It’s a few minutes before midnight and we just got back to our room. After a full day of events, food, friends and fun, I think our exit strategy to watch the fireworks from the 23rd floor of the Westin Ottawa was a good one.  The night sky was unobstructed and ours.

Ottawa is many things to many people: It’s a university town, a government town, the PM’s main “office space,” and for historical buffs and art lovers, it’s filled with museums.  To many locals there is also a “locals-know” side to Ottawa that the media and the rest of Canada doesn’t usually talk about (or know).

I’m an immigrant.  My family arrived in Vancouver from Budapest on Easter Sunday in 1988.  We drove to Nelson and I received my landed immigrant status in Trail a few months later. I remember that we celebrated with a Johnny Cash concert, a root beer float and a cheese burger.  (Back then, fast food and anything stamped with an arch was a novelty item still.)