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Why Ottawa will never win

Having moved from Montreal to Ottawa I often find myself frustrated at
Ottawa’s small-town attitude, conservatism, and generally not being
a world-class city.

Walking down Elgin Street the other night, Candice and I
passed a bar (can’t remember which) with a sign out front that
read

Live Jazz

Tonight
7:30 – 10:30

Let me establish again that this was a bar, not a restaurant.
What sort of screwed-up city has early evening jazz clubs? Sheesh,
in Montreal I might arrive by 10:30.

Rich

6 responses to “Why Ottawa will never win”

  1. You guys should have seen his reaction. He really just couldn’t believe it… until it sunk in that yes, this is Ottawa. Poor, misguided Ottawa.

    Rich: Remember, sweetie, we’re going to Montreal next weekend, unless something comes up. :)

  2. OK, that’s just pathetic. Even in Raleigh, 10pm is the early start time for gigs. And that’s a *much* smaller city than Ottawa.

  3. Ottawa’s very much a “roll up the sidewalks at 6 pm” kind of town.

    It gets eerily quiet downtown once supper hour rolls around…to a degree that I’ve never seen in any other city.

    Redmond/Bellevue, WA sort of has the same deal, but Seattle proper doesn’t seem to quite have it that bad. Same with DC, but I think that’s more a case of “you have to know where to go” after supper, not that things just shut down.

  5. Ottawa is a very strange place. Technically it is a city but by all means it’s a small town. What can you expect from a capital though? Everyone is usually in bed by 9:30. Most people work for the government or are otherwise living politics. It’s sort of like falling asleep in the middle of the day when you weren’t really tired and you wake up feeling like you’ve missed out on something really fun.