As I have a fairly active social life in Ottawa, it's getting more and more difficult to play the tourist because my friends want to see me and of course I want to see them as well. But thankfully I'm still on jet lag which means I woke up at 6 AM. People rarely want to hang out with me at that time of day haha so that gave me the whole morning to walk downtown and take some pictures for you!
Here is my favourite fountain in Ottawa:
It has a twin fountain in Regina. I traveled to Regina when I was 16 years old and I first went to Ottawa when I was 19. I took a picture of both fountains and found out 2 years later that they were identical. So I had a look at my pictures and true enough, they're the exact same thing. I thought it was funny that I took a picture of both without realizing that they were exactly the same :)
Here is our city hall:
Not very impressive but I thought you may like to know what it looks like!
Here is something more impressive, the Château Laurier:
It is a luxurious hotel. Just out of curiousity, I checked the prices for a room. It is $450 CAD per night or more... I'm not going to sleep there anytime soon!
Yesterday I mentionned the Ottawa river to you. That river is actually the border between the province of Ontario where Ottawa is located and the province of Québec. As you probably all know, Canada is mainly an English-speaking country. However there is one province that is mainly francophone, the province of Québec (there are other provinces that have a strong French community but Québec has the biggest). That's where I was born so I spent the first 22 years of my life in a French-only environment (I'm 26 now).
I think there is a lot of misunderstanding between Francophones and Anglophones. Not so much in Ottawa because French and English-speaking people are always mixed together in the work place, on the street, etc. But I spent the first 22 years of my life hearing people say bad things about Anglophones. It was easy to talk behind their back because we never saw them. But as soon as I moved out of Québec, I started hearing the exact same things but coming from the Anglophones, talking about the Francophones. This is quite ridiculous. Honestly, I think we do have some cultural differences but we're also pretty much all the same. If each group made the effort to know the other one better, I know we would get along quite well.
There are many people in Québec, especially from the region where I am from, who want Québec to separate from Canada, we call them separatists. I'm not going to start this debate here so I won't share what you my opinion on the matter, but I'm just quickly mentioning it to you, so you have an idea of some of the political stuff that's going on in Canada. We may seem like a very stable country but if the separatists ever get their way, the country may lose one of its province one day. Only time will tell...
Today I crossed the Alexandra bridge on foot and ended up on the Québec side:
Here, you can find the Canadian Museum of Civilization:
It is quite interesting to see a buiding that is mostly made of curves.
Inside the museum, there are some permanent exhibits such as one on natives:
I'm not sure whether you have to pay or not in order to get in but I was able to sneak in that part for free today. I didn't stay very long so I figured it was acceptable. The one thing I like the most in the Museum is the following sculpture:
The reason I like it so much is that the first time I saw it, I immediately recognized it. I see it every day on our $20 bill:
Outside of the museum, there is a fountain with what I think is the best view of Ottawa.
After my quick visit to the museum, I left my french-speaking province and returned to the anglophone Ontario.
Sparks street is our pedestrian only street here in Ottawa:
With several shops, restaurants and coffee places, it can get pretty crowded in the summer. Then I continued my walk and reached Bank street:
This street also has several shops, boutiques, coffee places, restaurants just like Sparks but the difference is that cars can drive here, and that there are shops and coffee places for many kilometers! I think it's a nice place to bring tourists for a long walk (if they have seen the parliament and the other places to see around it already).
Today I didn't walk the whole stretch of boutiques and coffee places, I eventually turned on Somerset street, which is where we have our Chinatown:
Here you can find many Asian restaurants, hairdressers, dentists, shops, etc. Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, Mongolian, and many more are represented. I had lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant with a friend and that was the end of my tourist activities for the day because my friend and I spent the rest of the day together. We did some shopping, worked in her yard, had dinner and took a long evening walk.
Tomorrow I am also seeing friends for pretty much the whole day but we are going to a special even that happens only once a year. I will be happy to document it for you, I think I should have interesting stories to share!
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