2013 Canadian/Ottawa international challenge

The month of June saw me head out to Ottawa, Canada for the 2013 Canadian international or also known as the Ottawa international. It was held at Carlton university in the athletics center and overall wasn't a bad location. I arrived into Ottawa very early in the morning 6am to be exact and collected my bags then proceeded to make my way by bus to the university campus where I was staying in the dorms. It was nice to be staying on the university camps and was cheap too which is always a benefit for a broke  athlete haha. The campus was nice and people were pretty friendly, all the players were staying on campus more or less minus those who lived in Ottawa. The campus Was pretty deserted but the tunnels had some cool paintings from the houses over years. That being said they were pretty sketchy at times and we dubbed them the "rape tunnels" because at 2am in the morning lets be honest it felt like that. 

My dorm for the few days

"rape tunnels"

more tunnels

Awesome 8-bit characters, can you guess who's who

Hum...

This was going to be a super short trip with me spending just 4 days in Ottawa including the day I landed and the day I left. The 1st day upon arrival I had the whole day to kill and explore. Unfortunately I was unable to get any practice in at the tournament venue due to there being only 3 courts. I did go to see if anybody would be willing to have a hit but it wasn't my luck. For the rest of the first day I didn't do to much since I played early the next morning. The next day come around and I had my singles match at 10am so went to the cafeteria and had a nice breakfast. Walking into the gym it was pretty empty and a 3 court set up, instantly I could notice that they air conditioning hadn't been turned off meaning that there would be a draft in the venue. My match was against a Canadian junior and it was tough I ended up loosing. After having a great tournament in Tahiti making quarterfinals to lose 1st round at the same grade tournament was disappointing to say the least. I was leading through the greater majority if the 1st game but come the 2nd I wasn't able to adapt to the draft quick enough and that cost me some points. So afterwards there was some publicity that sparked things.

Tournament Hall

The player that I played was sponsored by a company called Li-Ning and I'm sponsored by Yonex. The Li-Ning website posted about all its players victories but that inevitably sparked some trouble with their choice of words.

After playing my match I had just the rest of that day, one full day and then half a day before I flew our of Ottawa and back home. The bad part was the day that I left Calgary there had been heavy rain.and the rivers that run through the city overflowed causing mass damage to any property and surrounding businesses/areas. I was fortunate enough that my house was not located anywhere near the flooded area, unfortunately some of my friends wernt so lucky. The next day came and I decided that I would go and see as many sights as I could. So I got up early and had a big breakfast preparing myself for a long day of walking. I started out by catching a bus downtown and making my way to the most prominent and famous building in Ottawa, the parliament building. It was Canada day long weekend coming up so they were already setting up the stage and barriers for the festivities which would happen. The historic buildings were fantastic though and I live architecture both old and modern. That's one thing which made the walk along the Ottawa river a beautiful stroll. So much so that I decided to come back later in the day for a run. Do after walking along the river and checking out some museums I went back into "downtown" to eat a late lunch. I found a really cool part of town and a nice little swharmma store to eat at. The food was great and the people very friendly not to mention that the atmosphere of the area was fantastic.

Parliament Building

Parliament Building

Alas I headed back to the university dorm and rested for a little bit allowing lunch to digest. Later in the evening I headed back downtown for a run by the river. That's where something funny happened. I was running on the path at a decent pace when I saw a dude run past and he did a double take. I assumed it was just cause of how quick I was running. Boy would I later find out that wasn't the only reason. When I run outside in the summer I tend to run shirtless cause of how hot it is and to usually try and even out whatever uneven tan I've gotten from my travels. All I hear in the background is "hey you, hey you fast guy slow down for a second" long story short he was gay and attracted to me >.< I wish I could say this is the 1st time something like this has happened but that's not the case. I've been hit on by my fair share of gay males. Anyways I explained to him I was straight and said I was flattered that he wanted to grab a drink later. He still persisted and said to come out anyways to enjoy my time here and he would bring some girls with him. He joined me to do some stairs and one if the ladies he was talking about also joined. We talked more and I was considering going out later after she convinced me some more. They were around my age and went to Carlton which wanna funny coincidence. So they picked me up from the dorms that night and we went out on the town, met more of their friends and overall had a great time.

Just like that my time in Ottawa had come to and end and I needed to catch my flight back to Calgary and the state of panic which was still happening in the city. It wasn't the best tournament considering I was just coming off making quarterfinals in Tahiti, I was very disappointed with my results there but not much I could do. Ottawa was and is a beautiful city right on the river and the architecture of the parliamentary building as well as.other buildings. It was summer when I was there and I fell in love with the outdoor scenery, I'm sure that in winter it is just as beautiful...when it's not freezing outside of course. Let's be honest Canadian winters can be hit or miss. Arriving back in Calgary  I'd return to training and prepare for the upcoming tournaments; US open and Canada Open.