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Published: September 6th 2010
Ottawa
Library building at the Captialpatriotism
devoted love, support, and defense of one's country; national loyalty.
Hello again from our amazing journey. We woke up Monday morning on August 23, 2010,at Rene's parents place ready to start out again our adventure. Another one of Rene's friends, Jim, called the night before and said that he would love to come and visit before we left. He was away on the weekend, but was willing to play hooky from work to have a quick hello. He met us at Mom and Dad Hoekstra and we chatted the morning away, while it rained. The weather cleared up just as Jim was ready to leave. So nice to see you Jim and please say hi to Brenda and give a quick hug from us. We'll have to wait until next time to see her. We packed up the bike and were on our way to Ottawa by noon. We of course took the back roads towards Kingston with hopes of spending a couple hours there, but the clouds rolled in again and it was misty almost the whole way. Not enough rain to stop and put on the rain gear, but just enough to make us not want to
Ottawa
Multi-media show at the Parliment Buildings wander around the city. Of course we are always hoping the weather will be better up (or is it down?) the road and this time we were right!!!! We got to Ottawa and the weather was just fine. We decided we should camp again, so we could get out the gear and see what shape it was in. (hadn't had it out now for the 2 weeks at the family. We had googled and found this campsite that was just 10 minutes from downtown Ottawa. It really was a dive and not very welcoming, but it was close to where we wanted to be so we paid the man and found a spot on the long wet grass (YUCK!!!). We set up camp and jumped on the bike to check our Parliment Hill. We spent the next 4 hours walking around the Hill and checking it out. What an amazing place.
August 24, 2010 we were up very early, because we found out, we were camping close to a train track, a flight route for aircraft and a shipping yard where they appeared to start work at mmmmmm 6:00am. Nice!!! Oh well we wanted to get an early start
Parliment
hanging out at the Capital to our day anyway so up we got and off for another day of checking out our land's Capital. We started by booking ourselves into a couple tours of the parliment buildings, but before these tours, we watched the changing of the guards. What a wonderful show of pomp and tradition. Hard not to be patriotic when watching these young fellas performing. Rene and I are certainly proud to be Canadian!!!. After the changing of the guards we were on the tour of the ''East Block'' . Here they have re-created 3 offices from the early 1900's when our country was becoming our country. It was neat to see the rooms and hear how our first rulers went about the tasks of making this great nation. Did you know that the first 4 provinces to be part of the Dominion of Canada were Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick?
After our "East Block" tour it was time for the "Center Block" tour. This is where we toured the House of Commoms, the Senate, the Library, the Peace Tower and the Memorial Block. Interesting stuff and to think that these are the buildings where so many HUGE decisions regarding our
Bird's eye view
Pic from the Peace Tower lands and peoples are made by a couple of hand fulls of people. Kinda makes you go "HMM". Not gonna start talking politics here though!!
We then spent the afternoon wandering around the city, laying by the Rideau Canal and enjoying the "perfect" weather. Another interesting fact I learned is that Ottawa was not really in the running to become Canada's capital city. It was finally picked as the capital because it was not near an ocean (therefore not an easy target for any enemies), not near the U.S border (them being a potential enemy) and it was bordering on two of the four founding provinces. Interesting eh? At 9:00 pm we watched this fascinating production of the life of Canada and it's peoples. The show was projected onto the Centre Block of the Parliment Building through talk, music and pictures. Truly amazing multi-media. Late back to camp to "sleep"?????.
August 25, 2010, another early morning with the Ottawa trains, plains and automobiles. Up and headed towards Quebec City. The weather was hot again. We love riding in this weather. Quebec City is only a couple of hours from Ottawa, so we arrived in there in the early afternoon.
Re-creation
recreated rooms from the 1900's We had Tom Tom programmed to find our hostel, but she had some "issues" on that day and struggled to find anything. As Quebec City is situated on some fairly big hills, it was tricky for Rene to stop and start on the route Tom Tom wanted to take us, so we ended up parking the bike and walking towards the area we wanted. That seemed to work very well. Our hostel was downtown Quebec and as we were walking and looking (obviously looking lost) a young lady stopped us and asked if she could help us find anything. We told her where we wanted to go and she walked with us right to our hostel and dropped us off with a hug and a smile. What a sweet girl. We settled our stuff in the hostel and wandered around downtown Quebec some. We also visited with the folks staying at the hostel. Sarah who was a Canadian high school teacher, on her way for her second year to teach English in Egypt, 3 young people from England who has just spent 6 weeks working at a camp with special needs kids and Richard, the manager of the hostel from
Changing of the guards
Pomp and Tradition at it's best Calgary. He really liked hanging out with us as we could talk about home and he was about Scott's age, so I think he thought it was like talking to mom and dad. Fine with us.
