Finally!!! I got to see the tulips! After several false starts, I got to Ottawa on THE weekend, and the sun was shining!
I took a city tour to refresh my memory and learned an awful lot of useless information….and some… more interesting such as the fact that every year the Dutch government sends 10,000 new tulip bulbs to Ottawa. This is to thank Canada for welcoming princess Julianna and her children during the war.
They are spectacular both in their variety and their number.
There were simple delicate varieties:
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Others are intricate and fancy:
These had pointy petals and were turned towards the sun like sunflowers…
Of course this would not say Ottawa without the Parliament buiding…and the Canadian flag on top of the peace tower.
There are several statues and monuments on the grounds, as befits any capital…. But this one caught my eye….
Another landmarks, the Museum of Civilization,was, as always, an amazing visit. There were hundreds of people lined up for tickets…I was lucky and avoided the lineups by seeing 2 IMAX films, the first one, an underwater film was very nice, but the second was a huge disappointment. Called Mummies it was a silly re-enactment that taught you nothing about Egyptian mumies.
I learn something new about the war museum: the windows in the dark part of the building, are shaped and placed to form a Morse code message that spells out both in french and in english: Lest we forget”.
At 11 a.m., each November 11, the sun shines through the window of the Museum’s Memorial Hall and illuminates the only artifact in that space: the headstone of Canada’s Unknown Soldier.
On the way back from Washington I had been amused to see the image of my car on the edge of water on the GPS…but check this out!!!!
I had been following the instructions blindly… totally lost (once again!) when Daniel (that’s the british english voice) ordered me to: “turn left and board ferry”!!!!! A ferry???? What the ****??? I’ve never taken a ferry to get to or from Ottawa before… Ohh well… it was different…and I did make it home…eventually!