In early March of 1999 Joe and Lynda ventured up to Ottawa from Houston to attend Lynda's cousin's wedding.  It was a great opportunity for Lynda to see Ottawa and all the cool things there.  Since Joe had lived there before, he could serve as tourguide and his friend Andrew kindly provided accomodation.  So off they flew leaving shorts weather in Houston to land in a snowstorm and -20°C with the windchill.  It was a bit of a shock to the system!  But they packed all their warm clothes and found they could manage in the cold and snow...  And it was invigorating!  We did a little looking around at the Redeau Centre, Sparks Street Mall and Byward Market our first day there and visited the Capital Infocentre across the street from the Parliament Buildings to plan all we wanted to see.

Bruce and Kim enjoy their first dance as husband and wife.

Wedding! Lynda's cousin, Bruce, and his Fiancee (Kim) chose the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa for the wedding.  The ceremony was held in the Reading Room in the Centre Block and the reception followed in the Confederation Ballroom in the West Block.  It was an amazing place to hold a wedding and those of us who had not been to the Parliament buildings were awed by the setting.  The history of the rooms and the sheer grandeur of them made it a wedding to remember.  That and the fact that both Bruce and Kim fairly glowed with happiness.  They certainly took a lot of time and care in planning a wedding that they and all their guests would remember forever -- they had some great ideas too.  Congratulations Bruce and Kim!  The wedding took place March 6, leaving Joe and Lynda with lots of time to explore Ottawa...

Bruce and Kim cut their Wedding Cake

Montreal:

Okay -- I know that Montreal isn't in Ottawa but since it was close and there was an exhibition of Monet paintings at the Place des Beaux Arts in Montreal, it was worth the time to go and see it.  We took the bus and luckily I had a good book to read because I discovered that there's a whole lot of nothing between Ottawa and Montreal -- just snow and trees!  The exhibition was good although not as extensive as I had thought it would be.  A nice touch was at the end where there were photographs of the gardens at Giverny taken in all four seasons to give the viewer a sence of the setting where Monet found so much joy. We also took the opportunity to look around the city and found Rueben's Deli where Joe enjoyed a Montreal Smoked Meat sandwitch -- a favorite of his and hard to find in Houston!  We also found the tourist information place and decided to go down to old town Montreal and look in at  Notre Dame Basilica while we were there.  Well!  What an amazing church!  First of all it's old, and second, it's huge!  It seats 3500 in the main part of the church and is made of wood with gold leaf.  The sheer size and beauty of it is overwhelming.  It's where Celine Dion got married and also (I think) Mario Lemiux -- but not to each other!  It's really quite spectacular, but you have to see it to really comprehend it's magnitude.  Then we headed back to Ottawa as everything closed early because it was after all only March -- not exactly tourist season!

Ottawa:

Now that we were back in Ottawa, we began our "touristing" in earnest.  Poor Joe gets quite pooped out at the pace I set in the quest to see everything I can in the time we have.  It's always an adventure to try to see it all.  We started off with the National Gallery on Sussex Drive near the Byward Market -- after stopping at Zak's Diner in the Market for an awsome breakfast!  It reminded me a little of John's Place in Victoria.  Fueled up and ready to go, we walked into the National Gallery.  The building itself is a masterpiece as far as I was concerned.  I was pleasantly surprised that there was no charge to get into the Gallery (except for special exhibits) and even the audio-tour was free.  We really enjoyed the Canadian Gallery and found some of the Group of Seven's work amazing.  Joe and I were especially captivated by one work by Lawren Harris where he captured the light that you see late in the day in winter perfectly.  I looked at it from every angle and couldn't figure out how he did it!  We also went to the Contemporary Art section and I finally got to see Voice of Fire in person!  All of us who remember the fuss were wondering about it.  Well, it's big...  There was a lot of interesting and strange and weird and wonderful art there and I quite liked some of it.  One that was rather interesting (I thought) was "The Inquisitor's Dictionary" which won't be seen for a while...  But I liked most of the pieces quite a bit.  After we had visited the Inuit Gallery as well, we were off to find some coins at the Mint.
Atrium of the National Gallery of Canada	The outside of the Royal Canadian Mint, Ottawa
The Royal Canadian Mint offers their tour summer and winter although there are fewer tours in the winter.  We booked for the 1 pm tour and after being allowed through security we went to the Gift Shop where we paid the $2 fee and were lured by the coins and gold in the displays.  We weren't allowed to take pictures on the tour but it was very interesting to see the workers making coins starting with the ingots from the refinery (which was not on the tour), pressing them to the right width then making the blanks and cleaning them before stamping them into a coin.  Quite interesting and also fascinating was the display at the end showing some of the coins and medallions that the Mint has made -- including one for Graceland sporting Elvis on the front!  Because of the low value of the Canadian dollar the Mint can underbid some other companies to get contracts.  The Mint is mostly self supporting -- the Canadian Government tells them how many of what circulation coins to make and they must sell them to the government at cost.  To cover their overhead they bid on outside contracts.  All in all a very interesting tour! We thought about going to the Canadian War Museum, but as we hadn't had lunch yet and our feet were giving out... we decided to save it for our next trip!  We did head back to the Byward Market to grab some lunch at "Tramps Pub" -- awful name but great appitizers and I got to have a BC Cider!!!  If you like BC Cider, Ottawa doesn't have much of it.  Although cider is offered at quite a few pubs, don't drink it -- it's glorified apple juice, ugh!

