Our first family roadtrip!

By Abbas -

One of my good friends from university tied the knot on Saturday, June 21st (congrats Namgyal & Jeff!) in Batawa, an interesting little town north of Trenton, about 2 hours from Toronto, so Kaniz, Samarah and I decided to turn our trip east into a week-long roadtrip.

Packing for the trip was quite interesting. Since the stroller takes up most of the trunk space, we had to bring along a lot of small bags rather than 1 or 2 suitcases. In the end, we probably overpacked, but better than running out of diapers in the middle of the night, I suppose.

After attending the reception, we drove straight to Ottawa and got to our hotel (Arc) around 12:30am. Samarah did very well in the first leg of our trip and our first night in the hotel which was encouraging for Kaniz and I. The Arc Hotel is a little boutique hotel in downtown Ottawa, and while it isn't necessarily baby-friendly (e.g. had to carry the stroller up several stairs to the lobby, the staff were very helpful and our rooms were quite nice. After a night in a smaller room with a queen-sized bed, we got upgraded to a larger room with a king bed - this meant that we had lots of room for the stroller/bags and more importantly, the three of us had lots of room in the bed!

We spent two days in Ottawa, doing the usual touristy things - the Parliament, Rideau Centre, Byward Market, National Gallery of Canada, etc. Although I'd been to the city quite a few times, almost every trip was work-related, so I'd never really done any proper sightseeing. Kaniz (and Samarah) had never been to the city at all, so it was a lot of fun exploring!

Although our stay had a lot of highlights (as you'll see in the photos), I did want to mention one bad dining experience we had. If you find yourself in Ottawa and in the mood for some Indian/Pakistani food, do yourself a favour and steer clear of Shafali Cafe. Hands down the _worst_ Indo/Pak food I've ever had.

Anyway, enjoy the photos! And feel free to leave a comment, or send us an e-mail to say hi!

Next up - Quebec City!

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