Ottawa: The wedding of Nousha and Vargha / Touring the Parliament Buildings

Right after Naw-Ruz / Easter weekend, we flew to Ottawa to attend the wedding of my dear friend Nousha Etemad to Vargha Ram. We arrived the day before so we had a chance to rest a bit and be tourists.

We visited the Parliament Buildings, specifically the main building that contains the House of Commons and the Senate, as well as the Peace Tower shown here.

This is beside the Memorial Chamber, a tribute to Canadian soldiers who lost their lives in various wars.

Aleta found the coast was clear so she made a break for points otherwise forbidden to enter...

We had a tour of various parts of the building. Here we lingered in the press gallery area outside the House of Commons, yes in the very spot where many TV interviews take place.

Did I mention that Ottawa had a lot of snow?

After a very interesting tour of the Parliament buildings and a bit of a tour around the city, we came to the Museum of Civilization, in Gatineau (across the river from Ottawa, and officially part of the Capital region), to the site of the wedding. They had the wedding and reception right in the Grand Hall, a stunning location for a wedding.

Enter the bride and groom!

Oh yeah, those escalators behind? Aleta discovered them, and did she ever take to them. Up and down, up and down, all through the wedding and reception. If we weren't going up and down them, we were supervising a treadmill-like move at the bottom of the down escalator, with Aleta walking up the escalator at the same pace that it was coming down.

In between escalator rides, I had a chance to chat with several friends, some of whom are shown here: Layla, Hoda, Rose and Neda.

We had never met Vargha before, so we finally had a chance to meet him a bit and have a few moments with Nousha too. They really seem to like each other, a lot, and we wish them our best for a long and happy marriage.