68 Ottawa

Canada
Québec & New Brunswick
Nova Scotia & Newfoundland
Québec & Ontario
Manitoba to the Pacific

60 Ferry to Québec
61 Back in Québec
62 Drive to Tadoussac
63 Tadoussac
64 On to Québec
65 Québec
66 Québec
67 On to Ottawa
68 Ottawa
69 Ottawa
70 Ottawa
71 On to Niagara
72 The falls
73 Canadian wine
74 Behind the falls
75 Morty goes home
76 On to Toronto
77 CN Tower
78 ROM
79 Stocks, tower and dance
80 Toronto Saturday
81 Off to Florida
82 Coping with Wilma
83 SeaWorld
84 Back to Canada
85 Casa Loma and shoes
86 Killarney
87 To Sault Ste. Marie
88 Goulais River
89 To Thunder Bay
90 Thunder Bay

Canada: Ontario

Monday 10 October 2005

I woke up this morning feeling pretty lousy and full of cold. Stef left me in bed while he got up and sorted out breakfast and went for a shower. He came back saying that the shower was pretty foul and that the water smelled of rotten eggs. We abandoned our plans to stay here for another day and moved on down into Ottawa.

Driving through the outer suburbs it created an impression that this was not an affluent place. It was not an area of leafy lanes, instead it was run down buildings, large apartment blocks and thrift stores. Being a city, and a capital at that, it also had a very multi-cultural feel. For the first time in a long while we saw a mix of people from different ethnic backgrounds and a large mosque just outside of the city centre.

The city was very quiet. Today is Thanksgiving and its a public holiday so most of the businesses are closed, it was like driving around the financial city in London on a Sunday afternoon. We found Tourist Information and then drove around for a while looking for somewhere to park Morty. As its a holiday there is free parking on the street and even though all the parking meters were not working due to building work we could still park with no problem. Ironically, we were outside Ottawa's office for Deloitte (Stef's old company) which was next door to Ernst & Young (my brother's company).

We ambled back around to Tourist Information and were surprised at how unhelpful they were. If you asked a direct question you got a direct answer but no peripheral information. Rather than selling their city and the benefits of coming here to visit it felt like we were trying to get blood out of a stone. We went away armed with different brochures and confirmation that the nearest campsites were a good half hour away from the centre. We mulled it all over over a spot of lunch when Stef could concentrate. Our waiters was a pretty blond girl with a very short tartan skirt. We both decided she did not really have very good legs though! We decided to stay in a hotel in town and wanting somewhere that we new we would have a comfy room and internet access we went and found the local Day's Inn.

This one was really a motel rather than a hotel. It had lots of parking space although we had to take Morty round the back as he was too tall for the main entrance. There were signs on the wall giving it excellence ratings so we knew we would have a comfy stay. The rest of the afternoon we just chilled out and caught up on internet type things. I was still feeling pretty lousy and was not really up to walking out and about. I made it out to the local Indian for dinner and we had a really good meal. I hoped that some nice hot and spicy food would do the trick for me and that I would wake up tomorrow feeling hale and hearty.

The hotel is probably a fifteen minute walk to the main parliament buildings but even here there is a definite run down feeling. We are not far from the local liquor store and there were some of its customers out and about looking the worse for wear. We are also close to the University and there is a definite grungy studenty feel as well. For the first time in days we were both very alert and conscious of the people walking around us.

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