Ottawa to St Catharines

After a seven hour flight from London, we arrived in Ottawa to a 'green-belt' of yellow and red leafed trees, wide highways through residential streets and strip-mall after strip-mall after strip-mall. This was the Canadian suburbia that would house us for the following three nights.

Tess grew up in Ottawa in the suburb of Orleans. It's changed a lot since she was last there and the barrage of 'superstores' came as a shock. We found ourselves going the scenic route even if it meant it took longer to avoid all the eyesores. At least that is what she said, we may have been lost. 

Being on tour has a nice way of injecting purpose into what you're doing. Personally, I'd want nothing more than to avoid shopping in a bunch of shops for stuff that I can get anywhere. Needing a Canadian phone for the tour got us out of the house without feeling too much like tourists. Nonetheless, it was great to see central Ottawa. The buildings were much closer to my expectations of Canadian architecture and there were some lovely views from the bridge by the Parliament buildings.

A seven hour drive took us to St Catharines, near Niagara Falls, from where we're writing this post. Arriving at Brock University at around 17:30EST (12:30GMT) we spent a good four hours tech-ing. Writing lighting states and cues is good fun; it's like graphic-design/web-design except you're in the environment. That tends to beat staring at a screen!

As I'm sure will be a running theme of our travels, we are very glad to have friends around us. All the favours make this trip possible, the people behind them are the reason that it is fun, even between performing/teaching. Staying at a friend's/family member's house, being given a jacket/phone/food, getting recommendations for people to contact for gigs - these all help to make our trip feel more human and we are extremely grateful for that.

Tonight is our first Canada performance of Beatrick. We are buzzing!