Ottawa.. Owatta feeling

Lame joke, no? I thought of it on the bus and thought I may as well put it in.

So after the short 2 hr 40 minute bus ride from Montreal, I was in Ottawa, Canada’s capital! I caught a taxi from the Greyhound station to my hostel, which is actually in the old jail! I saw that there were tours of the jail every night, so signed up for one straight away.
The jail tour was pretty cool, we were shown all the old cells, went into solitary confinement (which I could NOT handle, by the way), saw the cells the inmates were put into when they were on death row, and where hangings took place. This jail was the site of the last public hanging in Canada. Pretty eery!

After the tour I wandered downtown to see the light show at Parliament Hill. It was pretty cool, the buildings are gorgeous. A lot of the buildings in Ottawa are beautiful actually, all old-style. I loved that everywhere I turned there was a photo opportunity, Ottawa could be one of my favourite Canadian cities. The light show was for Quebec city’s 400th year, so was all about how Canada is the greatest country on earth. Whatever it was about, it was pretty!

The next morning I got up early and went back to Parliament Hill for the Changing of the Guard ceremony. One of the guys that was presenting it was speaking to me for a bit before it and even mentioned me in the speech! Yay, go Straya! It was pretty cool to watch, they come parading down the street in their kilts and hats and with their guns and bagpipes and other things. Then they do a half hour long ceremony, marching along and yelling and inspecting. I dunno what was going on really, but it was good to watch. They then leave again, so it’s not really a changing of the guard, cos there is no guard present all day. More just for show!
I then went and got on a Grayline bus for the Hop on Hop off tour. $45 for 3 days of touring and a boat tour.. Not bad! So did the entire 2 hour tour, then hopped off for some lunch. The tour guide had recommended a particular restaurant for poutine (fries with cheese curd and gravy.. A Canadian delicacy) because they put whiskey in their gravy. So I braved the restaurant by myself. I’ve never eaten in a restaurant restaurant by myself, only fast food places and food courts haha. When you’re travelling alone though, you don’t have much choice! It wasn’t too bad, and the poutine was poutine. Not as good as it is in Ballarat, as stupid as that may sounds. Only cos they use cheese curds here, which are foreign to me (check out the photo I’ll post) whereas they use grated cheese in the Rat, which melts better in my opinion.
Theeennnn I went for another Canadian delicacy, beavertails. They’re basically like a pancake shaped donut, they fry it then put whatever you want on it. I chose the peanut butter one, which had chocolate, peanut butter and Reese’s pieces on it. Oh my effing god. As you can imagine, I wanted to hurl afterwards. It was yummy though!

Then it started pouring with rain, so I went back to the hostel for a bit. The rain didn’t show any sign of letting up, so I thought I’d go to a movie, cos it was cheap arse Tuesday! I went and saw Dark Knight, which was awesomely awesome. Heath Ledger was superb. So good. So yeah, dinner and a movie all by myself in one day.. Who’s growing up? Haha
Theennnnnn I went on a tour of Ottawa called “The Haunted Walk of Ottawa” which is pretty self explanatory I guess. It was pretty good, we walked around for 90 minutes, and the host showed us some of the buildings that are supposed to be haunted, and told us the stories behind them. I didn’t see or feel anything, unlike the tour in Sydney, where I thought I felt a ghost. Loser.

The next day I hopped on the HOHO bus again and went to the Museum of Civilisation. The best part of it was the Greeks exhibition, which basically had artefacts and paintings from Ancient Greece, like heads of old statues and those gold headpieces. That night I went down to Parliament Hill again to watch the lightshow, just cause there was nothing much else to do. It started to pour, again, and I braved it for like half an hour, but then couldn’t do it anymore. I went back to the hostel. So that morning I had showered with my thongs on (to avoid tinea, you see) and had worn the same ones out that day. There must have been some shower gel or shampoo on them, cause as soon as they got wet, they became indescribably slippery, and kept falling off my feet. I would have looked like an absolute twat. Nothing a bit of a wash in a puddle didn’t fix. Class.

The next morning I had plans to get up and out of bed early to do a tour of parliament while the changing of the guard was on. Basically everyone goes on the tour after the ceremony, so there’s a massive line. My plan was to beat that line and go while they were all watching the ceremony. Anyway, for one reason or another that didn’t happen, and I found myself waiting for an hour for my tour. Jeebus Kirsty. The inside of Parliament was awesome, so pretty. We were told about Canadian politics, at which point I obviously turned my brain off.. Dull! But the architecture was awesome.
Then I went on my boat cruise. I had been waiting for a sunny day to do it, but every day it had rained. Today was no different, but there was a break in the rain so I decided to take it. The tour was alright, not a lot to see on the river but it’s nice to be on the water! Towards the end of the tour though, it started absolutely bucketing down, scary ouchy rain. It was crazy. That night I didn’t do a lot, just watched movies on my laptop really. I wasn’t feeling the best.

The next morning it became clear why I wasn’t feeling well the night before, I was vomiting all morning. Joy of joys! And just before I was due to go on a 24 hour bus ride.. Even better! I hung around the hostel for a while til I felt I could brave the world, and went to the War Museum. I took the Grayline bus, even though it was my fourth day and you only get three days with your ticket.. They never check these things! The museum was pretty cool, quite big too. I kinda felt a little bad, because here I was learning all about Canada’s war history, when I’ve never taken much of an interest in Australia’s. The best part of the war museum though, was the exhibition on Nazi Germany, Eugenics and the effort to create the master race. All very disturbing really, some of the pictures from the time and the posters they put out telling people to be careful who they marry, and advertising sterilization. God. You leave feeling a little grim, that’s for sure.

So I got the Grayline back to the hostel, and hopped in a taxi for the Grayline, bound for Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Will update soon about that, am running a little behind, as usual!

xx

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