Things Go Awry in Ottawa

Eager to get back on the road after waiting around in Montreal for the new trailer floor to be installed (see last post), we decided to do a quick day-stop in Ottawa and then move on.  On the way we did a nice ferry crossing across the St. Lawrence.



On the ferry



View from the ferry

We drove to downtown Ottawa for some lunch and sightseeing.  We parked in a parking garage and headed to Byward Market.  We had a nice lunch at a Scottish place.

Ottawa

Byward Market

Then strolled around a bit, pleasantly surprised that despite the guidebook's lackluster description of Ottawa, it really was quite pretty.  We visited the Museum of Civilization but had to rush through because they were about to close!



We returned to the parking garage and stared in disbelief as we saw a window in the backseat door of the car had been smashed.  Looking inside, I realized that my laptop case, which had been in the backseat, was missing.  Luckily, nothing else seemed to be gone, but as I thought about what was in the laptop case, my stomach began to turn.  Not only my laptop, but all our documents (passports, international drivers licenses, car titles, EVERYTHING!) and $200 emergency cash!  What are we going to do now, I thought, we can't even leave Canada until we get the documents straightened out.  And now ANOTHER call to the insurance?  It had only been a week since our trailer floor claim.

We talked to the garage "security guard", called the police, and called the insurance.  We went in to the police station to file the official report (which took forever and the police were none to helpful - in fact they were questioning us like we were the criminals).  By the time we returned to the camper it was late and we were both in a foul mood, so we went right to bed, thinking that we were in for another long day(s) of waiting tomorrow at the embassy to get new passports.

At 12:30, my phone rang. Who would be calling me now, I thought, as I groggily answered.  I was suddenly wide-awake as I realized the man on the other end was telling me that he had found my documents.  I jumped out of bed to write down the address he was telling me.  Apparantly, our thief had a heart!  He had dumped the laptop case with our documents inside on the roof of the National Arts Center, and a night security guard had found them as he was making his rounds.  The documents would be safely waiting for us at the security desk to pick up in the morning!

Exhilerated that this might not be the long, painful process we were dreading, we drove to the National Arts Center first thing the next morning, and indeed, the case was there, along with all the documents that had been taken.  Of course, the cash and the laptop were gone, but honestly, those things can be easily replaced and were the least of our worries. We would chalk it up to a "learning experience" (though an expensive one.  But hey, didn't we just get a free floor for the trailer?). When we had moved everything out of the trailer for them to work on it, I had dumped the documents and cash in my laptop bad for "safekeeping", and we were in too much of a hurry to move on from Montreal to reorganize things. And, we had been keeping to much stuff in the back seat of the car anyway.  Live and learn. 

Check out the handywork

Vowing never to leave important items in a city parking garage again, we left Ottawa in our dust...