September 22-23 Ottawa and Montreal

Spent an afternoon is Ottawa, the national capital of Canada. Very stately with a mix baroque – gothic state buildings and new modern buildings in the downtown. Nice greenbelts along the Ottawa river. Right next to the Parliament is a canal that was built in 1822 from Ottawa to the Saint Lawrence for the purpose of transporting men and material should war break out between the United States and Canada. It is 121 miles long, 40ft wide and has 16 locks that rise 95 ft over the course of the canal. It is still operational today and is used by pleasure craft.


We took the mini tour of Parliament up the clock tower, dedicated to the soldiers who died in the great war. We took our pictures with statues dedicated to the proclamation in 1929 that women are “persons.” I’m not sure what they were before, but hopefully not chattel. There was a nice statue of a younger Queen Elizabeth astride a horse. It all made long for a cuppa tea.

Canada has two official languages English and French. Most public signage on the roads are posted in both languages. Most plaques are bi-lingual, products in the supermarket are as well. When you get to Quebec, one of the languages got dropped. I have no French ability, and had trouble working the gas pump, the subway all in French. Asking directions is difficult, while most speak very good English they pronounce the place names in French which is totally incomprehensible to me. I’m ok if I can get someone to point out on the chart where I want to go, but for them to tell me, I can’t relate the sounds to the written words. The true mark of an American -- Monolingual.

We took the metro into Montreal and toured the old city.  We went to a fancy French restaurant Café Napoleon. Very good food and service, we were way under dressed, but they let us in anyway.



Parliament



Women are "Persons"