Parliament!

Me again. Finally got out with my camera on Friday evening and walked around the Parliament. Here's a shot I got from out front:


Here's the beautiful rotunda in the back, which I'm told is the Library of Parliament:


There are a lot of beautiful statues on the grounds, known as "Parliament Hill". Most of are of former Prime Ministers. Here's on of the cooler ones:


Here's a statue of the head of state, Queen Elizabeth II:


My co-workers told me that the Queen still has the legal authority to veto bills in Canadian Parliament. And of course she is on some of the paper and coin money.

This next one threw me. There is a small little shelter just for feral and stray cats on Parliament Hill, right next to the Parliament. I have a hard time thinking this would be accepted next to the U.S. Capitol building.


Lastly, this is the final week of the Ottawa Tulip Festival, so there are tulips EVERYWHERE. I'm told there is a really large planting at the other end of the Rideau Canal, but there were quite a few around the Parliament grounds, here's a close-up:

You can also see some in that picture of the cool statue up above. The link above tells you:

The Canadian Tulip Festival has grown into the largest Tulip Festival in the world from a gift of International Friendship given six decades ago. In the fall of 1945, Princess Juliana of the Netherlands presented Ottawa with 100,000 tulip bulbs. The gift was given in appreciation of the safe haven that members of Holland's exiled royal family received during the Second World War in Ottawa and in recognition of the role which Canadian troops played in the liberation of the Netherlands.

That's about it from me for touristy stuff for now. There's a lot more that I hope to walk over and see in my free time, and will get some photos when I can. Ottawa is a nice place, but I definitely miss home!

First View of Ottawa

Here's the view from the balcony of my hotel room in downtown Ottawa. My office is just on the next block. There's some awesome sights to see that I'll get pictures of later this week and upload them to my Flickr set.

Due to some bad weather in Chicago yesterday, I had to wait in the Green Bay airport for 3 hours. Fortunately my connecting flight to Ottawa was also delayed, and I just made it on before they closed the doors.

So far the biggest differences I've noticed are that people pronounce "process" with a long "o" sound, the same hockey game is broadcast on two channels, one each for French and English, and that I should qualify for this TV show.

I'll try to get more pictures and shorter, more frequent updates for the next few weeks.