Our last day


Today is our last day her in Ottawa. Tomorrow the flight goes back to Norway. The vacation has been absolutely fantastic. “There is no place like home” is a famous saying. But do you know what? We feel Canada has become a second home for us. We have practically fallen in love with the country.  Not only have we done incredible activities, but our friendship has grown stronger. It is me, Oscar who is writing this post. I do not have words to describe how thankful I’m for this present. We have done so much fun after we landed the 16th of November. We have been on a Justin Bieber concert, watched a top division ice hockey match, and learned a lot about Canada. We even got a new friend.
I could talk for hours about all the good memories, but I have to tell something else too, our total impression. First of all, the nature is just amazing. It is a lot of different colours, with green trees who comes out of the snow. It was not so difficult for us to get known with the climate, because it is pretty similar to the Norwegian weather. Norwegians have a lot to learn regarding to behaviour. Before we left Norway, we read that Canadians was incredibly friendly, and sure they lived up to the expectations. Canada is also a multi-cultural country; nothing less than 1 in every 5 Canadians is an immigrant. Actually we have some money left yet, and it is no doubt what they should be used to; A new trip to Canada!

Shopping!


Ottawa offers a lot of different stores, everything from clothing to stuffed animals. Ottawa has expanded in the recent years, and are still extending the number of stores and shopping centres in the town. Not long ago, Ottawa Business Journal, a local newspaper announced that H&M will be opening at Bayshore in October. We have H&M in Trondheim, and we really like the concept of cheap good-looking clothes!
We have now been a few hours in Rideau Centre, and are both quite exhausted so we decided to take a cup of coffee. The centre offers nothing less than 180 shops, including exclusive retailers Lacoste, Hugo Boss and Michael Kors. We have not bought anything special yet, except of two bottles of ice wine to our lovely parents. Ice wine is a sweet dessert wine produced using grapes frozen on the wine. Canada has no problem providing freezing conditions and is the biggest ice wine in the world actually. In my opinion the wine is way too sweet, but our parents love it. Hopefully we will find something to us self during the day. 

Tonight we are going out for dinner at Town. Ottawa Magazine describes the restaurant like this; “If Town were a freshman, he would be that adorable, smart, funny kid who has endeared himself to absolutely everyone — the artsy types, the jocks, the nerds, the cool kids. Even the parents are smitten. They say his taste in music makes them feel young again”. After the dinner at Jon`s house we got the taste of traditional Canadian food, and hopefully we also get an interesting tasting experiences this time. Now it is time to go shopping again, new post soon!

Ottawa 67` VS Mississauga


We have not been able to write for some days now, because we have done so different fun things. Yesterday we decided to go to an ice hockey game which is the most popular sport in Canada. The match was between Ottawa 67's and Mississauga Steelheads at Ottawa 67s home arena; Canadian Tire Centre. The atmosphere was just amazing; fans were screaming and shouting through the whole match. It’s a very huge different between hockey in Canada and for example football in Norway if you compare the popularity around the matches. That surprised me a little bit. As jovial Rosenborg supporters, we thought Norway had great fans, but obviously I was wrong. We both love all kinds of sports, so we were obliged to explore Ice hockey as well. The match ended with a strong 4-2 win to Ottawa 67`s. The home fans were pleased after the match, and so were we. To celebrate the memorable match, we joined the local bar with the fans. One of the supporters, Leon, bought us “Lebbat Blue” each, which is a popular Canadian beer.

Yesterday`s celebration lead to little sleep and too much beer. We had planned to go out to explore some more of the city, but we have no energy at all. Our only goal today is to eat a lot of food, and to avoid all physical activity. To be honest with you, we do not even want to write any more today. We will come back stronger tomorrow!

Visit to the Church


I have to start this post with a little review from yesterday; The Justin Bieber concert was indescribable! Sure, there were more dancers than musicians on the stage. And yes, he changed clothes more often than we do together in a week. But he has an amazing voice, and is very good at what he does.  When he played his monster hit Baby the whole crowd went crazy, we even sang along. And the girls looked good, but their only focus was on Justin unfortunately.. 
Today it is time for reflection and thinking. After some stressful days, a visit to the church fits perfect. Canada has no official religion and supports religious pluralism, which means freedom of religion. This is an important part of Canada`s political culture. However, 70% of Canadians are Christians. We are not Christians, but since so many of the inhabitants are connected to this religion, we choose to visit a Christian Church. In that way we can learn more about Canadian`s culture and Canadians relationship to religion. Today it is Sunday, a perfect day for a visit like this. The church has “Lord`s Day Meeting” from 10 am to 1:30 pm every Sunday. Our new friend Jon, as we mentioned in a previous post, will be with us. He is a Catholic, just like the majority of the Christians in Canada.