Ottawa - Capital of Canada and my first hiking trip

I spent the last days in Ottawa in a hostel which was a jail in the past. I shared the cell with two girls from Teneriffe and two girls from Brasil and one girl from Switzerland. It was quite a nice room and I went out with the spanish girls a couple of times.

On Tuesday I went to Parliament Hill and got a free tour through the House of Commons and the Senate. It was really interesting to hear something about Canadian politics and how the land is politically structured. Though it was the first day in Ottawa, I bought some fruits and spent a lot of time just sitting in front of the river and enjoyed the nice atmosphere in the town. There is a nice market in Ottawa which is called “By Ward Market” where you can eat a lot, buy some nice things and meet interesting people. It is funny because you almost hear more French than English. One reason could be that the river through the city marks the border between Ontario and Quebec. So if you are on the other side of the city accidentally every explanation is written in French first.

In the evening me and the Spanish girls went to the “Sound and Light Show” on Parliament Hill, which I really loved. It took about half an hour and they presented a lot of canadian history and it felt just great being there.

On Wednesday I went to the famous IMAX Cinema with the spanish girls. We watched a film called “Under the sea” and it was quite cool being in an IMAX because it was the first time I had seen it.

Thursday was a crazy day. Me and Elisa, a finnish girl, went to the famous Canadian Museum of Civilization. It was so great there, that we almost spent four hours in it and did not see everything at all. We had Sushi after the Museum to recover a bit and decided to go to the Provincial Park outside Ottawa. So we took a bus to go there and it really felt like leaving civilization. It was my first hiking trip in Canada and I really underestimate the distances here. We wanted to see a special lake inside the park and our map said that it was about 5 km to get there. It took us about two hours getting there and we were bitten by a hundred of mosqitos because we nearly had 30 °C and it was pretty muddy and wet inside the forest. They really were like little vampires and we had to hide ourselves with our clothes as far as possible .

Finally, we reached the lake and it was really worth the trip. It was so beautiful! But it was almost seven a clock and we definitely had to leave. A woman told us to go another way to reach a bus and we tried it. It took us another two hours without seeing any busses at all. Finally, we asked a couple with a car whether they could help us and they were so kind that they took us with them until our hostel in Ottawa! That was so amazing because we really were lost into the forest.

It was one of these special days where you do not expect anything before having breakfast and then it turns out as a very special day where a lot of different things happen.

Me and Elisa are going to travel to Montreal today - I really look forward to stay in this city!