Go Canada!

It is great living where we live now, because it opens up a whole new area to explore.  With Canada so close, we couldn’t wait for an opportunity to go up there and look at the Canadians.

 

 

We rolled into Montreal at about sunset.  It’s such a beautiful city on the water.  We took our bikes so we could ride them around the city.  Here are a few of the sites that was saw:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, first things, first.  A little picnic lunch in the park.

 

 

 

 

The first day we rode the Lachine Canal path.

 

 

 

 

 

Saw some crazy looking architecture

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rode across the bridge to the island

 

 

 

 

 

 

Biosphere

 

 

 

 

 

 

Olympic Park

 

 

 

 

 

The old city

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of course, we also had to stop and try the Poutine! (Oops, first I accidently spelled it Putin; as in Vladimir?)  Yum!  We were also really lucky to be able to catch up with our lovely friend, Shona, from our UK days.  

 

Next we listened to a bunch of Canadian bands on our way to visit our good friends Frederic and Chizuko and their kids in Gatineau.  It is so good to catch up with old friends!  We were thoroughly embarrassed by our lack of Canadian knowledge, so Frederic taught us all about how Ottawa is the capital and what a Quebecois is, and how to order a Beaver Tail, and why ours didn’t come with fur, and the meaning of the phrase “Je me souviens” (on the Quebec license plate – it’s very deep.  If you know him, please ask him about it sometime if you get a chance.)  Actually, my ignorance about Canada is so bad that I spelled Ottawa wrong the entire way through this post and then didn’t believe the spell check when it corrected me, so I Googled it.  Turns out it was right.  Americans. Anyway, Frederic promised that if we came to Canada he would find us a Mountie to take a picture with, and so he did!

Frederic also took us to Ottawa so we could see that Canada is actually its own country.  It was really impressive!  We got to see the changing of the guard, which was much more impressive than anything we saw in London.  We also got a tour of the Parliament building.  There were lots of statues of owls inside because, did you know, that a group of owls is called a parliament?  Those Canadians are really deep.  

 

 

Here are a few pictures from the very beautiful and impressive parliament building:

 

 

 

 

 

The library

 

 

 

 

 

The place where they walk

 

 

 

 

 

 

The place where they talk about stuff

 

 

 

 

 

Oh, sorry.  This isn’t the Parliament.  This is Micah and I fooling around with the camera.

 

 

 

 

The US even let Ian back in without any problems, even though they know what he is like now, so hopefully, we’ll be back to Canada soon!