On my third day in Ottawa, we woke early and leisurely headed out to Le Nordik in Gatineau, Quebec. It was only a 20 min drive from April’s place, but seemed a world away. Nestled in a little forest area, Le Nordik is a rustic outdoor Scandinavian spa retreat. April and I had planned to visit Le Nordik, and it was definitely a high-light of my time in Ottawa. It started, however, with a super long line winding along the inner entrance area. After waiting roughly an hour, we finally made it inside, where April surprised me by purchasing the entire spa day for both of us! Such a nice hostess she is. With robes and towels in hand we headed off to begin our day of relaxation.
During our wait, I watched a video on the preferred “spa-ing” method. First, you spend 10-15 minutes in a hot sauna. Then, you plunge into freezing cold water for 5-10 seconds. Finally, you finish things off with 15 minutes of relaxation. Repeat 3 times for maximum relaxation. Le Nordik has a ton of saunas (dry, aromatherapy, or steam) where you can complete Step 1. We opted for the aromatherapy sauna. As soon as we entered, I immediately started to panic. The steam was so thick and hot that I began to feel claustrophobic. Standing near the entrance, I whispered over and over to April that I didn’t like it! She kept telling me to breathe, and I was panicking like a whiney baby. After a few minutes of standing there like fools, with April trying to calm me down, we sat down on the little benches. It was only after we were in the sauna for a few minutes that I began to realize that it was FULL of people who could see my entire panic-induced episode because we were right by the door! When we realized that, we could not stop laughing. Then when we heard squishy noises that sounded like sweaty flesh moving around, we really could not contain our laughter!
After popping out of the sauna, we dilly-dallied outside where we got super cold. In order to do Step 2 effectively, we needed to get warm again, so we ducked into a nearby dry sauna. After another 10 minutes of that, we walked outside and directly into a freezing cold plunge pool. AHMYGOD it was cold. Frrrrreeeezing cold, we wrapped ourselves up in our fluffy white robes with hoods and padded down to an outdoor fire-pit to warm our feet. We spent the rest of the morning in the hot steam pools, and didn’t duplicate the “cold” part of the experience again.
When we had worked up an appetite, we walked over to the lounge for some lunch. In our robes, we ordered wine and some platters to share. Pure decadence. The fire-places were crackling, the wine was flowing, and the food was delish. It was the life. Seriously.
After lunch we traipsed over to the one of the hot pools, which was the only non-silent area of the spa. In all the other areas there were “guards” with little signs saying “SILENT PLEASE.” on them. How can we have our girl talk when we had to be quiet as mice all day? Yeesh. So rude. Needless to say, by the time we got into the non-quiet pool, we were super talkative and had the guy next to us in stitches as he eavesdropped on our hilarious convos (like April fainting during a C-section). As we floated there, in our wine and food induced comas, the biggest prettiest snowflakes began falling all around us. It was absolutely gorgeous. The trees began to get dusted in snow, and it really made the whole experience feel even more Scandinavian than it already did.
When we finally emerged, April’s robe was gone…including her iPhone. Terror. Panic. Anger. RAGE. Kidding, she handled it all surprisingly well. We made some attempts to track it down, asking people we knew were in the pool with us if they had mistakenly taken the wrong robe, and inquiring at the front desk if anyone had turned it in. No luck. After one more round in the sauna we glumly got ready and left Le Nordik with our bodies relaxed, but our souls a little sad.
That evening, we had dinner at Whalesbone, a cute teensy seafood restaurant located in a nondescript area of Ottawa. I had a variety of oysters to start, followed by the lobster risotto. April had a seafood medley for her app, and then the steak. The service was super slow, and there was an incident with a deep-fried clam shell…but overall the meal was quite good.
My lobster was slightly over-cooked, and when I mentioned it to the waitress, she took it off my bill (which was a big deal, considering it was $45). The rest of the evening we spent watching “The Internship” with Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson (horrible movie), and eating candy from the convenience store in April’s building. See? I told you it was a day of gluttony…
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