Cinemicrobes
We’ve had a couple of quiet(ish) weeks recently. Last weekend we had a lovely meal and evening round my boss’s and on the Saturday I played golf and Sarah went to the spa with her friend Trish and had a fantastic massage. Not with Trish!
On Friday, Sarah’s university friend Katie and her friend Jill arrived. Sarah met Katie and Jill at the airport and after some lunch they walked to Dow’s Lake and went canoeing. I met them after work as they were paddling back to the marina. We had dinner at home as Katie and Jill were tired after the flight.
This is their first visit to Canada and as they are here for two weeks they are going to hire a car and do some touring. Toronto, Montreal and Quebec are more appealing than watching Sarah and I come home from work each day!
Katie and Jill spent the weekend with us and we showed them round Ottawa and across the river in Quebec. We started on Saturday with a walk around Parliament hill. Sarah and I have been to parliament many times, but had not walked around the grounds. The first stop was the cat hotel that Sarah had read about in the guide recently. It was started by a man in the 1970s as an answer to the stray cat problem and was kept running after the man died. The cats are so well fed that they don’t chase off squirrels that eat from the same bowls. We also saw statues of past Prime Ministers and the whispering wall, which doesn’t actually whisper itself but if you sit at one end and whisper into the curved way you will be heard at the other end of the wall.
After Parliament, Katie and Jill wanted to look round the national gallery so Sarah and I did our favourite weekend activity and ignored each other over hot chocolate and the newspaper for a couple of hours.
We met up with Katie and Jill and the four of us had dinner at Ritz in the Byward market (review to come from Katie and Jill). After dinner we walked back to Parliament to see the Sound & Light show, an advertisement for all things Canadian projected onto the façade of Parliament.
On Sunday we drove over to Gatineau Park. We take all our guests to Pink Lake in the park because it is very picturesque and there is a nice walk in the forest. However, there had been a rock slide and the walk around Pink Lake was closed! Our tour was ruined. Venturing into the unknown we drove further into the national park. I had noticed that Champlain Lookout had three symbols of a man looking through a telescope. Three symbols! It must be a very beautiful view, so we headed in that direction. We didn’t know how far the drive was and rather than bore our guests we stopped short going to Champlain when we saw a sign for Huron lookout. The view here looked out over the Ottawa valley with the river below us and we could see to Vancouver (nearly). Heading back out of the park we stopped off at King Mountain and walked the 40 minute trail around and over the mountain. We had hoped to see beaver, deer, moose or bears on the trail but only saw a millipede, several grasshoppers and a baby red squirrel (photos 9g. Ottawa).
Back in Ottawa we all went to the Canadian War museum. Katie and Jill wanted to look round as much as possible as this would be their only chance to see it but as Sarah and I can visit anytime we have decided to view the museum slowly doing one series of exhibits at a time. This time we did Canada in World War I. There were some gruesome stories of life in the trenches and of the effects of mustard gas and shrapnel shells. I liked the displays that show how particular battles were fought.
In the evening we went to a North American tradition, the drive in cinema to see The Island. It took us about half an hour trying all sorts of combinations before we realised that there was no way that all four of us could sit in the front of our little car, so we decided we’d swap during the film. That didn’t quite happen though because as the sun went down the bugs came out and we had to close our windows so we didn’t get bitten. We missed part of the film because the windscreen steamed up because of four people being in the car with the windows closed. It also got very hot in the car so eventually we gave up and opened the windows to let the air and the bugs in. This was still better than chatty teenagers sitting in front of you in a regular cinema.
On Friday, Sarah’s university friend Katie and her friend Jill arrived. Sarah met Katie and Jill at the airport and after some lunch they walked to Dow’s Lake and went canoeing. I met them after work as they were paddling back to the marina. We had dinner at home as Katie and Jill were tired after the flight.
This is their first visit to Canada and as they are here for two weeks they are going to hire a car and do some touring. Toronto, Montreal and Quebec are more appealing than watching Sarah and I come home from work each day!
Katie and Jill spent the weekend with us and we showed them round Ottawa and across the river in Quebec. We started on Saturday with a walk around Parliament hill. Sarah and I have been to parliament many times, but had not walked around the grounds. The first stop was the cat hotel that Sarah had read about in the guide recently. It was started by a man in the 1970s as an answer to the stray cat problem and was kept running after the man died. The cats are so well fed that they don’t chase off squirrels that eat from the same bowls. We also saw statues of past Prime Ministers and the whispering wall, which doesn’t actually whisper itself but if you sit at one end and whisper into the curved way you will be heard at the other end of the wall.
After Parliament, Katie and Jill wanted to look round the national gallery so Sarah and I did our favourite weekend activity and ignored each other over hot chocolate and the newspaper for a couple of hours.
We met up with Katie and Jill and the four of us had dinner at Ritz in the Byward market (review to come from Katie and Jill). After dinner we walked back to Parliament to see the Sound & Light show, an advertisement for all things Canadian projected onto the façade of Parliament.
On Sunday we drove over to Gatineau Park. We take all our guests to Pink Lake in the park because it is very picturesque and there is a nice walk in the forest. However, there had been a rock slide and the walk around Pink Lake was closed! Our tour was ruined. Venturing into the unknown we drove further into the national park. I had noticed that Champlain Lookout had three symbols of a man looking through a telescope. Three symbols! It must be a very beautiful view, so we headed in that direction. We didn’t know how far the drive was and rather than bore our guests we stopped short going to Champlain when we saw a sign for Huron lookout. The view here looked out over the Ottawa valley with the river below us and we could see to Vancouver (nearly). Heading back out of the park we stopped off at King Mountain and walked the 40 minute trail around and over the mountain. We had hoped to see beaver, deer, moose or bears on the trail but only saw a millipede, several grasshoppers and a baby red squirrel (photos 9g. Ottawa).
Back in Ottawa we all went to the Canadian War museum. Katie and Jill wanted to look round as much as possible as this would be their only chance to see it but as Sarah and I can visit anytime we have decided to view the museum slowly doing one series of exhibits at a time. This time we did Canada in World War I. There were some gruesome stories of life in the trenches and of the effects of mustard gas and shrapnel shells. I liked the displays that show how particular battles were fought.
In the evening we went to a North American tradition, the drive in cinema to see The Island. It took us about half an hour trying all sorts of combinations before we realised that there was no way that all four of us could sit in the front of our little car, so we decided we’d swap during the film. That didn’t quite happen though because as the sun went down the bugs came out and we had to close our windows so we didn’t get bitten. We missed part of the film because the windscreen steamed up because of four people being in the car with the windows closed. It also got very hot in the car so eventually we gave up and opened the windows to let the air and the bugs in. This was still better than chatty teenagers sitting in front of you in a regular cinema.
posted by Ian @ 9:45 pm
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