dbd33

Ah. I commuted to Ottawa for a year. What a truly awful place. Freezing cold most of the year, swarmed by bugs when the river melts, inhabited almost exclusively by government employees and regulated to the point that a permit is required to change the colour of your garage door. It looks nice enough for two weeks in July but otherwise is a town utterly without merit.
I don't know if there's a gay/lesbian scene there, I find it hard to imagine there's any sort of social scene outside the RA, but I do know some of the bars along Church St in Toronto a bit. It's the neighbourhood where my children went to high school and for a couple of years I was very well informed about the ease of "passing" in each of them. That's gay indifference for you; local bars ranked by ease of getting served under age without regard for the orientation of their customers.

dbd33

My companion in driving to LA was one of my daughters, she was twenty when last we went. She's a vegetarian but not an evangelical one. In the big steak belt I ate big steaks and she ate vegetables. People were very accomodating but, of course, one must ask and it doesn't hurt to have be charming. If one must eat at a chain restaurant Country Kitchen is very good "You eat vegetables ?! We've got vegetables, what do y'all do with them ?" said the waitress. It was as if she'd previous considered vegetables only as some form of garnish, something to decorate the plate and then be binned. If I recall correctly, in two weeks of driving and eating, my daughter was stuck with the salad bar once and we fell back on Indian food once; pretty good, I thought. Oh, and the Blue Blanc Rouge in Vegas apparently served fabulous veggie stuff; I dunno, I had a big steak.

I was working in Vegas, a booth at a trade show, and we dined with a range of clients and business associates. No one said anything offensive about a vegetarian meal being ordered but then the vegetarian didn't comment on their dinners either. It's no-one's business, what other people put on their plates.

Judy in Calgary

Quite so.

But there are some Albertans who harangue a person who accompanies them to a Chinese restaurant and orders Item #109, which just happens to be a vegetable dish. When I say "harangue," I mean they tease, cajole, and try to convert the person over a couple of years.

Said person is not an evangelical vegetarian, does not proclaim to all and sundry that she is a vegetarian, does not preach health benefits of being vegetarian, and does not lecture about animal welfare.

dbd33

That sounds horribly interfering but being a busybody isn't particularly Albertan. The queen of authoritarian nose poking, Jack Layton, is from here.

yorkiebar99

[QUOTE=dbd33]Ah. I commuted to Ottawa for a year. What a truly awful place. Freezing cold most of the year, swarmed by bugs when the river melts, inhabited almost exclusively by government employees and regulated to the point that a permit is required to change the colour of your garage door. It looks nice enough for two weeks in July but otherwise is a town utterly without merit.


You have such a way with words. i couldn`t have said it better meself!! we are off and moving to Kingston at the end of the month to see what that is like.....we are hoping that because there are 2 prisons in the are life might be a bit more exciting. Onwards and upwards........






I

flashman

[QUOTE=yorkiebar99]
Kingston is a nice spot with a better climate than both Ottawa on Montreal because it's further south. There's the prisons, the military and Queens University but the problem is you can't tell who goes where.

dbd33

There's also some tall ship sailing out of Kingston, I dropped off and picked up various kids there. It's a odd place because there's a magnetic variation and compasses don't work. It's handy for the 1,000 Islands,that could be nice over the summer.

yorkiebar99

I think when you emigrate you have to move every 2yrs just to keep your friends and family happy in the uK for their holidays....they always want something new to see!! Now when they visit we can dump them on a boat to the 1000islands....
In a year we will probably have to move to Toronto`then....pass over winterpeg...maybe by the time we reach vancouver we will be off to Australia...and start all over again....