Family Vacation

Does anybody out there remember being invited out to a friend's house to watch a boring slide show of their vacation?  The same people who bored you out of your skull with videos of their stupid children?  You might want to skip the next few posts.

We got back yesterday from what will likely be our main summer vacation- just an extra long weekend, really.  Due to money, my work schedule (I am not allowed to take vacations in August.  Many of the workers where I work have some rather peculiar holiday black out periods.  There is one guy who gets five weeks of vacation time every year, but he only has four weeks to take them- in June.  And he isn't allowed to take more than two weeks of holidays in a row.) I rented a car and drove off around Ontario and even made our way out to Montreal.  We stopped off in Ottawa on possibly the Worst Day Ever: the day the Royal Couple arrived.  I had heard the royals were to be in the capital for Canada Day, and so tried to arrive the day before.  Unfortunately, they arrived on that day, and more than half the city was shut down for their visit.  Plus, the Parliament was almost invisible behind the stage being set up for the celebrations. 

I did stop off at few churches on the way:  St Patrick's basilica, and the Basilica Cathedral of Notre Dame.  I took some photos, but unfortunately, I am a lousy photographer.  My attempts to take pictures that gave a sense of the place as a whole failed.  My photos of the main altar also did not turn out at all.  If you want to see some good photos of either, click on the links.  Here are a few bad ones of St Pat's.  

Side altar, St. Theresa of Liseux

Station of the Cross

This one has me a little flummoxed.  It shows an evangelist, but with him are a boy, which means Matthew, but there is also an eagle in the picture, which means John.

Anyone know a st who had a vision while hunting?

This is a list of the parishioners who volunteered for service in the First World War.  Sadly, the only name many will find of interest is the one below.

A.J. Casson, painter and member of the Group of Seven.

 There is also a beautiful painting done in honour of the soldiers who died, but my photos of it did not turn out well.  The painting was varnished and reflected the over head light and my flash.

We walked around and took some more pictures.



Statue of Significant Dead Guy, in this case William Lyon McKenzie King, our longest serving Prime Minister.



Statue of Queen on her favourite Canadian horse, with admirer.

The rare Ottawa pigeon.

 I am being facetious.  There are lots of statues in Ottawa, and therefore lots and lots of pigeons.



  

Notre Dame, from across the river.



View across Ottawa River

While taking the river photos, a First World War biplane flew overhead.  despite its slow speed, by then the camera's batteries were nearly dead, and by the time the camera clicked, the plane had moved off.  That's it in the square. 

We then went to Notre Dame.  Puff's eyes  nearly bugged out of her head at first, but later she decided she preferred St Patrick's.  It is similar to Montreal's Notre Dame basilica, which I will get to soon.  Here's one good photo, taken by Puff, of the interior.



Close by was the Canada Revenue Agency.

Figures they built themselves a castle.

There was more, naturally, but I only have so much room for photos. 

After that, we next went to Upper Canada Village, a pioneer village set in the year 1866.  Nice place, but I'll drop the photos, for now, and will post a little more tomorrow about the Montreal part of the trip, where, among other things, we dropped by St Patrick's basilica, and the Basilique de Notre Dame. Ottawa's Notre Dame, as beautiful as it was, by comparison was Notre Dame Lite.