30 Apr 2012
Posted by Dave under Dave's Thoughts
Playing Tourist in the Nation’s Capital
What a full weekend. After rain & overcast on Friday, it was clear and sunny Saturday morning. We walked down the street to the Museum of Civilization. We gabbed a maple latte and a mochaccino and got the lay of the land then purchased our tickets and started off with an IMAX movie – “Flying Monsters 3D”. It was about as lame as you are imagining.
From there it was into the museum proper – we skipped the entire first floor and all the first nations mumbo-jumbo and headed for the postal museum section. It was pretty interesting, although dense. All those tiny stamps and envelopes. Kind of a lot to read and absorb. Some interesting exhibits though, especially the history of railway mail sorting and delivery. We also looked through a temporary exhibit on religions that was clearly designed by an agnostic multiculturalist liberal. Kind of content free – all the world’s great religions reduced to trivia.
By early afternoon, we decided to walk across the bridge to Ottawa and had lunch in the Byward Market. After fish and chips at the Highlander, we walked around the shops and parks – alternating a bit because of the chilly wind. We bought some bread and cheese and walked back across the river to our hotel and put our feet up, watched a movie and relaxed.
On Sunday, we had a lazy start then headed over to Ottawa around noon. We spent the afternoon touring the parliament buildings -that was very interesting. Brenda had seen them as a kid but I’d never gone inside. The stone work and scale of the building is quite something. We took one of the guided tours and heard some interesting stories, like the one about the stonemasons sculpting their own faces onto the pillars in the senate anteroom.
In the afternoon we went back to Vintage Wings to see how they run their Warbird U – since there will be a Warbirds U in Calgary in August. I even got to sit in the cockpit of the Swordfish!