I spent some days together with Kathi in Ottawa, so glad to be reunited once again. We went around this not that well known capital and i liked all the garish neo-medieval architecture. As there's not enough space for two in the student's dormitory single room, and i hoped to see somewhat of the country after all, we soon hit the road!Besides the somewhat calmer mood of Canadians over their southern neighbours, they prove to be real revolutioners concerning speed limits, which are as low as in the US, just that nobody cares.
Moreover if you leave the Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal axis, you quickly get to know the ambiguity of the term highway, which may not imply more than a paved strip through endless woods, one typical thing for Ontario.As i recently had my temple-and-any-other-traditionall-stuff-hangover from Japan and still remember the corn-one along our way west in the US, it's the forest-and-lakes hangover you get up in the borealm. Nonetheless the mostly slight hilled landscape can be very impressive and we did some hiking tours in the provincial parks; at least as far as we got without snowhoes (we tried them only once at Mt.Tremblant).
Mid march in Ontario still proved to be mid winter, but temperatures weren't that bad anymore (people wearing t-shirts above 0°C). Nonetheless winter tourism isn't that develloped, and the "closed for season"-sign got our companion everywhere we went. The farther north you get, the less dense population gets and the heavier industries. Final leader was Timmins, a 50.000 soul logging town, stretching out 40km in every direction (The "Welcome to"-sign inmidst the taiga really was fun). All in all, from a visitor point of view, Canada turned out not to be that different from the States after all, an impression rehabilitated only by what we saw from Quebec and its own culutral touch, and me being so glad getting my hands on real food again, after having had to drop low from japanese delicacies to ever recurring burger or steak menus *puke* Montreal with its multicultural flair and cool places to hang out, became our welcome back to civilication after having left behind 3000km of boreal forest.
And once again the day to say good bye came far to early. But from now it's only one more month until my love will come back too. Let's see about what adventures settling down rather than travelling foreign lands will bring along. Here the map of places we went:
