doors open

~ neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet, nor...roadkill?! ~

Had a rare reprieve today from work that, of late, never seems to end. After our COTR TV fix, we took advantage of Doors Open Ottawa to explore our adopted city. (Yep, we're still home church-less, but it's completely our own fault. Maybe I could make a half-new year's resolution to quit my shiftlessness. I know a friend whose family celebrates half-birthdays, after all, so I don't see why anyone should begrudge me a half-new year's. I won't even capitalize it, to keep it understated.) If you're looking for an inexpensive, edutaining activity for individuals who are possessed of excellent ambulatory and listening skills, you can't go wrong with Doors Open.

We've done two or three Doors Open Winnipeg, and found it's a neat way to get to appreciate a city's architecture and/or the corporations and organizations that contribute to making a ville what it is. While in Winnipeg, we've been to the Aboriginal Centre of Winnipeg/Former CPR Station; Pantages Theatre; the City of Winnipeg Archives, once better known as the Carnegie Library; the Vaughan Street Jail; and a few others. We've always enjoyed the experience.

Our first stop this overcast Sunday afternoon was Traffic Operations. Unbeknownst to us, it was actually just down the street from where The Mac Group used to have its office. The bad news is we left our camera in the car; the good news is someone else documented their tour earlier this year with photos that are probably every bit as good as the ones we would have taken. However, we didn't just see the traffic cams monitoring station and the sign shop; we also saw the computer switch room (they run on 386s...seriously), the room where they assemble and test traffic lights, and the truck that paints the highway lines. (This tidbit of trivia we acquired thanks to James, who should have won the "most unique question," had there been such a prize: if there's roadkill in the way, the painters have the dubious privilege of removing it. Unlike some painters elsewhere.) Traffic Ops was an extremely popular venue. Our particular tour group must have comprised at least 50 people, and the PR person I spoke to at the outset shared that they'd had 1100 visitors on Saturday alone.

Our second destination was The Gladstone, a theatre a mere 0.3 km from our first stop. Very cool to think it's a repurposed industrial garage. It's a very intimate setting, only 262 seats. There are no wings to the stage, strictly one room at the back of it that serves as change room, props storage, and a construction area. We arrived shortly after a woman had begun giving a group of about 10 the schpiel about the lobby, so I didn't catch her title/relationship to the theatre, although I did hear her remark that due to lack of storage, a lot of props and set pieces have found their way into her basement. We'll try to take in a show this season; I'm thinking The Andrews Brothers might fit the bill.

Since it was 2pm at this point, we decided to look for a nearby café or bistro. Preston Street might have been ideal, if not for the mess of the construction zone. (All those potholes my friends' vehicles sought out during the transit strike are in the process of repair, hurray!) So we ended up at the Bridgehead on Wellington. Its relaxed atmosphere--demonstrated by exposed ceiling pipes--is analogous to The Fyxx on Albert (either at 92½ or 93½, depending on whether you believe its Website or Canada411; my own memory pegs it at 93½), but granola rather than grunge. We consumed tomato & basil soup (reminiscent of Safeway's Tuscan Tomato, but with less attitude) & sandwiches (veggie & tuna), coffee (James) and lemonade (me). Bridgehead's all about organic, so the items came with a price tag heftier than a light lunch should warrant, but it was precisely what I wanted, and the soup portions were generous, so it was--to borrow a catchphrase from L--worth it. What made it doubly worth it was discovering, in writing this post, that Bridgehead was one of the sponsors of Doors Open. The cost of food in exchange for free tours of city buildings=I can live with that.

The final venue we chose to tour was the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC). Confidentially, I've always thought of it as the unattractive building on Wellington, sort of a deformed relative which the Parliament Buildings keep at arms' length, and from which even the street distances itself. I've learned that that façade is merely a front. The interior is all gorgeous marble and wood. Of course, after passing through security, our forays were limited to the Grand Entrance Hall, the Main Courtroom, and the Federal Court of Canada Courtroom. The SCC is open for in-person tours as well as virtual tours, and it lists scheduled hearings on its Website.

So if you have a chance to take part in a Doors Open, do it! The Winnipeg event usually takes place in May, the Ottawa one in June. As for other cities, you'll have to poke around the Internet on your own. There's a Doors Open Canada site, but I'm not convinced it's kept entirely up-to-date; it does have a page of links, though. I'll have to tell my in-laws; maybe they'll want to arrange something similar for The City of Sunshine. Happy trails, folks!