The most distinctive is definitely the “Tent Room”, which is essentially a year-round indoor replica of an outdoor tent.  It is perhaps a little more garish than you would expect in the home of the Queen’s representative, but it certainly feels like the sort of structure that you would see at a well-to-do outdoor garden party in days gone by.

The grounds of Rideau Hall are extremely spacious:  88 acres, to be precise!  In addition to the greenhouse and well-manicured gardens, there is even a cricket pitch.  A couple of teams were warming up for a match when we were there.  In winter, there is also a skating rink.

While Rideau Hall is the kind of place you might expect to see as a tourist in Ottawa, the former radome pictured at the top of this post is (forgive me) not on most people’s radar.

This particular radome (short for “radar dome”) is located just outside the village of Carp.  Yes, it really is called Carp.  It is located on the Carp River and that river did in fact have a lot of carp.  Carp (the village, not the fish) is best known today for the “Diefenbunker”.  Unofficially and somewhat irreverently named after former Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, this is an underground bunker that was meant to function as emergency government headquarters in the event of a nuclear war.   It is now a tourist attraction and I enjoyed (if that is the right word) visiting it a few years ago.

Very close to the Diefenbunker was a geodesic dome that hosted communications equipment (basically a very large satellite dish).  This particular one provided satellite communications between all NATO countries from 1960 until 1999, when it was decommissioned and purchased by a private company (Canadian Space Services Ltd.).   As part of Doors Open Ottawa, that company opened its doors (and fence) to let people check out this remnant of the cold war.

These radomes can be found all over Canada.  The first one I saw was in Iqaluit, Nunavut, of all places.  While the distinctive dome in Carp has been left intact, the satellite communications system there is no longer being used.  We were able to climb right up into the 50-foot dish and feel the echoes of a different era.

While Rideau Hall was certainly impressive, the Carp radome was just as intriguing…and something that you simply don’t expect to explore when on a weekend trip to the nation’s capital.   While we still want to see some more diplomatic locations at the next Doors Open Ottawa event,  we will also be sure to include some more offbeat sites.  There are all sorts of hidden treasures waiting to be discovered!

(Ottawa, Ontario)

A recent trip to Ottawa contained some unexpected detours with an international theme.  As our visit coincided with Doors Open Ottawa, we had access to a number of places that are not normally that accessible to the general public.

Our journey began with a visit to the Brunei High Commission on Laurier Avenue.  Brunei is a tiny country on the island of Borneo…but it has a lot of wealth.  The Sultan of Brunei’s palace is apparently the largest residential palace in the world and also the largest residence of any type in the world, at 2,152,782 square feet.

It will come as no surprise that Brunei’s High Commission in Ottawa is a spectacular building.  It is also known as Stadacona Hall (see photo at the top of this post):  it has had many famous occupants over the years, including Canada’s first Prime Minister Sir John. A. Macdonald.   We weren’t able to take photographs inside but we did meet the High Commissioner himself.  And yes, the interior is very nice too.

Just a block or two away from the Brunei High Commission was another spectacular building:   Munross Mansion, home to “Le Cordon Bleu Paris – Culinary Arts Institute”.  We had all kinds of high hopes for this place, particularly as it was midday and we were getting hungry.  Maybe there would be free samples?  Alas, the line (as you can see from the photo above) was very long and we were told to expect a wait of 45-60 minutes.  As this is an annual event and there were many other places to see, we decided to take a pass and arrive earlier next year.

Next on our agenda was a visit to the Embassy of the Czech Republic on Cooper Street.  While many of the surrounding buildings can best be described as “functional”, this is a charming old house dating back to 1879.   As one might expect, I talked about hockey with one of the Czech representatives!

The final stop on our international tour was the Embassy of the Republic of Armenia, located on Delaware Avenue in the primarily residential “Golden Triangle”.  Here too, we met the Ambassador and familiarized ourselves with a faraway country that does not have a high profile in Canada.  The monument in front of the embassy is apparently the largest sculpture ever made (outside Armenia) from a single piece of tufa.

