Picture of the Week: The Contortionist

Last Sat­ur­day, I stopped by Sparks Street to check out the Busker­fest, Ottawa’s annual street per­former festival.I love street art—it really livens up a city.

Picture of the Week: Red Bikes

Like many cities around the world, Ottawa recently launched a pub­lic bicy­cle shar­ing sys­tem, Cap­i­tal Bixi. The bikes cost $5 for a 24 hour rental period and are avail­able in sev­eral sta­tions, includ­ing at the Byward Mar­ket where I snapped the picture.

Picture of the Week: The Drummers

The city of Ottawa is cur­rently exper­i­ment­ing with some­thing totally rev­o­lu­tion­ary: a pedes­trian inter­sec­tion. In this car cul­ture coun­try, there are very few pedes­trian streets.

Night Show On Parliament Hill

After wan­der­ing around between Par­lia­ment Hill and Major Hill’s Park on Canada Day, we went home to rest a bit and even­tu­ally headed back down­town for the night show. We some­how man­aged to secure a spot by the Par­lia­ment where we were sur­rounded by a sea of peo­ple clad in red and white.

Mysterious Signs

Ottawa doesn’t have a lot of graf­fiti, except on Prince of Wales Bridge. Most opin­ions are expressed on posters scat­tered across the city, sta­pled on wooden poles or taped to util­i­ties poles, despite the “No Pos­ter­ing” signs in effect. When­ever I wait at the red light, my eyes wan­der and I read them.

Canada Day 2011

Happy Canada Day everyone!

It was (and still is) a crazy day here in Ottawa, the nation’s cap­i­tal. With the visit of Kate and William and the usual fes­tiv­i­ties around Par­lia­ment Hill, thou­sands of peo­ple are wan­der­ing down­town in the streets of Ottawa.

RibFest and Visitors

On our way to pick them up at Mon­treal Air­port , we stopped by the Rib Fest on Sparks Street. I’m not a huge fan of meat but I can def­i­nitely have a pulled pork sand­wich once a year—and boy, this one was good! The street was packed and smoky but I loved the atmos­phere. The city is alive after all!

Picture of the Week: Curious Ant

Canada is pretty ster­ile dur­ing the win­ter. Most ani­mals hiber­nated once the thick blan­ket of snow has fallen and all you get to see is a few rab­bits. But once the flow­ers bloom, it feels like we are on Noah’s Ark.