Ottawa Winterlude IV

Sunday morning. Batteries recharged, and I started with a couple cups of coffee. SMS comes in, "Breakfast anyone?" What can I say? I needed energy and body fuel to keep up with the walking and the cold. We met up at Zak's Diner in the Byward Market. Now there was just 8 of us. It's a busy place, but I think it was worth the wait. First thing ordered? COFFEE! Then food. I will have to check that place out again the next time I am in town. After breakfast, we wandered through the market and headed down to Confederation Park again to check out more ice sculptures. It was colder then the previous day and the wind had picked up.

After about an hour or so I made my good-byes and headed to Sparx Street for the Winter Brewed craft beer festival. Sorry no pictures from that. I was too cold to even think about taking shots. All I can say is that an outdoor beer festival in the middle of winter in Ottawa is definitely up there with bad ideas. Good beer though.

After I tried a couple of samples I headed back to the hostel to relax and warm up. Monday morning I packed up and headed home. It was a good trip. Over Sunday breakfast we discussed doing another hangout in real life. If things go well, it's off to Montreal for Jazz Fest this summer. I think I may need to bone up on my public school French.

Ottawa Winterlude III

What to do after hanging around in the cold? Go to a pub to warm up! Hey, it isn't a proper photo walk unless there's a pub involved. We ended up at the Royal Oak which is practically right on the Rideau Canal. We divested ourselves of our winter coats and continued taking pictures. Discussed photography and what we were doing in our lives currently. We also started to make plans for the following day.

After we warmed up enough and refueled our bodies we headed back to our respective residences. I walked back to the hostel I was staying at to recharge my batteries. Later I got a call asking if I wanted to meet up for some more hanging out. Ended up going to the Blue Cactus in the Byward Market. Good grub there. By this point and time we were getting a little tired so back to bed we went and waited for Sunday to begin.

Ottawa Winterlude II

Those that enjoyed the ice skating had lots of fun. There were enough of them. about 4 of us weren't brave enough to get out there. Me for one, I wasn't willing to brave my lack of skills with photography and cameras out there. I did manage to have fun on the sidelines capturing everyones antics though.



On a side note. Friday March 1st, I will be participating in another gallery exhibition. At The Playground on 605 College St. in Toronto Ontario the show "Balloons" by the Mariproject is set to open at 8 pm. If you are around and want to come out please do. If not Friday, the show is going on until the end of March. Hope to see you there.

Ottawa Winterlude I

Right, now that December is done and caught up with. Lets work our way backwards here. Just to keep things fresh, well to be honest someone needed to see some pictures before she went on vacation so I had to get them done and online. Last weekend (Feb 15-18) I got on the Greyhound bus, booked a room in a hostel, and made my way to Ottawa, Ontario. Our nations capital. The mission? A "Hangout In Real Life" with a bunch of Google+ photographers. Yes it's winter, yes it's Ottawa, and yes it was very cold. Don't think I will be doing that again in the near future.

Anyway, Friday night I met up with three of my online friends (now I can call them real life friends :)) and did some "ghetto studio" photography. Not much to show from that really, maybe in another random hodge-podge of a post. Saturday we all met up, about 13 of us, down in Confederation Park to check out the ice sculptures. A lot of people working on the ice when we were there.

Everyone was then gathered up and we were off to the Rideau Canal for ice skating. Those of us that could and were brave *cough*foolish*cough* enough to get on the ice. Fun times.