Our Nation's Capital, OTTAWA!

It feels like so long since we drove from Timmins to Ottawa so I'll do my best to remember all the things we saw along the way! Also, I'm sorry if I repeat anything from past days, thinking it was another day :P

Apparently Timmins has the best poutine, but I never did have time to try it while I was there. I was holding out for poutine until I arrived in Quebec, but I do have to say as you get closer to Quebec the poutine gets significantly better, even before you actually get in to the province of Quebec! Probably the best news about my hotel in Quebec City for the Pan-Canadian Odyssey Training Session is that my favourite poutine restaurant is less than a 10 minute walk away! The last time I was in Quebec City, 2007, we went to this poutine place, called Chez Ashton, and despite the fact it was pouring rain and there were open restaurants all around the line-up was right out the door to go in. A funny thing I just found out this morning about Chez Ashton is that in the winter the poutine is discounted by the drop in temperature! If it is for example, -27 degrees Celsius out, your poutine is 27% off. That is so cool! I don't think I'll be getting any discounts this time though, it's wonderfully warm out! Anyways, that was a huge tangent on poutine - back to Ontario!

We slept-in in the morning at our hotel in Timmins because we were no longer in much of a rush to get across the country, having had made it so far so quickly. We drove through a town called Porcupine, but sadly we saw no porcupines :( They are on my top list of animals to see in the wild, others of which include a polar bear, a platypus, and a double-tusked narwhal (but a single-tusked narwhal would do!).

Most of our drive from Timmins to Ontario was actually through the province of Quebec. We passed many cute small towns, some farms, and many kilometers of forests. We drove down through Gatineau/Hull, and across the bridge in to Ottawa. We had a hotel address and were driving around downtown unsure of where the street was. We stopped and asked a taxi driver where we could find Albert Street, and it turns out we were on it! By about 7 pm we were settled in to our hotel on the edge of Parliament Hill. Papa and Grayden went to a pub while I showered and organized my stuff.

Later we met up downtown on Parliament Hill to watch the Mosaika light show. It was so cool! It was like all of Canadian history from high school social studies crammed in to a beautiful colourful light show projected on the Parliament Buildings. It was amazing, and I think if I lived in Ottawa I would probably go watch it like every night! It was on par, if not better, than fireworks, and I love fireworks! I also feel like it was one of the most Canadian things we could do for the night in Ottawa! And, to make it even better, Katy, who I know from UNBC, but lives in Ottawa, came out to watch the show as well. It is so nice to get to visit your friends in their home towns; I just wish I could have spent more time there! When it was over Katy and I went down to the market and had beaver tails. I hardly ever see or get beaver tails on the West Coast, and have never ever seen funnel cakes on the West Coast (except for at Eastside Marios which does not count as street food/fair funnel cakes), so these are two of the most exciting things about coming to the East for me!

Our evening in Ottawa was just great, and in the morning we were able to spend some more time in the city. Grayden and I wanted to see the cats on Parliament Hill, but getting there was a bit of a mess to begin with - we couldn't find parking after leaving our hotel, and then the gas light in the car came on and we were downtown where there are no gas stations. So we drove across the bridge into Quebec, and on to the freeway and eventually found a gas station. Then we turned around and came back in to Ottawa. Luckily this time we were able to find parking.

We walked up over the Rideau Canal and got to watch them lowering boats through the locks down to the river. It was so tiny in comparison to the Panama Canal, but very cool to see. Then we made our way up to the Parliament Buildings where we arrived just in time to see the changing of the guard. Grayden said "Do we have to watch this?", and those were kind of my thoughts as well! We continued along in hopes of finding the cats on Parliament Hill. The last time I was there I just remember them being there. But this time we walked all around and didn't see them anywhere so that was a little disappointing. I thought maybe they'd gotten rid of them like they'd gotten rid of the bunnies at UVic but apparently the cats are still on the hill, and we just missed them somehow. We went to the tomb of the unknown soldier and wandered around the city a bit more before heading out onwards to Quebec.