Hiya folks.
I've been a bit busy (and had pretty much no access to the internet), so I haven't updated in a little while. Well, it's not even a week, but it feels like a while. I've gotta get used to not having the net, I can't imagine having unlimited access in central and southern America.
Well, my day trip to Ottawa was cold, but quite pleasant. Although I was rudely awoken at 3am by louts returning from karaoke night, I got up reasonably easily at 5:30am. Shudder. Tried to sleep on the train, but didn't really get anywhere. Well, except for Ottawa anyway. I liked Ottawa; small and parliament-y. Had a look at Parliament House, walked around, and found (well, I was looking for it), an awesome little cat sanctuary. I spoke to two volunteers who help look after the cats; there are essentially about a dozen stray cats, who are very well-fed (people like to drop off treats for them) and stop and given them lots of cuddles and pats. Aside from health-wise (limited vet access), they are actually pretty well-off. One cat, Shadow, was even fatter than Corey. No, I'm not kidding. I'm deadly serious. You can't really tell in the photos, but he was WAY fatter. Especially now the Clorey has lost weight. The cats have to fight the squirrels for food a little, but they seemed quite happy.
I then sauntered across to the Museum of Natural History. I know you all know how much I HATE natural history. It sucks. I start off on the dinosaur fossil floor, and began reading the placards with little interesting tidbits of information and a few small fossils here and there. As I was taking my time, a museum worker came over, and delightedly told me that the main attraction was through the doors and (complete with dismissive wave) that was just the 'academic' section. Bahahahaha.
Ah, he meant well. After I finished up in the obviously boring academic section, I went to the 'main attraction' and looked at all the huge dinosaur fossils. It was pretty neat, and they even put on a little film that had the special effects of making it smoky and misty in the room at the appropriate times. Saw a huge FO turtle amongst other things, and the crowd-winner favourite, Archeopteryx (don't stress, nobody else knows what I'm talking about either. Just pretend. It's cool).
Then I went to a, uh, park. Yeah, a park. With real live animals in them. They were absolutely, 100% fair-dinky-di alive. I am NOT lying to you. So as I was walking through this real-life park, I saw a lot of animals that I hadn't had the opportunity to see. Bison, moose, big-horn sheep, beavers, and even a polar bear. I was at times frightened for my well-being, as I got quite close to them, but thankfully they were fixated on something else, for some reason. Phew!! It also helped that I had several disguises that I crept past in them (elk, beaver, wolf and bear just to name a few).
After my park experience, I felt it was time to head home. WAY too much excitement for one day.
After I got back to Toronto, I only had one more day left. I walked around and had a last look at the city, and found out that my computer is completely screwed. Who needs a DVD-drive? Certainly not my computer, because she refuses to acknowledge that she has one. I think that he may have cheated on her, or possibly called her fat, because they are not talking anymore. Hopefully they'll sort their tiz out. I'm hoping that a good relationship counsellor I know will have a few words to them, but otherwise I'm going to have to call her parents and take her in, which I don't really want to do because parents are annoying.
My last night in Toronto I went out salsa dancing with the crew from the hostel, which was a bit of fun, but I didn't stay out long, I had to get up early again to catch a flight to a small place called Winnipeg.
Ottawa photos
