Miguelito and Someonitez visited Ottawa

Tags

Arizona, dachshunds, Dignitaries, Nicky, Nora, Northern Lights, Official, Ottawa, Parliament, sites, Summer, Visitors

Our friends from Phoenix visited us in Ottawa in the past week. We had planned this visit for months and prepared a briefing book for their visit, I say this in all seriousness. They too were somewhat surprised by our level of organization.

It was great fun to have them with us and brought a change of pace from the recent tragic events in my family. Both are delightful gents, good conversationalists, walking on average 15Km a day visiting sites around town.

We took them to Montebello, Quebec on Sunday which is always a pleasant drive down Hwy 50E. Sunday night we went to Parliament Hill to see the new Northern Lights Show which is quite dramatic.

Our poor Nicky was quite sad to see them go and so was Nora who tried to jump into their suitcase.

Here is a panoramic retrospective of this week long Official Visit

Official Birthday Party with specially designed Tomato Soup Cake as per MCR’s request. We do not know his precise age but have been told unofficially that it is anywhere between 43 and 73. The Fire Dept only allowed 2 candles on the cake.

We paid a courtesy visit to Rideau Hall, Home of H.E. the Governor General of Canada

We also went to visit Laurier House, a national historic site and home of two Canadian Prime Ministers, Sir Wilfrid Laurier and William Lyon Mackenzie King. A fascinating place full of artifacts. No seance on that day with dead dogs called Pat or the long dead mother of the PM.

The sculpture Maman by Canadian Artist Louise Bourgeois. An iconic piece of contemporary art. All went well until our friend wishing to conquer his fears of spiders decided to climb on it, when the police arrived well… it’s a long story. Ah those tourists.

No expenses where spared to impress our guests even renting a canoe.

A walk in the woods of Chateau Montebello before lunch, if you look carefully there are  2 black bears on the left side of the picture.

He said ”Where is the Roastbeef?”

Now Evelyn, I thought this establishment was Vegetarian

The Northern Lights show at Parliament, impressive, much appreciated by our visitors.

Blooming tulips on Parliament, the story of WWII, Canada and Holland.

The Canadian Flag at 50. All part of the story told at the Northern Lights Show ending with the National Anthem

We saw many more sights and walked a lot around the Capital, had fine dining at home and in restaurants. Still much more to see and we hope our friends will return. Ciao Ragazzi, Ci Vediamo!

Ottawa Airport Field

Au revoir to 2014.

Tags

Arizona, Canada., Dresden, National Gallery of Canada, National War Museum, Otto Dix, Salzburg, Stratford Ontario

Has it been 14 years now since the old millennium and the XXth century ended, how time flies so quickly. We saw the turn of the new century in Warsaw, the famous night of Y2K, we can all laugh now at the nonsense of it all. Since then we returned to Canada bought a heritage home, renovated it and then, I went to Beijing on posting and in 2007 to Rome, our old dog Reesie died in Rome on Boxing Day 2008. We had sold the house prior to our departure for Europe. In 2009 in February we met our new puppies Nicky and Nora in Capena. In 2011 we returned with much regret to Canada and I retired at the end of 2012. Since I have been doing volunteer work in our National Museums and built a new life here. But this has not stopped us from traveling to Europe again and again and visiting our friends. We discovered Spain by visiting many wonderful cities, Valencia, Seville, Granada, after seeing Barcelona, Madrid and a stop in Gibraltar.

Among new people we have become friends first through our blogs I believe around 2010 and then in person in 2013, Dr. Spo and DAW from Arizona. We went to  Stratford Ontario for the Summer theatre Festival and again this past Summer. Both are delightful people and have become good friends.

So many things have happened in the last 14 years and 2014 was also full of events.

Will continues to work at the Foreign Ministry and I at the Museums. We travelled with our friend Madame J. to Austria and Germany, we visited Salzburg for the Pentecost Music Festival during a heat wave which made going to our concerts unpleasant since most halls are very weakly cooled. I saw two exhibits on Otto Dix in Munich and in Dresden and learned much about his paintings and his life. In Dresden I saw his masterpiece Der Krieg which had jus been cleaned. I wanted to learn more about Dix since I was working on the Exhibit of war paintings entitled Transformations at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa. I am now juggling the National Gallery of Canada where I work as a docent and coordinator of Art Lectures and the CWM.

What will 2015 bring, well we will have a National Election for Parliament, the $100,000 dollar question is ”will the evil Mr. Harper win another mandate” The Country is badly divided again. There will be other things during the year, maybe a visit to Ottawa of our friends MCR and DAW, more Museums and trips and who knows what else.

DAW and MCR from AZ at a great restaurant Pazzo in Stratford.

I leave you with this piece of music Dubinuska composed by Nicolai Rimski-Korsakov composed for the first anti-Romanov Student revolt in 1905.

Dubinuska (Russia 1905), l’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Ernest Ansermet, Conductor.