Quarter to four in the morning we were awoken by a girl coming into our room, dressed in her pyjamas. We sat up, said hello and that she was in our room, not hers, and then she left. For a moment we thought, did we leave the door open? Did her key work in our door? Then, when I came back from the toilet, I saw I’d left our key in the door when we’d come back. Stupid!
Another terrible night’s sleep. Up at 9am. Packed our bags, checked out and put our luggage in lockers downstairs. We set off south to the Canadian Museum of Nature. We could have caught a bus but decided to walk instead, which was the right thing to do as we got to see so much more.
We walked past Confederation Park, which had a massive sculpture of animals and First People in it, then Town Hall with its jack-o-lanterns in the windows and interesting sculptures. We got coffee/hot chocolate from the Ministry of Coffee (very Melbourne) and then breakfast at Elgin St Diner.
There was a bus stop outside the diner. Glen wanted to catch the bus the rest of the way to the museum but I said no. I had to practically drag him away (like pulling a toddler away from the chips and lolly aisles in the supermarket…which I’ve also had to do with Glen) as the next bus wasn’t for another twenty minutes.
The museum was on the next corner. I detect a running theme here.
The Museum of Nature is impressive. In a Victorian building with a great addition, called the lantern, which replaced the original tower that was structurally unsound and pulling away from the rest of the building.
It had the usual things like taxidermy displays, rocks, and a few live animal exhibits (ants, frogs, tarantulas) which were all laid out really well but the interpretation was excellent. Short grabs of information, easy to digest, no information overload and different layers for different types of readers. Oh, and a tonne of interactives (so much easier indoors than outdoors). They must have a lot of money to be able to do what they do. I was so impressed that I asked if it was all prepared in house (it is) and then said how impressive it all was.
I found out I weighed about the same as 21,000 hummingbirds, and have the wingspan of a tundra swan.
After a couple of hours there, we were at our full-level for museums (though I’m still keen to see the Museum of Civilisation but that can be next time when we come to ice-skate down the canal). The bus back wasn’t coming for another thirty minutes so we walked back, stopped at the Ministry of Coffee again to sit for a little while, then went back to the youth hostel to charge our phones and get our luggage.
At about 3pm or so we went in search of a late lunch/early dinner. We were keen to go to The Albion Rooms. Their website said they would be open but when we got there there was no one inside and the doors were locked. Next time then. Instead we went to Vittoria Trattoria, near the markets, which was quite nice.
While the sun was still up, we went up Nepean Point because I wanted to get a good view of Parliament Hill and the valley. Sun was low in the sky so didn’t quite get the shots I wanted but it was really nice being up there, and not too cold. We sat on the steps discussing wedding plans and getting very close to throwing the whole thing in the too hard basket. Not there yet and we have a vague idea of our next steps. Will get onto it soon.
We had some time to kill before our third and final movie. Finally got some photos of the giant spider sculpture in front of the National Gallery of Canada. It’s directly opposite the road from the Notre Dame Basilica so it looks like the spider is about to attack Jesus (there’s a gold Jesus on top of the church).
The final film we saw was called Five Dances, an American film about a group of contemporary dancers putting together a work (surprisingly made up of five dances) and the stuff that happens to them, mostly the 18 year old male dancer. It was a bit like a contemporary dance performance itself. Things happen, very loose narrative, slow bits, lots of dancing. There were some beautiful scenes in it so I didn’t mind it. The strange thing was one of the dances, a character named Theo, is a dancer called Reed that Glen knows from Perth. Pretty cool to see Perth people doing arty things. And in New York too.
The film was only an hour and a half which left us plenty of time to get to the airport. Initially, we were worried the film would go for two hours, leaving us only an hour ‘til our flight. But we arrived at 8. Ottawa airport on a Sunday night is dead quiet so we got through security quickly, in spite of Glen and my laptop getting explosives tested.
We passed the remaining time in the Porter lounge, updating blogs and editing photos. The plane was late arriving so we were a little late leaving. I’m glad this flight is going into Downtown. Much easier and quicker to get home than Pearson.
So, in summary, loved Ottawa. Very pretty, easy to get around, lots of food options and some good cultural things to explore. Not sure of the nightlife but not really night owls anymore. We’ll be back for sure.
Travels with Dan 
What do you say, eh?