The sun has finally got its hat on - yeay!

Hi everyone,

Well as you can see the weather has changed from this (picture 1) to this (picture 2) - we're slapping on the sunscreen and enjoying one of the only perks of being unemployed, being able to sit out in the sun during the day!

Picture 1 - View for man hole (kidding our front room)

Picture 2 - Our back garden

Just to bring you up to speed - since we have arrived in Ottawa we spent the first week hunting for apartments and experiencing some of the worst weather Canada has to offer. It was freezing, there were snow banks everywhere and you couldn't see the pavement. The foot deep snow that covered the pavement (this depth seemed to remain constant even though the snow was being shovelled all the time) had a thick layer of ice on top, which made walking very precarious and slowed our hunt right down. However after a week or so of navigating the 'slopes' of Ottawa - we found a place. It was actually one of the first places we looked at but we were driven by that feeling that you can't just take the first place you see - until we went right round in a circle and ended up back at the first apartment. We viewed some pretty weird places, one was completely subsiding and Josh spent the whole time rolling coins around the floor to show the landlord something he would have to have been blind not to notice. We were walking downstairs still talking to this particular landlord when we noticed a strange smell and saw a door which was open a crack. Inside you could see beer cans, old plates, clothes - not the typical student student mess, it had that more established grotty feel. The landlord quickly explained that this was a one bedroom apartment which he also owned, he laughed about the mess - Josh and I looked at one another forcing our nevous laughter.

Jenny and I, in her kitchen in the Glebe.


That week Peter and Jenny (my relies) drove us around to help us get oriented and took us out to dinner at one of the lovely restaurants in their area. They live south of our apartment (the CBD is north of us by a few blocks) in a upmarket, alternative, yuppie hippy area - it's really nice. We moved into our apartment at the end of the week and took half the contents of Jenny and Peter's house with us! My other second cousin, Johanne, brought us a moving in package of a blow up bed, coffee, beer, sugar, bagels, fruit, milk and tea - very sweet.


Josh and I - our first night in the apartment
The second week was spent job hunting (of course) and moving various pieces of furniture. We bought a sofa bed for $20 - bargain! We also went out for St Patrick's day to a new irish bar in town with Johanne and Mische. We waited for ages in a queue to get in, now waiting in a queue in Canada is a whole dofferent story to waiting in a queue for a bar in Scotland - you start to slowly lose your extremities and seriously consider how much you want into the bar. Josh kept telling me to speak in an Irish accent to speed up the process - he kept shouting up the queue 'Let her in she's irish' at the top of his voice, which he found so funny. Once I had punched Josh to shut him up we managed to finally get in - we had some irish red beer and wore green hats with 'On St Patrick's day - I'm Irish' written on them. It was so nice to be in a pub where there was no smoking allowed and we also benefited from a strange fact that all the bars in Canada have table service - weird eh?! No more waiting in queues at the bar with drunken strangers leaning against you - good unless you are into that sort of thing. We then went to a seafood restaurant - where Josh had the most awesome cajun chicken ever (so he says), just what you'd expect at a seafood restaurant?!?! We were home by 11:45pm - we are such party animals!!

The third week, Peter and Jenny managed to get us in for free at a Blue's Night which was on at the local community centre - it was really good and a great relief after a boring few days of constant job hunting. That was the high point of that week, as Josh proceeded to hurt his knee so that he couldn't even leave the apartment. We were feeling pretty down - not a peep from any of our applications, no money to explore ottawa, and the weather was dismal. But don't worry we snapped out of our black moods - I joined a pilates class and went swimming and Josh forked out for a physio appointment. Josh's knee began to improve pretty swiftly with his new exercises and I had got lots of contacts and an interview. Josh was also interviewed by a number of recruitment agencies. Johanne invited us round for dinner which was fun - she is an excellent cook! We were really being spoiled as a few days later my great-aunt Chrissie invited us round to hers for a pizza (Josh's favourite).

Week four - pretty much the same - job hunting, job hunting, job hunting, job hunting. My interview went well apart for the fact that the director interviewing me thought I was in Toronto and I thought he was in Ottawa. He was very nice about it - which was even more annoying as he probably would have been a really good boss - oh well.

Week five - more pizza (yeah says Josh!),
I watched ice-hockey at a local bar with Johanne, Misch and Stephanie (Johanne's daughter). It was fun but to me it just looks like ice-hockey is about beating one another up all the time... hmmm. I bet these players all come from big families. At the weekend Jenny got us in for free shouldn't have told Chrissie it is Josh's favourite as we can't go round now without the pizza guy in-tow (Josh isn't complaining). We went andto a psanky egg decorating class at the local community centre - it was surprisingly fun and our eggs actually made us look vaguely artistic!

Our Psanky eggs - Left Josh, right Elli.

It was coming up to Easter and as we had already painted our eggs I decided to make some hot cross buns. However our stupid oven isn't working so Chrissie very kindly let me use hers. Jenny had invited to an Easter sunday lunch - although I was the only one going to church that sunday, most ottawans who are not religious still celebrate easter as the beginning of spring. It took me quite a few hours to cook my hot cross buns and I reckon Chrissie was glad to see the back of me as I managed to set off the fire alarm a couple dozen times - oops! I knew that one of Stephie's friends who was coming to the Easter luch was jewish so I made a couple of buns in his honour (see below). The lunch was yummy and we each got a little chocolate basket. Johanne had given both josh and I chocolate rabbits the night before so we had quite a little easter collection going on.

My buns!

Week six, I joined a toastmasters club - and although I turned up an hour late it was good. The security guard sent me to the wrong floor of the building - it was a very big building! Unemployment starts to make you feel very stupid so I thought it would be a good idea to get the fear of public speaking back into me. Now Josh is able to swim we have been going regularly - luckily because we are able to go during the day it is always quiet which is nice. We have discovered the Ottawa library which is really excellent for a public library - it's more like a uni library. You can tell we've been trying really hard to save money when we get so excited about a library - we've practically cleaned the place out, our apartment is full of books.

Josh had some more interviews and I have some meetings with directors of various consulting and non-profit environmental companies - so fingers crossed! The tulip festival and Blues and roots festival are coming up so we should have some nice pictures of that.

We'll keep you up to date - that's all for now, adios amigos...