(Day 4) Walk Like An Egyptian

As usually happens on vacation, we ended up getting a later start than we thought we would, and shortly after the lunch hour, we trotted off…to Quebec! Oh how exciting! I hadn’t really been there yet except for straddling the provincial border two days ago. Gatineau is immediately across the Ottawa River from Parliament and was staring at us ominously from a distance. Armed with minimal to no French, we were set for our crossing.


It was quite the walk over the bridge; the bridge itself is quite old and uneven wood planks covered the duration.

I hadn’t even made it across the bridge before my first verbal assault from a Quebecor. Amazing, hey? I’m really try to fight my stereotypes, but they make it so damn hard. The bridge is about 12 feet in width and there were two sides – one for pedestrians, and one for cyclists. It is wooden, like I mentioned, and over time, the indicators of the lanes had faded immensely, The bridge was virtually empty where we were when it happened – some guy is heading towards us on a bike and starts yelling, “GET OUT OF THE BIKE LANE!” in this growly voice. Two things: 1) There was tons of room on either side of me for him to pass; and 2) I couldn’t even see where the damn bike lane was. I was fairly dumbfounded as to why people always feel the need to randomly yell at me in public and before I knew it, I turned around and yelled back at him, “JERK!!” Janelle was like, “eep!”. What a bad sitch. We did end up making to our destination, the Museum of Civilization, with out further incident.



They had a neat-o exhibit on mythical creatures so we met lots of new friends in the form of dragons, krakens, mermaids, and unicorns!






Poor lil Janelle never stood a chance.


The illustrious King of Unicorns, Jeff Fabio Rupert. “I remember it like it was yesterday…”

The lady at the front desk said I could take pictures, without a flash. Fine. The B at the exhibit told me I couldn’t take any pictures (but I always do anyways. I accept their challenge!)

We also visited the Canada Hall, which brought us through a journey of all areas of Canada’s history. We even met a lady who was in character as a chambermaid and kept harassing me and Janelle about going “a-courting” and if we’d heard the latest gossip from Penelope down the lane. Janelle scurried off in fear after she focused her efforts on me…I played her game for awhile and we chatted about Lady Beatrice sewing gowns for “courting” and how all the girls will be jealous that I was already married. Uh-huh.


I believe this gent has scurvy, but don’t quote me.




Oh Sask Wheat Pool, I have some words for you.


This is a shop in Winnipeg…? I guess.



Next up, we headed down to the special exhibition hall to check out the sure-to-be-rad Ancient Egypt display. Again, I wasn’t supposed to take pictures apparently but I, of course, simply cannot resist. It’s like my kryptonite.






Real hieroglyphics! YAYAY!




Urg…don’t tell anyone, but this was taken right next to the picture of a camera with the line through it. I’m terrible.



They also had this fun area where people can dress up as Egyptians! I applied some high-pressure techniques and convinced Janelle to be the guinea pig. Muahahaha. Walk like an Egyptian indeed.



Hooray! What fun. Truthfully, it was now late afternoon and we were starved…and such a long walk from the English part of Canada. A hoo hoo hoo.




Harder Family Christmas Card 2009.

The museum also boasted some good old-fashioned Japanese zen-ing in the courtyard. As I like to say in Japan, “Let’s get zen!”



Yes, okay, zen is complete. Now we are starving even more. We put on our big-girl pants and wandered back to the English side of things without too much complaining about our hunger. We had decided on Italian for dinner and, after a bit of searching, found Mama Grazzi’s in a courtyard of Byward market. Although they weren’t yet open, we harassed the staff to let us sit and peruse the menu until they were ready to serve us.





I opted for another pizza and we relaxed in the early evening sunlight. After dinner, our thoughts naturally moved to dessert (our thoughts naturally head in that direction anyway) and we each selected our own treats to enjoy while sitting in Major Hill Park.


More often than not, I’m disappointed in cake…this was no exception. They just seem too sweet and rely too much on sugar. Who’da thought I’d ever say something like that?

Now that we were officially stuffed (for now), we decided to find the cat sanctuary that Brad told me existed on the Parliamentary grounds. It seemed like such a preposterous idea to me that the Prime Minister would take it upon himself to save cats, but who can say? Off to investigate, we did.


A much better look at the Parliamentary library.




We found it!!


This cat, like the others there, had some wicked deformities and some had tumours on their faces. Poor Canada cats. There were a bunch of lookie-loos cooing at the cats so they weren’t lacking for human contact.

Janelle was still pooped from jetlag, so we took it easy that evening. However, it wouldn’t be a day in Canada City if I didn’t provide another obligatory photo of the Parliament, so here ya go.



Tomorrow we are actually going to go inside these buildings! I know, the anticipation is killing you. My last session for the conference is tomorrow and I will be learning all about project management. Hooray for projects and Canada buildings! Our last full day in Ottawa awaits…and then onto Montreal!