Correr Es Mi Destino

Hard to believe that just a few weeks ago, we got a surprise snow fall. The weather recently got warmer and it always feels humid. With all the rain we had lately, the trees, grass and plants are chlorophyll green and I think this time I can say it's spring. Finally. In May. The opening weekend of the 2012 Tulips Festival was very warm, and most of the flowers had just bloomed. Dow's Lake was packed and people were fighting to have their picture taken by the flower beds. Eh, this is Canada,...

Even though I'm very much a city person and can't imagine living in a place with a population of less than 500,000, I'm in love with Canadian small towns. Over the year, we visit quite a lot of small towns, mostly in Ontario but also in the U.S. Some were just a stop on the road to or from somewhere, some were a getaway, but most of them were simply lovely. It's a cliché but the pace of life is different and people are friendlier than in the big cities. It's also refreshing to see fewer...

Apple Crumble and Cinnamon Ice Cream I usually avoid eating in the Byward Market because some of Ottawa's worse restaurants operate there, and because food can be pricey and mediocre. I always feel for tourists who end up there and pay big bucks for bad food. But sometimes, there are nice surprises. One of my foodie friends and I hesitated forever before heading to the Byward Market. She had been to Vittoria Trattoria before and had liked it. I was in the mood for pizza, but not the Pizza...

Electrical Locker in Little Italy, Ottawa, May 2012 In Ottawa, the heart of Little Italy lies along Preston Street, in the area known as ?Corso Italia'. Like in Chinatown, the entrance on Carling is marked by a metal arch in the colours of the Italian flag. Even the electrical lockers are painted in the colours of the flag! There are tons of Italian restaurants for all budgets on Preston, as well as a few coffee shops, a bodega and a soccer club. Every year, the neighborhood hosts the...

Toronto is one of my favourite cities in Canada, and we've gotten to know it pretty well through multiple visits. It's an easy getaway destination, a mere five-hour drive from Ottawa, and there are a lot of cheap hotels if you don't mind staying in the suburbs, like most of Toronto residents. This time, we were there for the Bryan Adams concert and only stayed for a day, but we still enjoyed a nice walk in the city and a stop at two of our favourite restaurants: The Old Spaghetti Factory on...

Yes, I like Bryan Adams. I don't care how corny some of his songs can be, he is classic. When I was in China in 2000, I picked up the 98 album ?On a Day Like Today' and my friends and I loved it'probably because the lyrics were so easy to understand for us, non-English speakers. Plus, we were in a ?Bridget Jones' phase where all the guys were asshole anyway, so most of the songs on the album confirmed what we highly suspected about the opposite sex. I saw him play in Nantes once'must have...

Weird Sign At The Central Experimental Farm, Ottawa, April 2012 I'm a huge fan of signs and I always keep an eye out for the funniest or strangest ones, at home or abroad. I found this gem when exploring the Central Experimental Farm a few days ago.  It was put up in the very quiet parking lot. Feng and I looked at each other and burst out laughing. ?The hell'?? we wondered. ?Looks like it's a warning against old perverts kidnapping innocent girls,? I ventured. I know it must mean ?use the...

I Love Canada, Ottawa, April 2012 The results of the first round of the French presidential elections came as no surprise: the two favourite candidates, Nicolas Sarkozy and François Holland, will face each other in round two on May 6, 2012. The only ?surprise' was that the Front National, the anti-immigrant party, ended up at the third place with a record 17.9 per cent of the vote. The Front National went from being a marginal party in the 70s to being the third largest political force...

Self-Portrait, Ottawa, April 2012 Last Friday, I published my 900th article. I only realized it afterwards: I don't pay attention to numbers and I was really annoyed with our famous Canadian weather that day! When I typed my first post on Blogger in November 2006, I had now idea I would still be writing today. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision, mostly motivated by boredom and culture shock. And six years later, I'm still there, still enjoying blogging. Funny, isn't it' So in honour of this...

Three Frozen Tulips, Ottawa, April 2012   On Monday, I was publishing a photo article on ?Early Spring in the Farm?, and I was joking about jinxing the nice weather. Well, looks like I did (sorry Ottawa!). On Monday morning, we woke up to freezing temperatures and light snow. The snow actually melted during the day and it turned into rain pretty quickly, but the ?oh crap' feeling lingered through the day. I just don't know what to wear these days. Thrown with abandon on the chair in the...