This summer I came to France, Begium (and Neerland too), to see our family, and moreover discover the next generation, that is already promising, let me introduce them…

First there was the Christening of my nephews Mathieu & Thibaud (5 years old both), that Christophe & France adopted 2 years ago in Haïti. They are 5 years old and packed of positive energy (and some malice too!).

Then there’s Louison (3 years old) with her mother Elizabeth, that I didn’t had a chance to meet in France, she has the eyes of her mother and the kind smile of her father. A little shy at first, but playful and lovely!

The last one is Quentin (3 month), brother of Louison, that I almost ever see sleeping or drinking milk! Seems able to sleep while all family is having a dinner and speaking loud, laughing out very loud, and enjoying it!

This was a big trip for us, from Montreal to Paris, then 2500km (1600 miles) of road-trip, including Amsterdam, Namur, Lyon, and back to Paris! We would like to see our family, discover the new generation, and celebrate our parents!

But this is not the point here. We didn’t really enjoyed Toronto and we couldn’t have a reservation for the CN Tower restaurant, I dreamed to eat at 351m (450 feet) with a panoramic view! So we decided to go to see Ottawa, and quickly drove there…

To find a hotel, some (good) restaurants, bars, night-club to go out, we stopped at a coffee. Our iPod is not easy to use to browser many pages, look to the map with enough space on the screen, so I used myMacBook Pro 17″ (yes screen is bigger and totally gorgeous! lol!).

But here got the point, I couldn’t connect easily, we go to a Starbuck coffee, were it happens the connection was so slow it took minutes to display just one page. I was digusted.

What we needed was an iPad, something with a bigger than smartphone (and iPhone) screen, easy to use, able to take the micro-SIM card of my iPhone or have it’s own 3G plan, for me to browse locations on Ottawa while moving, discuss things, use the time lost in our car as a cool time to discuss our envy, and quietly choose an hotel, do an hotel reservation online while in the highway, select a restaurant to enjoy sea food, look at ratings and comments…

Finally we do it from an iPhone, but hotel reservation screen was really too large for it, and even if everything goes well, I do an error on the date: default date was tomorrow instead today on their page and I couldn’t see it if I didn’t check it by zooming!

We ended-up with a suite on Best Western, and sea food on Metropolitain Brasserie. A restaurant that is so a french brasserie, and so good, that I thought many parisian brasserie may take lessons! The suite was real great too

But with an iPad it would have been more simple, much more enjoyment to use while on the road, that I think it will be my next toy when the 3G version will be available!