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Old 11 Nov 16, 02:44 PM  
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neilhd
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The Amazing Race! Canada/USA Road Trip July-Aug 2016 - Day 11 (Day in Ottawa / Drive to Toronto)

The alarm went off at 06:30 this morning as we were meeting Naomi for coffee at 07:30. Ele and Joe weren't quite ready in time so I went down to meet her - she was waiting in the lobby - and Ele and Joe joined us in Starbucks 10 minutes later. We had another good chat and catch-up as the one last night was nowhere near enough.

She recommended a place down the road called Nate's for breakfast so we walked down there together after our coffee. She had to get to work so couldn't join us so we said our goodbyes. Hopefully it won't be another 14 years before our next meeting!

Nate's was really nice. We had a huge, delicious breakfast and it wasn't that expensive either. After that we walked back to our hotel, packed up our stuff and checked out. We went to leave the luggage with left-luggage but the valet said he'd just put it in our car and leave our car at the top rather than in the car-park, if we were going to be leaving in the next few hours. This seemed easy enough so we did that.

Ele wasn't feeling too well (she hadn't been for a couple of days really), so we took a slow walk up to Parliament Hill to look at the parliament building which is very impressive! I had been inside before on one of my visits but we didn't have time to do it again as we were on a tight schedule. Shame really because downtown Ottawa is really quite handsome. A nice city for sure.

We milled around here for a bit, taking a few pictures:







This statue had a message for Donald Trump:



Joe is not very good at hide and seek:



Then we went into the Rideau Centre for a bit of shopping. Actually, we first went to Hudson Bay over the road. I bought a Ralph Lauren shirt in the clearance for about £20. Ele bought a couple of bras. Once over the road into Rideau we went into Victoria's Secret to buy a few things for Jess (our DD who didn’t come with us). Joe had a bit of cash to spend still so bought himself a PS4 game and a cuddly Pikachu.

Joe and his Pikachu:



We felt peckish somehow despite the big breakfast so went down to the food court. Joe and I had chicken burgers from A&W and Ele had some greek meat and salad thing that looked and tasted amazing. I was quite jealous actually, although my burger was fine. The food court was pretty good in there - loads of choice.

We spotted a posh chocolate shop and bought some gift-wrapped chocs for our parents and also got some ice creams for ourselves. I had this great ice cream where they take the ice cream on a stick, then dip it in melted white chocolate, then melted milk chocolate, then roll it in crushed nuts. It was divine. They put a cupcake casing on the stick so that any chocolate that falls off just gets collected in there instead of going all over you, or all over the floor. A very simple and very brilliant idea.

We walked back to our hotel now. Ele asked me to get some Halls Soothers from the little concession stand they had there with sweets and drinks. There was no prices on anything, and nowhere to pay, and no indication of where you should pay, and an enormous queue at the reception desk, so I made the assumption that they were complimentary!

We got our car and headed out of Ottawa on our way back to Toronto. Mrs Google took us most the way down a single-lane road (well, one lane in each direction) which sounds slow but actually was not and we made fairly good time. At one point Mrs Google extended our journey time massively, and when we looked at it we worked it out it was doing a massive detour for no reason at all, adding an hour and a half to the journey time. We cancelled the route and re-did it and it removed the ridiculous detour and our ETA dropped back to a normal time. It was an interesting route actually, as it was more countryside and small-town Canada that we wouldn't have seen otherwise.

At some point once we were back on the big road we pulled in at a McDonald's for a McWee. Things went a bit wrong here. Joe and I went in, and the urinal that I ended up at had a bit of wee left in it from a previous user. So I hit the flush so as to avoid any splashback. And it flushed. And flushed. And flushed. And kept right on flushing until it overflowed and started spilling onto the floor. And still it kept going. And going. And going. The entire floor was basically covered by this point, and I had no clue what to do. So we went out and I got the attention of the a member of staff behind the counter and told them what was happening. They made a ok, we'll look in a minute kind of reaction. I said no, it's really, really flooded. So then they looked and saw that by now the water was actually seeping out from under the restroom door and out into the corridor. Then they leapt into action.

Ele came out of the ladies and said hers wouldn't flush. I presume this was because mine was using all the water! I still needed to go so Ele stood guard and I just used the ladies. The men's had stopped flushing by this point, and we left, leaving a few members of staff holding mops and scratching their heads at how to deal with the flood. We came, we wrecked, we left. We didn't even buy anything…

We carried on to Toronto. On the outskirts we hit some traffic (the first of the entire holiday really). My fuel remaining indicator was not looking very healthy. I didn't want to fill up now because I had to return it full, so I wanted to wait till tomorrow. But for a while it was looking a bit touch-and-go as to whether we'd make it or not! Mrs Google suggested a detour and we took it, and arrived at our hotel at about 7pm with about 20km of fuel remaining according to the readout.

Our hotel tonight was the Westin Harbour Castle. It is a really nice hotel (we'd gone past it on our bus tour at the beginning of the holiday so knew what it looked like), and I only paid about £85 for the night which was a bargain. We went up to our room, and whilst I sorted a few things out (moving stuff between cases ready for the trip home), Ele and Joe went to check out the pool - not to swim, but just to look. Then they couldn't remember what room we were, and after knocking on a couple of completely wrong doors (they hadn't taken a keycard) they actually had to go back to reception and ask!

View from our room:



When they made it back we went out to find some dinner and found a Firkin pub/restaurant place just over the road. We sat inside initially then realised that was stupid, so went and sat outside. I had a curry and it was pretty good. No idea what the others had, as usual. We did share some nachos to start though.

Once we'd finished we popped into a mini mart type place next-door and bought a few bits for breakfast in the morning, then went back to the hotel - it was quite late now for Joe - and to bed.
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Old 11 Nov 16, 05:49 PM  
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Mortimer Mouse
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A nasty toilet situation indeed.
Great view from your hotel.
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Old 11 Nov 16, 10:10 PM  
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Ottawa looks good, too
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Old 13 Nov 16, 08:05 PM  
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Are you normally known for breaking things? Isn't that two things in two days?

Looks like you had lovely weather again. Would you recommend Ottawa as a place to visit?
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Old 16 Nov 16, 08:53 AM  
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neilhd
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Originally Posted by jocat View Post
Are you normally known for breaking things? Isn't that two things in two days?

Looks like you had lovely weather again. Would you recommend Ottawa as a place to visit?
Ele does say I'm clumsy. I do break the occasional plate or glass, but this wasn't my fault honest!

Ottawa was really nice - definitely worth a couple of days if you are in the area.
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Old 21 Nov 16, 11:22 AM  
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Ottawa looks lovely as well.
Lol at the flush mishap and the lift button from yesterday.
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Old 29 Nov 16, 03:20 PM  
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Sorry but chuckling away at Mcwee, never mind the whole flushing incident!

Ottawa looks a nice place.
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