The train was leaving at 9:30 and my sister picked me up at 8:00 am so that I could be there an hour prior to departure. I hadn’t slept much the night before because the Dell technician had made a visit to my place to replace my hard drive. I didn’t want to leave my mom and Melissa without access to a computer for two weeks, so I stayed up late installing programs and documents. It was close to 1:00am before I turned off the lights.
My plan was to sleep all the way to Ottawa and arrive refreshed and ready for training. I was one of the first people on the train because I had arrived so early at the station; I was the third person in line.
We did not have designated seats for this trip so I chose a cluster of four seats and hoped that I would not have anyone seating across from me. Within moments of settling into my seat, a young woman with a smile on her face sat next to me. She was very friendly and we ended up talking the entire way to Ottawa.
After an hour of chatting, I asked her why she was going to Ottawa and was surprised to hear that she was going for a job interview with my department. At the end of the trip, we exchanged information and I hope to hear from her about her interview. She is exactly the type of person any employer would want to have on staff, friendly, passionate and motivated.
I checked into the hotel at 2:30 pm and had nothing planned except rest because my mother and sister would be joining me around 11:00 pm. In spite of my lack of sleep, the train left me energized and the afternoon sun was beautiful. I decided to take a walk to see how far my training facility was from the hotel. The instructions that we had received was to take a taxi the first morning and they would provide us with bus information. I personally wanted to walk if it wasn’t too far because it would help me with my weight loss efforts.
Not long after I started my journey, I noticed a Loblaws grocery store and was happy to see that it hadn’t closed yet. When I checked my watch, it was already closing in on 5:00 pm and I know that most grocery stores close early on Sundays. I decided to abandon my original destination for this new one and grab some groceries so that my mom and sister could have something for breakfast or lunch while they were staying with me.
My suite was equipped with a full kitchen, a washer/dryer, living room and bedroom. My mother and sister would stay for four nights, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and leave on Thursday while I was in class. The hotel was only charging an additional $20.00 per person for their stay, which I thought was quite reasonable.
I gave them the bedroom, which was equipped with a queen bed, and I took the sofa bed for those first nights. My plan was that while I was in class, they could do the tourist thing and then in the evening we would enjoy a meal.
That is exactly how it worked out for the most part. My sister wanted me to partake in the Imax theatre one evening because they were showing a film about Greece. I have always wanted to see Greece so I agreed.
The theatre is located in the museum of Naturalization in Hull and to get there was not a real problem, although the cab driver had to take his sign off his cab, but getting back, I thought we would end up walking the entire distance because there were no taxis outside the museum.
We started to walk and when I saw a taxi going in the opposite direction, I waved to him. He had a passenger and just stared as he whizzed by. I resigned myself to the walk when he pulled up slowly beside us and stopped. He had dropped his passenger and turned around to look for us. Luckily, we hadn’t made it too far. It was really cold and windy that evening and I’m sure that I would not have enjoyed the trek once we were on the bridge back to Ottawa.
I was sad to say goodbye to my family on Thurs morning. The time had flown by so quickly and as irritating as it may have been when I was trying to fall asleep at night, my sister was wide-awake, and wishing to talk, I knew that it was going to be very lonely for the balance of my stay.
My evening meals would definitely be much quieter. It was usually a debate while we strolled through the Byward Market looking for a place that served something we all would like. I have a broader appreciation for different foods than my sister and mother. They appreciate a more bland culinary experience. The Market is a wonderful place to find a variety of different cafes and restaurants and many of them are on the Cajun/Seafood theme.
The first evening was a prime example. That was Monday night. I was tired from a full day of class and starving. They were very hungry from walking around all afternoon, so we did not want to venture too far and thought that we would be able to find something in the market easily.
I am not sure if it was the hunger that made the task too daunting or not, but after an hour of walking, we still had not come across a place that we could all agree on. My sister and mother did not really want to go into a pub type restaurant, but that is what most of the establishments were. I had a hard time convincing them that we would most likely find food to their taste in a pub.
In the end, we went into a restaurant that was located in the basement of a seafood restaurant called the Fish Market. We went to the Wine Cellar. The menu outside showed a larger amount of non-seafood assortments and in particular one item that caught my eye was the $12.00 fries with a strip loin steak on top.
My mom’s arthritis is getting worse and I was not sure if she was going to manage the steep stairs down to the restaurant. I was behind her and my sister who was supposed to be the safety net in front had abandoned her duty and ran ahead after the waiter to the table. She chose the seat at the back of a booth type of table. My mother slid in on the other side and the only seat left was a wooden armchair, which looked uncomfortable. I looked at the chair and made a comment that I was not sure if I would be able to sit on it for long because my back gets sore after awhile. Because I live with my mom, she is more in tune with my idiosyncrasies and caught on even before I had the words out of my mouth. She started to tell my sister to change seats with me but my sister did not understand what she wanted.
Therefore, my sister tried to maintain her spot while my mom moved closer and closer to her pushing her out of the way while I slid in beside my mom. Finally, my sister found herself ousted from her seat and standing where the chair was.
The entire time a table of two men next to us stopped talking to each other so that they could observe our spectacle. Debbie was pissed right off that we had made her move until I leaned over and told her that my ass was too big for the chair and my mother yelled out, "Yes, didn't you see it move when Shelly stood up?"
We all started to laugh so hard that I thought she was going to end up on the floor. The giddiness may have been a result of lack of sleep, lack of food or just being too tired to be angry, no matter what we had many of these types of moments and it made the three days with them very enjoyable for me.
Here are a few pictures that I took while I was there.
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