There were a few other embassies that we were unable to see.  We missed out on Algeria, Trinidad & Tobago, Croatia, Hungary, and the United States (which required advance booking and was “sold out” by the time we realized what was going on).  However, as you can see from the photos, we did enjoy a nice Thai meal the night before.

We were staying in the Bell’s Corners neighbourhood: this is considerably west of downtown and was part of the former city of Nepean.  Fortunately, one of the city’s highest-rated Thai restaurants was right next door.  “Thai Flame” is in an undistinguished strip mall but the food was very good.  The coconut rice was particularly enjoyable and perfectly balanced the burn of my red curry dish.  It once again confirmed my firm belief that most of the best food in Ottawa is located far away from the usual tourist haunts.

Stay tuned for more on Ottawa and the surrounding area!

(Ottawa, Ontario, Canada)

We just spent a  weekend in Ottawa – as we went by car this time, we decided to focus on places that are a little harder to visit using public transportation.

I’ll start with the strangest part:  we stopped at a flea market in Stittsville on Sunday.  There was a lot of used furniture and the usual knick-knacks that are typically found at flea markets.  But then we saw “it”!  As you can see from the picture, “it” is a chair made out of animal horns.  This raises all kinds of questions.  Was the chair builder somehow inspired to build a Chair of Horns and subsequently went looking for the perfect horns?  Or did the chair builder already have the horns…and then arrive at the unavoidable conclusion that they must be used to build a chair?

It would be interesting to know the answer.  From my perspective, when I see horns, I don’t immediately think that “I must build a chair out of these”.   Anyway, it’s quite unusual and, if you’re lucky, this Chair of Horns might even still be available for purchase!

Although we didn’t realize it was happening until we arrived in Ottawa, we also managed to attend part of the annual Tulip Festival.   This festival has its roots in the gift of more than 100,000 tulip bulbs by the Netherlands to Canada, as thanks for Canada’s role in World War II (you can read the details here).  The big event this year was the unveiling of the new “Canada 150”:  a tulip that resembles the Canadian flag (see photo at the top of this post).  It has been developed in anticipation of Canada’s 150th birthday in 2017 and will apparently be available commercially later this year.

Many of our destinations were food-related.  In addition to various ethnic grocery stores, we went to a Malaysian restaurant on Friday and a South Indian restaurant on Saturday.  We learned that the food from the Kerala region of southern India is very spicy…even the mild dishes would be considered at least “medium hot” elsewhere.  Fortunately, we were able to balance it with gelato from Little Italy  on Preston Street.

However, I think our best food experience  was in the Hintonburg neighbourhood.  We found a lot of great little shops here:  my wife enjoyed a Christmas store, I enjoyed visiting a record shop, and we both spent a lot of time in “World of Maps”!  As this is a travel blog, I have to mention this as a travel store worth visiting in Ottawa.  Lots of maps and travel guides, of course, but also lots of other travel literature and supplies.   If you need a New Zealand sticker for your car, or a flag from Barbados, this is your place!

Anyway, we had a great lunch at a Hintonburg restaurant called “Tennessy Willems” (spelling apparently intentional).  It focused on Italian food and was extremely committed to local ingredients.  The Capricciosa pizza (usually my favourite kind) was one of the best I’ve ever had; I’m glad that I remembered to take a picture before eating.  The sauce was particularly good – the restaurant even sells jars of it!

Stay tuned for a few more flashbacks, as the Southern Hemisphere countdown continues!

(Ottawa, Ontario, Canada)

My previous post talked about our trip to the Supreme Court of Canada, but that wasn’t the only national site we visited on December 29.  We also braved the snows to take a tour of the Royal Canadian Mint.

The Royal Canadian Mint actually has two locations now.  The original facility in Ottawa now produces only special commemorative and investment coins, while the newer facility in Winnipeg now handles the minting of the standard everyday coinage.   The upside of this is that you get to see some seriously valuable metal in Ottawa, as virtually everything is made of silver or gold.  It also produces specialty items, such as the medals awarded during the 2010 Winter Olympics and the 2015 Pan-Am Games.

After the tour, we were able to lift a gold bar worth about $680,000.00.  It is securely attached and under the watchful eyes of two security guards; it is also a lot heavier than you’d expect!  The tour is not long but it is also not that expensive; however, you do need to sign up in advance so that you are able to go through the guard post at the entrance to the facility.  Unfortunately, no photographs are permitted during the tour itself.

