Day Six

July 11, 2014

Day Six

For those of you who have seen "The Lego Movie," you are probably familiar with a song in it, "Everything is Awesome!" Elizabeth walks around singing that one line quite a bit. Well, after spending the whole day in Ottawa, I think that should be their theme song :). But, really, it was a beautiful city with beautiful people! We were mostly in the area of the Parliament Building. The history was fascinating. We got to witness the changing of the guard, as well as take a tour. They have guides whose only job is to answer questions all day from May-September. We talked to a couple of different girls who were so helpful. There was even a police officer who was very kind to the kids and was cutting up with them. Learning more about Canada's history was interesting, and since I love all things British, I was intrigued :).

We then headed over to the Byward Market where we got to see where many of the locals shop. There were fruit and vegetable stands, as well as all kinds of little shops. Our favorite thing we tried by far, though, was beaver tail. Yep. We did it. A guide recommended it, as well as a neighbor back home. I admit, we were scared...until we realized that it was nothing more than a delicious pastry :). It was wonderful! Elizabeth and I shared a cinnamon sugar one, some of the other kids tried one with chocolate and bananas!

It was a full day, but very fun. From Ottawa, we drove into Montreal. Since there was more traffic by our hotel, we let the kids swim for a bit. We then drove to the Notre Dame Basillica movie/light show inside the cathedral. It was all about the history of the cathedral. The stained glass windows, woodwork, and pipe organ were breathtaking. The way it was lit up at night was beautiful. We walked the streets, some of them cobblestone, until we found a restaurant. It was after 9:30 by this point, so we were all pretty hungry. We had a hard time finding a restaurant, as most seemed quite pricey, had menus in French, and the area seemed to be a bar/singles scene and not so much a family atmosphere. One restaurant that we stopped at was going to serve us until they realized there seven of us (five of them kids). The hostess came back and told us the kitchen was closed. Seriously! The restaurant was pretty full with some empty tables. That was disheartening, but mainly because we were hungry! We finally found a Mexican restaurant. For those of you that know our family, you know how much we love Mexican! So were excited to find some "chips and dip," as our Jonathan calls it. It was very flavorful and we enjoyed our meal.

By this point, we are eagerly anticipating driving back on American soil the next day :)!