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I went to Ottawa with Jen for the Canada Day long weekend. The nation's capital is, of course, the best place to celebrate Canada's birthday, while at the same time visiting family and the friends we both met during our many years living there.

We rode the Dirty Dog to Ottawa after work on Thursday night, and settled in to our friend Mark Rehder's place when we arrived after midnight. There was a note on the door from Richard to come meet him for some food when we arrived. What the heck, Richard is just a couple of blocks away from Mark, it's a weekend so it doesn't matter if we're out late, and there's plenty of good late-night eating in Chinatown. We ended up staying out until about 2:30 while we chatted over pho.

Saturday was a fun day! After sleeping in for a while, we went over to Jen's friends John and Anna's place for a bit of a Canada Day get-together. This was the first time we met John and Anna's newborn son, Dylan. John's brother Steve (who I met years ago through the Ottawa Perl Mongers), Kelly, Jody, and Henk were all there too.
For the evening, we headed back to Mark's place to meet up with some of the HPVOoO folks for food and crazy bike riding fun. Gathered up the bikes, lit them up, stuck Canada Geese on our heads, and went to entertain the crowds. More details in my Canada Day Photo Gallery, and in Richard's gallery.

On Sunday, Jen and I borrowed Richard's Greenspeed tandem recumbent trike for a ride around Ottawa. After touring around the city, we rode up to my brother Andrew's place to visit him, his wife Jurga and their daughter Agota. It was great to see them again for the first time since I moved out of their place in May. It's amazing how much a baby can change over two months. I took plenty of pictures of this day too.

Most of Sunday was spent travelling back to Toronto, but we managed to sneak a second meal at the So Good chinese restaurant before leaving. I took a few pictures too.

Overall, we had a fantastic weekend. This has really been a great summer so far!