As we had both previously been on tours of the Parliament Buildings, we weren’t too disappointed to find out that the day’s tours were already fully booked by the time we got there.  You can only get tickets on the day of the tour; as a result, there are often line-ups first thing in the morning and all of the day’s tickets were gone by 10:30 a.m.  If the timing works for us, we will try to take one of these tours the next time we are in Ottawa.

That evening, we went to a family-run Persian restaurant called “Saffron” in the Sandy Hill neighbourhood.  It was not fancy but we really enjoyed the food.  They were very accommodating and even suggested that my wife order something that was not on the menu.

The previous day, we spent an entire afternoon at the Canadian War Museum.  It is huge:  there are 4 separate halls plus a large temporary exhibit area:  we were there for about three hours and only saw the “Cold War” hall and the temporary exhibit on Women in War.

The Cold War hall focused naturally on the period between World War II and the early 1990s.  It is strange to walk through a museum and see things that you actually remember being part of your own life:  for us, seeing the small display of “Cold War music videos from the 1980s” was especially poignant as we remember when these songs and videos first came out.

I spent some time at the Cold War Simulator, watching the two “best guesses” of how a conflict between NATO and the Warsaw Pact might have unfolded.  Even though these were only simulations, it was still very scary to see a desperate, last-ditch use of chemical weapons followed by a single retaliatory nuclear strike.

My next major trip is now less than 2 months away; I’ve been very busy with finalizing those arrangements and doing the “macro planning” for this summer’s southern hemisphere journey.  Stay tuned for more on those trips and some more travel flashbacks!

(Ottawa, Ontario, Canada)

One of the fun experiences during our December getaway to Ottawa was a guided tour of the Supreme Court of Canada. As a lawyer, of course, this was the ultimate career-related tour for me.  Other than a visit to the Federal Court of Appeal (housed in the same building) twenty years ago as a law student with one of my professors, I had never been to the Supreme Court.

You cannot just show up for guided Supreme Court tours but it is possible to book them online.  Perhaps because of the raging and long-awaited blizzard on December 29, our tour consisted of just the two of us and our guide. I think he enjoyed providing a bit more detail than he would normally provide to non-lawyers.

The building looks very severe from the outside (see snowy photo at the top of this blog – it’s also a colour photograph!), reflecting the rationality that is necessarily part of the Supreme Court’s role.   Despite a huge foyer and impressive staircases, the Supreme Court courtroom is actually not that large.  I have been in larger local courtrooms, although not quite as plush.  Of course, the Supreme Court does not require space for jurors or witnesses:  proceedings here are appeals from lower courts and do not require new testimony.  The appeals are relatively technical and free from the unpredictability of live witnesses.

Even in front of one judge, presenting legal arguments can be somewhat intimidating.  Imagine presenting to a panel of 9 judges!  I stood at the lectern and was surprised by how close the judges would be in “real life”.   While some hearings are handled by “only” 5 or 7 judges, a lawyer at the Supreme Court is still trying to make very precise and subtle arguments to a lot of very brilliant minds.  Their time is very valuable and you cannot waste it with irrelevancies.  Not only that, but they are also able to communicate with each other during the course of the hearing.  Yes, they have “chat” capability on their computers!  This allows them to focus even more on the most important issues.

We also spent some time in the Federal Court of Appeal, where a panel is typically composed of three judges.  This portion of the tour is a little more informal and tour participants can even be photographed on the judges’ bench wearing supplied “judge robes” (which were, in this case, identical to my own legal robes).  We decided to take advantage of the opportunity!

You do not need to be on a guided tour to observe proceedings in the Federal Court of Appeal or the Supreme Court of Canada.  It is possible to just show up and watch:  even these highest levels of our court system are open to the public, subject to spectator capacity, security checks and respectful behaviour.   Hearings are also streamed over the Internet.  However, unlike trials with live witnesses, the Supreme Court drama lies in the intellectual challenge and the broader impacts of the decisions on society.

My next blog entry will have more on our wintry trip to Ottawa!