The Great Hall in the Museum of Civilization, Hull Quebec

The Canadian Museum of Civilization was our planned stop the next day -- luckily it's easy to get around Ottawa by Bus and there was one that stopped right outside.  Again, as in the case of the National Gallery, the building itself was fascinating.  It holds an IMAX and an OMNIMAX theatre and was (I think) $6 to get into the Museum alone.  The first thing we saw was the Great Hall and it was amazing.  As you enter the displays, you really felt that you were in the BC Rainforest!  They had great displays on the aboriginal peoples of Canada and their culture.  I found it to be very complete.
	There were other exhibits and some temporary exhibits on the second floor of the Museum -- we were attracted to the Audubon Exhibit due to our recent foray into birdfeeding in Houston.  The sheer quantity of species of birds kept Audubon busy recording them and painting them.  Joe's favorites are still the Puffins found in Newfoundland so we had to get a photo of him by that picture!
We also enjoyed the Postal Museum -- it was quite interactive and geared for kids.  Joe beat me at a game of Postal Snakes and Ladders that told about the history of Airmail in Canada.  Today we think of Airmail as something sent overseas, but in the early part of this century, Airmail was used to send mail between cities in Ontario!  These days we take it for granted.  There were displays on letter writing in New France and Canadian Stamps as well. After the Postal Museum we went to the Canadian Hall and looked at the exhibits on Canadian settlements and industry.  It was reminiscent of the Royal BC Museum in Victoria, but much more extensive and covering all of Canada.  We found a couple of displays with the "Heritage Moment" commercials that are aired on TV in Canada but that we have missed since moving to Houston.  Do you remember "The Schoolteacher", "The Soddie" and "The Halifax Explosion" ones?  I would like to see those offered on video for when I need a quick infusion of Canadian culture!  Don't get much of that in Houston!  There was also a very interesting film on the CP Rail from the time of the building of it and the connecting of Canada coast to coast.  Luckily it was in English and we found it quite near the start of the film.  Overall it was a very informative Museum, although we were starting to suffer from Museum overload by this time -- and the feet were in full rebellion!  So it was time for us to head back out into the cold and snow to find our way home to Andrews for another night.
Exterior of Museum of Civilization

One of the things that Joe was really looking forward to showing me was the Beaver Tail.  Not a tail off a real beaver but the hot sweet snack you can buy on the Rideau Canal and in the Byward Market.  It's kind of like a doughnut but the dough is streached out thin and flat and the original Beaver Tail is sprinkled with Cinnamon sugar (Joe says that's the only to have it).  Well, I wasn't so sure at first but once I tried it, I was a convert!  Yummmmy!  That's where we went after the Museum of Civilization.

Lynda in front of the Beaver Tail stand

Joe is ready to enjoy his Beaver Tail

On Friday the 12th we went to see the Parliament Buildings and go on the tour of the Centre Block.  We were very fortunate that the MP that Bruce works for invited us to watch Question Period from the Member's gallery and then join them for lunch.  This is a rare treat as you have to be invited by an MP or MP's spouse to dine in the Parliamentary Dining Room!  We arrived in plenty of time to join the tour and found the tour to be very interesting and informative.  I especially liked the Parliamentary Library -- but pictures were not allowed there.  It was the only surviving part of the old Parliament Buildings that were distroyed in a fire.  I was quite impressed that most of the materials used in the reconstruction of the buildings was local -- the limestone from Nepean and the marble from outside Winnipeg.  Only the black marble, used as an accent was imported. Lynda at the Eternal Flame outside the Parliament Buildings

We got to see the Senate Chamber as they were not sitting at the time of our tour but couldn't see the Commons chanber because it was in use.  After the tour we went to the Member's Gallery to watch Question Period -- there were a lot of questions regarding the Prime Minister's driveway and it was quite amazing to watch how well the ministers has timed their questions and comments -- if they went over their alotted time their microphone was cut off.  I was also fascinated at the way the pages, seated at the foot of the Speaker were able to stand and sit at the same time as the Speaker when he was seated behind them -- I didn't figure out how they did it.  The windows in the Commons chamber were quite amazing as well -- the colours were so vibrant -- it's a shame that we don't get to see some of this stuff on TV. After Question Period we went up to the Parliamentary Dining Room with Jane and were joined by Gordon soon after.  Both of them were interesting to talk to and lovely hosts.  The food was quite sumptuous (although didn't rival the catering at Bruce's wedding!) and conversation was delightful.  I quite enjoyed the Alberta Beef and Joe the Lamb.  The room was rose coloured with rose marble pillars and shallow cupolas where diffuse light shone in.  It was such a treat!  Thanks to them both again. Some of the gargoyles at the Parliament Buildings. They're kinda cute!