Novak Family's Ottawa Trip

May 10th/11th 2003

In honour of Nikola's 24th birthday (as a convenient excuse;), the Novak Family decided to finally and collectivelly visit our proud nation's capital. Showing our renowned adventurous spirit, we embarked at 5:47AM on a Saturday morning. Few hundred kilometers later, we were almost awake.
Finding our way to Ottawa downtown around 11AM, we proceeded in an entirely wrong direction guided by the sure hand of our dad, the Experienced World Traveller (tm); luckily, before we strayed too far, mom, the Experienced Traveller with Dad, asked a friendly local chap for directions after which we promptly reversed our course.
Travelling along the Sparks avenue, we compared it to Vase Miskina (Sarajevo), Korso (Rijeka), and virtually every pedestrian-only avenue in the world, concluding they are virtually identical on the grounds that they have many things in common (mainly, the fact they're all pedestrian-only avenues).
Resisting the temptation to visit the Tulip Festival (ed. Note: Whew... that was a close one!), we visited the Parliament complex, including the nearly hour-long spectacular tour of the Parliament building itself. More then ever before, we hold our MPs and senators in high regard, as only a trully humble public servant could sit in those teeny-tiny seats for hours at the time (perhaps this is why they are so fond of getting up and yelling about seemingly irrelevant issues;).

Mid-day we finally dropped our bags at the motel. After a fifteen-minute break (far too short for Nick, who had a whole 2.5 hours of sleep the night before;), we visited a part of Ottawa only minutes from the Parliament complex, yet with an entirely different atmosphere. The discerning dealers concluded that a young gentleman walking with parents and younger sister is an obvious target, so Nikola was offered to buy marijuana four different times. He is now conducting a vigorous study of his personal grooming habits, as to refine his image and minimize his appeal to the shadier aspects of society;).
Eventually we had dinner in a nice little restaurant which is best described as a love-child of Mandarin and Movenpick Marche.

Saturday was overall blessed with gorgeous weather; on Sunday we weren't quite so lucky, but we still managed to visit the Governor General's residence in reasonably good conditions. The trip back was a somewhat harrowing experience with the downpour reducing visibility to dozens of meters. On the plus side, we finally got to try the fastest ("Ludicrous speed") setting on our wipers:)

We arrived safely back around 19:00 on Sunday evening, being on the road merely 37 hours, but still having a rich travelling experience.

Hopefully, we'll squeeze a trip or two like this again later in the summer, as we've enjoyed this one tremendously! The perfect weather, lovely sites, friendly people, good food, and our ability to stand each other in close quarters when we absolutelly must, combined to make this short vacation an event to be remembered