August 26, 2010 we were up early. The night was very eventful for us. We were sleeping in a dorm rooom with 6 others. Across the street was a bar that served $1.00 beer and the customers of the bar spent allot of money that night I think. Not only was the beer cheap, it was also Karaoke night. Well, one dollar beer makes Elvis or Brittany Spears' wanna b's out of just about anyone it seems, because the singing, or should I say howling going on was loud, off key and really quite terrible, but man were they having fun. So the singing went on until about 3 am. Just as I was finally falling asleep one of the roomates came home from his own party and first tried to jump into the wrong top bunk. There were some not so kind words said by the owner of the bunk and buddy proceeded to get off the bunk and fell. He first
Hostel in Quebec
Right downtown this one hit a chair and then rolled on the floor and I guess he was really tired,(hee, hee) cause he just laid there for a couple of minutes. Eventually he got up again and stumbled to his own bunk and after several attempts, he landed in his own bed. Fully clothed he slept like a baby. What a night!!! All I could do was quietly laugh and chalk it up to "justs being part of the adventure".
Rene and I got up, kiinda sleepy, but excited to explore Quebec City and especially Old Quebec and the Plains of Abraham. So off we went. Now I am very directionally challenged. I truly struggle to find my way out of a wet paper bag (so my dad says) Rene on the other hand has this incredible skill of knowing always where he is. I consider him a directional genius compared to my incredible lack of skill in this area. Anyway he looked at the map and decided we should go one way to go to Old Quebec. I looked at the map as well and thought we should go the opposite way, but as always I deferr to him cause he is always
Old Quebec
Entrance to the Old City right. Well------ we wandered around different parts of Quebec for the next couple of hours looking for our destination and finally after we asked someone and they pointed us in the direction I thought we should have gone we finally found old Quebec and the Plains of Abraham. Just a couple knotches down now on that genius pole for Rene and up a couple notches for me!!!!!!
Old Quebec is a absolutley facsinating. It is several blocks of very old streets and avenues and has an old European feel to it. Lots of stone and brick buildings. Cobbled narrow streets with entertaining French music playing. Artists completing their works of art in the streets. Musicians singing and playing their instuments. All kinds and shapes of peoples filling the avenues with all kinds of lanuages and tongues. We stopped at one point and listened a large band playing some big band music.
Next we checked out the Plains of Abraham. The Plains of Abraham are a historic area within The Battlefields Park in Quebec City, that was originally grazing land, but became famous as the site of the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, which took place on 13 September 1759.
Old Quebec
Kinda cool eh? Lots of interesting history.
Back to our hostel to cook ourselves a late dinner. After dinner we walked a couple of blocks to watch a free show of Circ du Soleil. Quebec is the birth place of Circ du Soliel, so they practice and rehearse just blocks from the hostel. WOW WOW WOW.
We went back to the hostel to fall exhausted into bed. I was so tired from the lack of sleep, all the walking in the city and the busyness of the day that I was sure that even if Led Zeppellin was singing right in my ear I would sleep right through it. I was right ------slept like a baby 😊 Rene too!!!!
August 27, 2010. Packed up the bike and on our way towards Riviere Du Loup. We followed the south shore of the St. Lawerence Sea Way, called Gaspe. We passed dairy farm after dairy farm on this route. Sun was shining and the sky was blue. Beautiful sea on one side and immaculate farms on the other. At one point in one valley I counted 43 cement silos. Imagine how hard it would be to farm daily beside the Gulf of the St.
Old Quebec
Beautiful old streets Lawerence. NOT!!!!
Arrived at Riverie Du Loup later in the afternoon. It's Friday, so we bought some wings and a couple of beer and after sitting watching the sun set on the Gulf, came back to the hostel to enjoy our beer and wings. We befriended a lonely young lady from Germany who was eating old hot dog buns and peanut butter. (she said it was cheap) We invited her to join us which she happily did. She sat with us for the rest of the evening, while we looked for cottages in Newfoundland to rent. Turned in early as we were still tired from not just Quebec, but the previous 2 nights in Ottawa.
What an amazing trip so far and still so much to see, experience and explore. Off to the Maritimes
And so we remain-------
In the Grip of Grace
Rene and Crystal
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Peter and Christine Koch
non-member comment
Quebec
We're enjoying hearing about your travels. Several years ago we spent about a month in Quebec province and really enjoyed it. Like you, we stayed in hostels, including the one down town. It's the people experiences that are so much fun. Glad you could befriend the German girl. She'll never forget your kindness. Your photos are very welcome. As they say, "A picture is worth a thousand words."