Dinner at Le Metro was outstanding. I had shrimp tempura to begin my meal, which went very well with two glasses of the house red wine. The shrimp were served with a tasty oil for dipping and sesame seeds for rolling. A small garnish of wasabi, enough to wake up an elephant, rounded out the presentation. For the main course, I had grilled Atlantic salmon with vegetables. It is the best salmon I've ever eaten. And for dessert, I had an oven-baked raspberry cheesecake. The meal was very good. The bill was $135 for the two of us. I highly recommend Le Metro to any omnivores in Ottawa with enough money and interest for good food.

In the evening of the third day, I dropped my boss off at the airport and then drove, in the rented Oldsmobile Alero, to my aunt's home in the south end of Ottawa. It was great to see my young cousins, Jack and Luke. I enjoyed my visit so much, I ended up returning the next day.

You know on your boarding pass, how it says to show up an hour before your flight? Hahaha. So I missed my flight by arriving at registration only 23 minutes before it was scheduled to depart. I went back to my aunt's home for Friday night, excited about flying out at 7:05 Saturday morning.

Friday night, my aunt, my uncle and I watched two episodes of the first season of The West Wing. "Celestial Navigation" was hilarious. "Woo canall!"

The flight back to Hamilton was better than the flight to Ottawa. I had a south-facing window seat and the sun was just rising over the eastern horizon, so I had a great view of the GTA, particularly Toronto.

Travel summary:

• 3 taxi rides
• 2 flights on a Boeing 737
• 1 1994 Aerostar
• 1 2004 Alero
• 2 hotels
• 4 days outside of K-W
• 2 missed classes

I finished one book and am close to finishing a second book. Solitude certainly encourages me to read.

I gathered my stuff and checked out around 8:20 a.m. A copy of the Globe and Mail was on my doorstep (nich touch!). But the continental breakfast provided by the Bostonian left something to be desired, namely, food. I had two glasses of orange juice, a bowl of raisin bran cereal, one cup of coffee, one piece of toast and two raisin bran muffins. Of course it's the first time I've eaten breakfast in a while.

The day of training was fine. The customer lent me its customer shuttle, a 1994 Ford Aerostar.

Around 4:45 p.m., I checked into the Carleton Heritage Inn, located in downtown Carleton Place, population 9100 hardy souls. The inn is very quaint. My room, 306, is called the Ernest Womson room. The room recalls the late Victorian estates that were mimicked in Canada. The inn appears to be quite old. No wireless internet access here .

Tonight, it's dinner at Le Metro, a restaurant that my boss raved about. I'm looking forward to it.

One of my clients, Peartree Software,
asked me to travel to Ottawa to train a customer on their RV
dealership management software. I was scheduled to fly out of the href="http://hamiltonairport.com">Hamilton International Airport, on
West Jet flight 634, on 27 January 2004.

With all the talk about the biggest storm to hit Canada since last week, I needed to find transportation to the airport from Kitchener. I ended up taking a taxi from Waterloo Taxi because Budget and Hertz, although they have outlets in the
Hamilton terminal, were dumb about renting me a car.

Allow me to explain the dumbness. Since I've rented from Hertz before, I called them first. I was informed by the Victoria office to call the 1-800 number.
The lady I spoke to on the phone told me that the rental would be $56.00 plus a $75 drop off fee. I said nuts to that and bid her good-day. Inconcievably, Budget was worse. They told me that they don't rent cars one-way from Kitchener to Hamilton airport. Here I was, thinking that Budget rented cars. Ha. I guess they showed me.

The flat rate for the taxi was $80.50. Far, far better than renting a car. But maybe more expensive
than the Airporter.

My flight on a West Jet Boeing 737 was delayed by about 20 minutes. The West Jet staff were very friendly. The plane was clean and the flight was uneventful. Of course, it only took 41 minutes to fly from Hamilton to Ottawa, at a cruising altitude of 37,000 feet. We must have had a tailwind.

I'm posting this entry from the Bostonian on Maclaren Street in downtown Ottawa. The hotel is good: it has open wireless throughout the building, a full kitchen in each room, and comfortable beds. It even has Nintendo 64 games, if you want to play them. The President of Peartree and I spent most of the night playing pool at Maclaren's on Elgin, an upscale sports bar. It was fairly nice.