greetings from Canada!

Hey, y'all! We're having a really good time here in Ottawa. I wish we could stay for a few more days, because there's so much to do - I feel like we'll barely get the chance to scratch the surface before we'll have to go home on Wednesday.

The weather has been gorgeous - beautifully sunny, but still early-spring cool - really, just about perfect, as far as I'm concerned. This is the kind of weather I most miss, living in Florida (well, this and snowfall).

So far, I've managed to accomplish two of the four main goals I set out before I left home: I've entered a bunch of bills on Where's Willy (and spent most of them, too - man, that exchange rate is a killer right now), and today I had lunch with my Canadian bureaucrat pen pal! I've also made arrangements with Mini Ottawa East to pick up the extra-special, non-US parts for Lucy tomorrow, so barring some sort of disaster, I'll be able to cross that objective off my list, too.

That just leaves a bunch of postcards for me to send... and I bought a bunch of stamps today, so I'm pretty much set, there, too. Now I just need the time to sit down and write 'em. If you want to receive one, it's not too late - since it turns out I can check my e-mail from our room, I'll watch my Gmail account for requests until 11pm Tuesday night (May 8th).

Well, I'm off to bed now - I'm beat. Wandering around a city having fun is really exhausting, y'know?

O is for Ottawa

Saturday we will be leaving here bright and early and heading to Ottawa, Canada! I'm so excited - I have never been to Ottawa, and it's been ages since I last visited Canada.

We're going there because Johnny is attending this conference, and I am tagging along just for fun. Any excuse to travel! No, I can't really afford it at this point (I got my credit card bill today and it nearly gave me a heart attack), but at least Johnny's job is paying for the hotel (and his meals), so all I have to cover is airfare (and my meals). It'll be fine as long as I am frugal this summer.

I have four main goals I hope to accomplish on this trip:
1) Enter lots of bills on Where's Willy and a few on Where's George, too. I have been sprucing up my Where's Willy profile in preparation for my increased Willying activity. :)
ii) Meet my Canadian pen pal, with whom I have been corresponding for... cripes, it's been like, 10 years now! And we've still never met!
c) Get a Euro parcel shelf for Lucy from the Ottawa Mini dealer, since the parts are no longer available in the US.
4) Send out a ton of postcards! If you'd like one, just send your address to me at username: spitesprite on Gmail. Our hotel does offer wireless internet access, but from the description online, it sounds like it may only be available in the hotel's business center - so I may only be checking my e-mail once a day instead of my usual every-few-hours. Let's say, in order to make sure I have time to get the postcards written, stamped, and mailed, that you should get your address to me no later than noon EDT on Monday, May 7th. After that, no guarantees (well, no guarantees before that, either, really... but I'll do my best).

Saturday is also going to be exciting because it's 24 hours of Flickr day! I'm planning to participate - with any luck, I'll be able to get some interesting travel pictures to post. I'm also hoping, since I have to be up crazy early that day anyway, I can sneak down to the beach and catch some sunrise pics before we head to the airport. Whatever I end up getting pictures of that day, y'all will be able to see it on my Flickr as soon as I am able to post it.

So... anyone know any fun things to do in Ottawa?

omg y'all...

Gas is getting pretty expensive here! Lucy is a fuel-efficient little car, but she (like all Minis) takes 91 octane gas, so it's still not really cheap to fill her up. Luckily, I'm not doing much driving these days, so a tank of gas lasts me forever. I will say this for her little brother Bertie - Lucy's MPG is good, but his is significantly better! Johnny is saving a lot of money on his commute, even paying for higher grade gasoline, because he's not driving such a gas-guzzler anymore. It's also good to know that we won't have to pay too much for fuel on the big cross-country road trip Johnny wants to take this October when we go out to California for KP's wedding.

Poor Bertie's issues have not been fixed yet, tho', but he's driving just fine. They got the new fuel pump for him at the service place, but they told Johnny not to bother bringing him in yet, since the fuel pump didn't seem to be fixing the problem for other people. As I mentioned, his "check engine" light did come on once since we got him back, but it went off again on its own, and it's been off for over a week now. Curiouser and curiouser. Muffy (hi, Muffy! I'm glad Meg introduced us) seems to be having the same problem with her little Percy, I am sorry to say... I hope Mini can sort this all out soon. In the meantime, we're becoming quite familiar with the good folks at Lauderdale Mini's service department. They're really, really nice, but honestly, if we had the choice, I think we'd prefer not to get to know them so well, y'know?