My partner in crime Teresa and I went to Ottawa, 3 or 4 years ago in the winter to get famous winter festival in Ottawa Winterlude. Unfortunately, this year the weather was too warm and the weekend was a total wash disposal. Even the ice sculptures had melted.

Well, it was time give it a second shot. So last Friday we have in the car and once we pass through the a few snow showers was last Oshawa Smooth Sailing all the way to Canada's capital. We have the right to the city around 4:30 pm, just before sunset.

Arriving in the 417 to the city we took a bit of rush hour Ottawa and traffic along Wellington Street was bumper to bumper. Funny, I always imagined that Ottawa has didnÂ't rush hour, boy was I wrong. The fact that some people may think that Ottawa is a little late does not mean bureaucratic ita hustling and bustling place.

So since then I did some research on the capital from our own and found some interesting data showing that Ottawa is a city much more interesting than expected:

Ottawa is the fourth largest urban center in Canada (behind Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver), with a population of over 1.2 million people.

Ottawa, of course, is the home of government organizations and the Government of Canada, the Canadian Parliament, the Senate and the Supreme Court of Canada

Ottawa is a high technology center and home to technology giants like Nortel Networks, JDS Uniphase, Cognos, Cisco and Alcatel.

Other major companies like MBNC Canada, Ottawa ING Direct and Clarica also make their home.

More than 65,000 people are employed in 1500 the companies of high-tech sector.

It appears that Ottawa has the best educated workforce in Canada. On one level per capita has more engineers, scientists and doctors than any other city in the country.

Ottawa is one of the 5 best places in the world of R & D.

More than 7 million visitors come to Ottawa each year, and its collectively spend more than $ 1.3 billion.

A Swiss-based management firm, Corporate Resources Group, Ottawa, sixth ranked in the world for the quality of life.

Ottawa is a truly bilingual city and also has large numbers of people who speak Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese and Arabic

So this little bit of research has taught me that there's more to Ottawa than is commonly known. It is quite clear that Ottawa has undergone major changes since the first part of the 1800s when Colonel Al came to build the Rideau Canal from 1826 to 1832. This initial agreement was called Bytown Bytown in 1855 and officially changed its name to Ottawa.

The town really grew around the canal and today, the Rideau Canal is one of the main centers of Ottawa for recreation, and charges life in the winter as the Rideau Canal Skateway. First Ottawa industry stems from the logging that grew around the Ottawa River. Wooden rafts were floating on the Ottawa River, and large sawmills were built during the 19th century.

From the beginning of the ByWard Market became a major center of action for the loggers, and still remains one of Ottawa's main entertainment and shopping areas.

Ottawa First electric tram service was opened in 1891 and a local pioneer, Thomas Ahearn, often called the Edison of Canada was a driving force behind bringing electricity to Ottawa. He invented heaters and a menu of the day (in 1892) boasts that this was the first time in history that an entire meal was cooked by electricity.

In 1877, the public had its first demonstration of the phone. And in Canada the first country in the entire broadcast came through the radio waves of Ottawa in 1927. Tragedy struck several Ottawa times: in 1900 a great fire destroyed entire neighborhoods, and in 1916 the Parliament buildings suffered the same fate.

Ottawa is a major tourist destination, and visitors to the city, enjoy cultural events and heritage attractions and festivals in Ottawa and special.

Quite surprisingly, Ottawa has a number of world-renowned celebrities such as Paul Anka, Lorne Green, Margaret Atwood, Matthew Perry and Alanis Morissette. So history and composition of Ottawa is in fact much more interesting and diverse than expected.

One of the great things about the architecture of Ottawa's unique heritage. Being the passionate photographer I've asked Theresa to stop the car in various positions treacherous in traffic during rush hour, only to hop out and take some pictures in the light of warm sunset. The temperature itself was something else, but hot, must have been -10, -12 degrees Celsius.

I got off the car close to the Supreme Court Canada and went to shoot some photos of the afternoon setting up soon. My breath was freezing and walking without a hat and gloves was not a good idea at this time -10 degrees. Definitely I had to cover the fingers of activation of the camera with gloves because the cold penetrating chewing on my digits.

Of course I wanted to take a closeup of the Parliament buildings and, as he captured a place of illegal parking and got out of the car and instructed Teresa to turn around the block in case someone was going to scare her away.

He then went to our next stop, the historic Lord Elgin Hotel, located in the center, 5 minutes of buildings Parliament, opposite Central Park and the famous Rideau Canal, our destination, on Saturday at some outdoor skating in the Canal, 7.8 kilometers from the World of largest skating rink.

Susanne Pacher is the publisher of a website called Travel and Transitions (http://www.travelandtransitions.com). Travel and Transitions deals with unconventional travel and is chock full of advice, tips, real life travel experiences, interviews with travellers and travel experts, insights and reflections, cross-cultural issues, contests and many other features. You will also find stories about life and the transitions that we face as we go through our own personal life-long journeys.

Submit your own travel stories in our first travel story contest (http://www.travelandtransitions.com/contests.htm) and have a chance to win an amazing adventure cruise on the Amazon River.

“Life is a Journey Explore New Horizons”. The story with photos is published at Travel Stories and Photos (http://www.travelandtransitions.com/stories_photos/ottawa_first_impressions.htm)

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