Winterlude

After all my bitter blogging on the Canadian weather, I went to enjoy the festivities of Winterlude last weekend. Winterlude as the name suggests, is a celebration of Winter (yay… *rolls eyes*) in the nation's capital of Ottawa.

The neat thing about Winterlude is NOT the cold (we'll get back to the cold later), but the fact that the Rideau Canal is frozen over, creating the worlds longest skating rink of over 7.8kms! As the University of Ottawa is situated on the canal, students can literally skate to school in winter. My plan was to skate the canal, but when I saw the masses of people on it, I chickened out. I've only ever skated in a indoor ice rink where there is smooth ice and walls for me to slam-stop. No one was offering to be my wall.

So whilst G skated down the canal, I plodded along by foot which was just as acceptable. To be fair, the weather was actually behaving very well, definitely more tolerable than I had imagined. By the time we finished walking the canal though, it was painful to move my poor little toes. Still not a complaint out of me (much to G's surprise). I only had one thing in mind and that was Beavertails!!! There is something irresistible with fried dough sprinkled with cinnimon and sugar, and drenched in lemon juice. It was sooo good no one heard a peep out of me until I had finished stuffing my face with it. Not sure whether the cold had anything to do with it, but the hot chocolate I had with my Beavertail… it was the best hot chocolate I had ever tasted, and it was only off the back of a truck. Who says I lack passion??

Anyways, pictures are up, you can click on the Ottawa link to check out the frozen canal and ice sculptures that were part of the festivities.