Ottawa

I didn’t go to the museum of civilization today but I did walk all around Parliament Hill. I didn’t go to the M of C because I couldn’t find a bus to take me there. It would have worked better if I had planned (in one of my many plans that go through my head daily and are each the best plan ever…) to take the hop-on hop-off bus tour where you can get off at the various culture exhibitions in town all day long and that take one over to Gatineau. However, any plans involving that were put asunder when I took a plain bus tour last night. Thus is life. I can only really handle a couple of museums a day anyway and I was tired enough today.

Parliament was quite super. I took a guided tour through Parliament and did about half of a self-guided tour of the outside parts of Parliament Hill. The best parts were the cat sanctuary and the summer pavillion; the rest is just statues of dead polititions, who were great and all but a cat sanctuary!

This is the Library of Parliament. I got to go inside during my guided tour. It smelled like books. Not old musty books but brand fresh books. I wanted to roll around so I could smell like that too. Not the biggest library ever, but very pretty. The outside looks like a midget, gothic castle! The inside is all wood since it’s the only building left after the 1916 fire. The rest of Parliament is all rocks now.

I also saw the foyer of the House of Commons (which I write her now with a French accent since the tour guide was French) which is where scrums happen with the press after question period. I also was in the House of Commons which looked just like it does on television, and I saw the cameras. The room is green-green upholstery, green carpet, in appreciation of the greeness of the British Parliament. The Senate is red. My goal now is to be appointed to the Senate. They represent the monarchy in Canada! And probably less work to do than the Governor General.

I bought a t-shirt with the Centre Block on it. It is that nice green I like lately so I figured I must. I will wear it with pride because I very much liked my visit to Parliament Hill.

(I have to buy a Cirque du Soleil shirt so I can wear it to tap class!)

I didn’t go up the Peace Tower (that’s the tower with the clock) because there was a line-up and it’s kinda high.

Next in chronology I went and bought a movie ticket to see “Stardust” and then watched it. Now if anyone asks if I’ve seen “Stardust” I can say “Oh, yes! I saw that when I was in Ottawa!”

(Note there was a space of 45 minutes or so between buying ticket and seeing movie, which is why I wrote it like that. In the interval I bought noodles and fried chicken from a woman who called me “madam” a lot.