Ottowa

As previously mentioned, John and I were gone for part of Millie's visit - we went on a babymoon!  This was the first time we'd been away from Helena together, and it was so good and looking back, so necessary.

 

We took Millie's car east, to Ottowa and then Montreal, two cities we'd never explored.  Of course any good car trip starts with an Iced Capp from Tim Horton's.

We got a little nervous about our navigation skills when we crossed the Mississippi River!  A quick check on the GPS told us we were still in Ontario, so we kept driving :) 

Ottowa is the capital of Canada, so a tour of Parliament was on our docket of things to do.

 

  

It was beautiful inside, as you'd expect.  The most beautiful part was the library, as the walls, the shelves, everything were wood with beautiful carvings all over.  It was the only part of the building saved from a fire in 1916, and I'm so glad it was saved.  (Sorry, no pictures were allowed!)

The main doors are flanked by a lion and a unicorn.  The architect had a sense of humor or I'm missing something, as I've never seen a unicorn with it's tongue hanging out in front of an incredibly important government building before!

We also visited the Royal Mint that afternoon.  One of John's side hobbies in the last year has been researching and learning all about the Gold Standard and such.  Unfortunately we weren't allowed to see where the gold is refined and then made into bars, but John was allowed to hold one weighing 28 pounds (more than Helena!) - and worth $700,000 on that day.

Here are the three things we really took note of in the city of Ottowa:  1) There are statues everywhere, statues of government related things and then statues like these - different parts of trees with little kids' legs holding them up!  2) There are trails everywhere, making it a very accessible city for those who don't have cars.  3) The signs that are supposed to help us tourists are pretty horrible.  For example, we were following the tourist information site signs for 20 minutes, going back and forth past the site without knowing it!  Signs directed us to the place, saying three minutes this way, but there were no signs to show us that we were actually there  and needed to go inside (it was inside a mall).

Ottawa was a fun place to visit for the afternoon.  As we walked around, we chatted about how someday we'll take our kids to Washington D.C., but then we thought about our current life and realized we may be taking them to Ottowa instead!