One of the joys of an early morning flight is arriving at your destination with a full day ahead of you.  We’re checked into our hotel and off on our first day in Ottawa by 9:30am.  After a stop at Bridgehead Cafe for a much needed coffee jolt and at Parliament to pick up tickets for an afternoon tour, we decide on a city tour to kick off our trip.  It’s a common travel pattern for us – use the first morning to quickly get an overview of a city before exploring it in more depth during the rest of the trip.

It’s a sweltering day with the temperatures already pushing 30C when we hop aboard the bus.  Taking a seat on the top level, I’m glad I liberally applied sunscreen before leaving the hotel.  Here we are just as the tour is about to get started:

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I spent about a year living in Ottawa in the mid 1990s while working for Nortel during my undergraduate degree program.  Back then, Ottawa and I didn’t get along well.  It was cold, I didn’t have quite the sense of adventure I do now, and it was the first time I lived away from Halifax.

Today I’m sorting through pictures from a four day mixed work/vacation trip to our nation’s capital where I had the chance to explore the city with a fresh set of eyes after all these years.   I’ve worked in the city since then, but really only had the chance to see the inside of the airport, cabs, hotels and offices.  I’ll be posting more over the next week on the trip.  Safe to say… Ottawa and me… we are now back on speaking terms.