I can't believe we've made it to Ottawa! We had so much fun in this city with new friends and we had a few cool experiences, too. We stayed with the best friend of one of my friends from home - Catherine (and the rest of her family). Catherine and her daughter, Charlotte (4 yrs old) met us at the train station and took us to their home, where we would stay for the next two nights. Our "room" turned out to be a massive 5th wheeler that was parked in their driveway. It was a very luxurious two nights! Dylan spent most of his time playing with Charlotte and they had a great time in the backyard pond in the paddle boat. We had our own car to drive, so we spent our first full day on a trip to the Museum of Civilization and IMAX. It was not a great day for Dylan, so we didn't really do as much as we would have, but we saw enough to make it worth while. We spent the most time in the "First Peoples" hall and then in the "Canada" hall. We also saw an IMAX movie about Sea Monsters of the deep. The real adventure started later in the afternoon when we went to "Little Ray's Reptile Zoo". The zoo was actually closed, but the owners are friends of Catherine and Terry's (her husband) and we were welcomed in for some private time with the creatures. The kids LOVED it! (If only I could post the pictures!) We held tarantulas, a reticulated python, bearded dragons (the boys had him on their heads), alligators and lizards. The best part was watching a cobra eat a rat! (I offered to ship him some good quality rats out for a minor fee, but he declined.) The zoo is made up of mostly rescued reptiles, and the large majority of them were once people's pets (what is wrong with people?). They use all of their reptiles for education and they receive animals from all over the world.
Our evenings at Catherine's were spent in the hot tub and just hanging out - it was so relaxing! (I also went to a VBS meeting with her one night while the kids stayed home with Terry)
Our last day in Ottawa was spent at Parliament. We were able to meet with our MP, John Cummins, in his office for about half an hour. Dylan wasn't too interested, but he did his best, and Brendan asked a bunch of different questions. We had our picture taken and we were on our way to our tour. It was a very busy day around Parliament and their were a lot of tourists. We hung to the back of our tour, and it was interesting, but we really didn't see too much. We did go up the Peace Tower though and in to the library and Memorial Chapel. We had been given tickets for a Question Period, but it was so busy that the galleries were full and we had to wait for quite a while before there was a spot for us. We were only able to stay for a few minutes, once we did get in, because we had a train to catch. Question period turned out to be the highlight for us all. I couldn't tell you what they were talking about - they were screaming at each other! Brendan thought this was hilarious and Dylan wondered if the country was going to have a Civil War. The Prime Minister was there, calmly sitting in his spot, reading, and there was chaos all around. The Speaker had to call for order several times just in the short time we were watching. It was very hard to ever tell who was supposed to be talking and who was just being incredibly rude. It amazes me that that is acceptable behaviour in our highest level of government. No wonder we can't achieve world peace...
We said our goodbye's to our new friends and we caught our train to Montreal. We've been here for a few days now and we are leaving around dinner time tonight. It has been a great rest stop in our trip and we really haven't done very much. Brendan has the flu, I think - Dylan had the sniffles for a day and Brendan has a fever, cough, runny nose, upset stomach and is miserable. I guess we will stay in the hotel for the day and keep him drugged up enough to get on the train.
It feels good to almost be completely caught up with the blog. It's really bugging me that I can't put in the pictures though! By lunchtime tomorrow we'll be in Moncton, picking up our rental car and heading for PEI.
Have a great day everyone!
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