What’s the French for Va-va-voom?

On Friday Sarah and her mum and dad went on a boat trip on the Ottawa river. It took them up to the Rideau falls (nothing like Niagara) and past Parliament and the locks up to the Rideau canal. Sarah would recommend it as it points out a lot of the cities buildings and is a good starting point for a tour.

On Friday evening we all got our glad-rags on and went to see the ABBA tribute band, Bjorn Again at the casino. It was a really fun evening and we all danced in the aisles. I didn’t realise ABBA had had so many hits.

We had planned to take Roger and Joan to Montreal whilst they were here as they have been to Ottawa several times, but had not been to Montreal. We had phoned lots of hotels and checked on the internet weeks ago but all the hotels were booked up or required more than three nights per booking. We knew something must be going on in town but we didn’t realise what it was until Roger said it could be the Canadian Grand Prix. We checked on the internet and found that there were still tickets available for the race and as Roger loves cars we all decided we’d try again to find a hotel. Eventually we found a hotel on the outskirts of Montreal, which we snatched up. We got up early on Saturday morning for the 2 hour drive to Montreal. After picking up the Grand Prix tickets and getting lost driving around Montreal we eventually found the hotel/motel. It was a bit of a dump, stank of smoke and was a way out from the city centre but at least we had somewhere to rest our heads that night. We then got a bus and the tube into Montreal. First stop was the old part of the city and near the port.

We weren’t allowed into Notre Dame cathedral at first as there was a wedding on. Instead we had a walk down to the port and the square where they got us in the mood for the Grand Prix with car displays and radio controlled car racing. At the end of the square a dance school were trying to kill themselves by jumping around maniacally in the heat. We almost passed out just watching them.

Next door to the dance school kids we noticed a wedding party. We love watching weddings so we went to get a closer look and saw that there were five weddings all having pictures taken at the same time. After our fill of brides and grooms we headed back to the cathedral so Roger and Joan could see the inside. Afterwards Roger and Joan treated us to dinner at Rosalie’s, a restaurant we’d been to before and really enjoyed.

We woke early on Sunday so we could drive into town, drop the girls off to go shopping and we headed to the race track. There was a huge crowd and it was difficult to find a good view of the track. Roger and I had a walk round the stalls as there are lots of other things going on (see photos). There were other races before the formula one race, they were fun, especially when there was a crash right in front of us, but the first time I heard the roar of a formula one car accelerating round a corner and racing passed us it was exciting, hair on the back of your neck stuff. It was difficult to keep track of who was winning the race and the cars screamed passed so quickly that you don’t see much, but it was still great fun. Oh, the girls had fun shopping too.