More of Toronto, Milverton and Ottawa

Hi guys! I’m not lost or anything, times were just too exciting to write :)

After my last post I visited Toronto another time. One thing you have to do there: go see Ripley’s Aquarium. It’s even less than that stupid tower (just short of 30 bucks) and you can spend at least 2 hours at that place. Great for kids too and really interesting, since we don’t have anything similar that I know of.

The tower is, in my humble opinion, just a rip-off. 35 bucks just to get up there? Come on. I decided not to and several people I talked to thought the same.

Soon, it was time to say goodbye to Toronto though, because I moved over to my aunt’s place which is in Milverton (township of Perth East). I have my place there in the basement with everything I need.

That week there was really nice and a complete contrast to Toronto. Toronto is a big town, Milverton is a nice farmer’s place. I like both though :) we also did a lot in that week: German birthday party, nice dining in a Thai restaurant, celebrating my birthday and getting to know Stratford (yes, that Stratford, eating real American burgers and drinking Canadian beer (I really like your cider!). All in all, a really nice week.

It was also nice because I finally got to know the rest of the family. My aunt and her husband have 3 sons and 2 daughters. 1 son lives in Toronto, he was the one who let me crash the first week. The other 2 live in Milverton, so I saw their quite impressive farms and their kids too :) the daughters live a bit farther away, so I don’t know if I have time to see them too. Since everyone of my relatives speaks German, plus one’s wife and a German girl that was working on their farm too, it was a bit difficult to train my English. But it sure was fun :)

I then moved on to Ottawa. Getting there wasn’t that easy as I thought. Greyhound was no problem, but upon arriving I saw that “Ottawa Central Station” was 3km away from my hotel. Bugger.

Since I couldn’t figure out the bus schedule, I walked. Walking was a bit tricky too, because I now had almost everything I need in a backpack instead of a suitcase, since mine wasn’t really made for long ways. The weight wasn’t the problem, but being in a foreign city with a lack of sleep knowing that I’ll have to wait some hours until my room was ready didn’t make it easy. Upon finally getting into my room though, I saw that it was worth it. The room was nice, quiet and more than promised. If you want to know more or see where I’ve been, have a look at my Tripadvisor profile.

Ottawa was different from Toronto, smaller and more village-y. The tours of the parliament buildings were nice and the guides very knowledgeable. One thing that bothered me was the disrespect of some tourists. I mean, not removing your hat in Memorial Hall is one thing, but coming into parliament’s centre block (where the Senate and the House of Commons meet) with a McDonald’s bag? Try that in D.C.
The other tours, like the Royal Canadian Mint ones were cool too, but the group was a bit too large. One thing that was interesting for me as a technical person was the operation of the river locks they have at the Rideau canal.

The people I met in Ottawa were very nice though. Walking back from some restaurant I noticed a little bar where some guy was performing songs on his guitar. People were asked to jam with him and they happily did :)

After that week, I moved on to Quebec on Sunday. Now I’m here in my hotel room writing this post, before I’ll go out again. More on Quebec in the next post!

I don’t have any photo stream for you though, since I didn’t bring my laptop with me and I therefore can’t access my camera’s SD card. I’ll attach a little photo of me in the Greyhound though, if anyone forgot how I look like ;)