O Canada

Our Trois-Rivieres hostel building:

We had a beautiful morning in Trois-Rivieres yesterday (or at least, Nathan, Mom & I did -- Deon just slept). I went for an early run through the OLD part of the city, and came back to the hostel to show Mom & Nathan my findings. Buildings from the 1600s and 1700s. Wow! I didn't know buildings that old existed in Canada. Neat to see.

--- our Ottawa hostel -- an old jail house.
We made it to Ottawa by 2:00 pm, and overall the trip was uneventful other than traffic in Montreal. It took us an hour to get through the city, and it wasn't even rush hour. Uggghhh! That just reminded me that I never want to do the morning and evening rushhour drive for work ever again.

We found our hostel -- an old jail!!! Shockingly, our room was on the top floor (floor 9) with no elevator. Lots of stairs to climb. I felt for Mom, but so far she is managing! This is quite the building -- we are staying in the warden's quarters so they are a little nicer than the dorm rooms, which are the actual jail cells.

Once settled, I tracked down a Canadian Tire in the area, cause it was high time I got an oil change -- we hit 10000 kms yesterday on our trip!!! Also, my brakes were acting up for some time already, so I wanted that looked at. That ended up taking a few hours -- the brake pads and other brake 'stuff' needed to be replaced. Ouch. It was a HOT day - plus 28 degrees Celsius!!! plus the humidity. We tried walking a bit, but it was too much. After visiting at Tim Hortons and playing cards there for an hour, we hung out in the Canadian Tire lounge...fun intro to Ottawa.


With my van fixed and running well again, we went back downtown (the area of our hostel & parliament buildings) and went for supper at the restaurant Randy's sister Tammy works at (Capital Hill Hotel.




Bellies full & the air a little cooler, we were ready for a walk to the hill. It was neat to walk around and experience some of the history of our country. This is where the decisions for our country our made!! I stood and sang 'O Canada' -- in my head.


We hope to tour the inside of the Parliament Buidlings today...