A Last Bit of Ottawa

Our third day in Ottawa. And then kind of in Ottawa - we strolled into Québec for a bit, and apparently that part of the city is no longer Ottawa, but I dunno what it's called, so I'm gonna call it Québec-Bit-Of-Ottawa-Which-Is-Not-Ottawa.

What's also in Ottawa is the Museum of Civilisations, so, here we go.

Appropriate gif is appropriate.

First, we had to walk to the Québec-Bit-Of-Ottawa-Which-Is-Not-Ottawa. Never been to Québec before. So very exciting.

Past the National Gallery again, to the bridge.

Oh hai, bridge.

Uh oh. Political things.

Well that escalated quickly.

HI QUEBEC. DON'T YOU LOOK, UM, LOVELY THIS MORNING.

In Québec, FRENCH COMES FIRST. 

OR NO ENGLISH AT ALL. 

Here we are!

It's okay, I guess.

It's kind of a big building with groups of little museums, galleries and exhibits.

Bob Boyer's gallery; a famous Canadian artist who used lots of Indigenous symbolism.

This is called, "Just Another Indian Cowgirl in Iraq".  Why not, eh.

THE POSTAL MUSEUM. YUSSS. Lis, I said smile. 

Sending parcels can be tedious work.

Waiting, waiting. 

Pretty Indigenous things.

ALL the toy postal trucks!

I know that's my reason. What? It's not yours? What's wrong with you.

The view from inside this time.

Javier's spectacular ceiling.

Copy of a very famous sculpture representing Canadian solidarity and other good things like that.

Learning about an ancient Indigenous civilisation.

The Grand Hall aka. room of very old and awesome totem poles.

You know how the wolf pack in Twilight are part of the Quileute tribe? Well hey... 

Trippy.

There were Javier works in the National Gallery we remembered from the previous day; this is very much his signature style.

For a bit of perspective.

So this massive exhibit goes through all the Canadian history from before 1 000 AD when Scandinavian people first rocked up, until about the 1940s.

Realised it was kind of like a big movie set you walk through, with different eras.

Replica of  turn-of-the-century café for little people. 

Good thing Lisa's around, then.

So we come out and BAM! The Great Hall is full of things that weren't there before!

Lunch time - in Québec! We asked where a good place would be, he said just up the road. Excellent. We found this little place. Eventually.

Finally got to speak French to the waitress, and she didn't speak English back to me, yay!

Onion soup! Which was amazing. 

So. You remember how basically no one is in Ottawa? That is nothing compared to the extent to which there is nobody in the Québec-Bit-Of-Ottawa-Which-Is-Not-Ottawa. It was a Saturday afternoon. A Saturday afternoon. And there was not a soul. NO ONE. A couple of things were open, but hardly anything. We went into the place above for lunch because it was literally the first thing we saw open after about 15 minutes wandering around.

To drive home this point, these Québec-Bit-Of-Ottawa-Which-Is-Not-Ottawa photos are gonna be in black and white. Yeaaaah.

No one.

NO ONE.

Okay, so awesome chocolate shop in colour, obviously.

BUT NO ONE.

 Québec-Bit-Of-Ottawa-Which-Is-Not-Ottawa, WHAT R U DOING.

At least lunch was excellent. But after about 5 minutes we just walked back to the actual Ottawa bit, which is now in colour:

Okay, so there's no one here either. Bad example.

Another café. So savour company of people in the café. And tea.

The old route back to the hotel.

Out for the last night.

This is Elgin Street, down which some things are a bit more lively.

Cheers, Ottawa! 

So that was our little weekend get away. In that it was really, really good to get away from residence. And ignore the steaming pile of homework on our desks. Really good.

Until next time...