This week my husband had a one-week training course in Ottawa. Seeing as my son and I were not busy, I decided it would be fun to join him mid-week. There is the possibility that we might end up moving there in the coming year and although I have been to the Ottawa/Gatineau region before (this the the Canadian national capital for you less geographically inclined folks), I never really looked at it from an I-might-live-here-someday perspective. It was an enlightening experience, but certainly not one that left me feeling happy about an impending move. Dear God, let me stay in Montreal!

First, my husband and I decided that we were Quebeckers and that we did not want to live on the Ontario side. In any case, we couldn’t really afford anything there but a trailer park home. Basically what the region boils down to is horrible urban planning. There is a dead-after-five downtown core because no one lives where they work, and that is surrounded by suburbia. I hate the suburbs. I hate having to take my car to go anywhere. I like being able to walk to shops and grocery stores and bakeries and what-not. I don’t want to have to drive to WalMart or Zellers or Loblaws. Give me the country or the the city–but please, nothing in between.

So we drove around for a couple of hours to see what our options would be. Good friends of ours who live in the region told us to check out two great places. (They have been living there for 7 years now and are dying to get OUT–how encouraging is that?). One is the town of Chelsea (less suburban, more country). It is nice, even very nice, but too far for my husband to bike to work (he would be working in the dead-after-five downtown core). He doesn’t want to be home late. He prefers family over work and doesn’t want to spend hours every day commuting. Fair enough. Brownie points for Daddy, no points for Chelsea. Then there is one area in a town called Aylmer that is about 10 blocks cool. It’s not that close to the dead-after-five downtown core, but doable with a bike. Prices are higher but not so much that we couldn’t afford a little something. Nonetheless, I am kind of depressed about the whole thing. I never realized how much I loved my life here in Montreal until I discovered how I disliked the Ottawa region.

I am guilty. I am an antisuburbanite.