Anyway, the first stop was the Canadian War Museum, which I found after taking a few wrong turns, one of which saw me having to use a portaloo. It didn't seem to go anywhere; it was just a slop hole. Wouldn't want your phone or anything to fall in there, you wouldn't take the risk of trying to get it back! Eventually made it to the museum and it was pretty good! It was split into different sections: Early wars; WW1 and WW2; Cold War; Korean War; and UN work. It had loads of collections and interactive stuff for kids.....and adults like me with mild OCD who had to complete all the aircraft jigsaws! The best thing there though was Hitler's car, an old 1930s Mercedes Benz (pictured below). Was a bit reticent about getting my photo taken with it but it is pretty iconic and unique so an auld fella named Walter took a picture of me beside it. Turns out, like many living in Canada, that Walter had Scottish ancestry, in fact his Dad was from Lockerbie. We talked for a little while and I told him that I had Irish ancestry, at which point he reverted to Leprechaun mode saying 'top of the morning to ya,' 'begorrah' and 'to be sure.' To date—and I know a lot of Irish people, an awful lot—no Irish person has ever uttered those phrases in my company, even in jest! God Bless him for trying though!
Walked across the river into Gatineau, which officially means that you're in Quebec. Never ventured too far into it though in case I completely lost my bearings and anyways I just wanted to say that I had been in the province. I went for a walk by the river, which was calming and pleasant—that is until some kamikaze cyclist with a real live bird on his helmet shot by while making bird noises himself! Seems that the madmen are not restricted to Toronto or the Province of Ontario either. On the way back into Ottawa City, I stopped off at the Notre Dame Cathedral (pictured below)—a beautifully ornate French-style church—and lit a candle for my folks. Couldn't get very good pictures of it from the inside, because you weren't meant to take any, but it is visually stunning. Outside of it was that giant spider that they used to have next to the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. My mate Martin is terrified of spiders, so naturally I took a picture of it to scare the bejesus out of him at a later date!
I had three hours to kill before I met my Uncle Eddie so with curiosity having long since killed the cat, I thought 'fuck it' and decided to head to a strip bar. I had only ever been to a table-dancing place in Hamburg years ago, so it was a bit of a new experience for me. I expected a seedy, overpriced, badly-lit room full of old leches and Eastern European women with poor English. Well it was pretty bizzrely lit, but the rest of the clichéd stereotypes were inaccurate. A beer was about $6.50, only a little higher than the standard for most pubs in Canada, there was a mixture of younger and older fellas there—even a family at one table—and the strippers themselves were by and large, Canadians. I found that out because they came over to talk to you pretty sharpish. They were chatty and friendly, obviously because they were trying to get a $20 private dance from you! The first couple who approached me I rally had no interest in whatsoever so I found that if you moved the discussion into an area where they couldn't hold their own, like the political arena, you could get rid of them pretty quickly. One of them though, Tamara, was pretty hot, half-Irish, half-Chinese, but to be honest I was a bit reticent about getting a private dance. I managed to resist the urge, when she asked if I wanted a private dance to reply: "Maybe Tamara!" I doubt she'd have gotten the play on words though. Eventually after a good few drinks I relented and went for a private dance with a girl named Jordan. She was nice and could fairly hold her drink too. Necked a grey goose prior to the dance, which was a lot more tactile than the dances you'd get back home I'd imagine. The weird thing though, was that the best-looking girl in the entire place was the fully clothed barmaid. I got chatting to her and her fella at the bar, who was in a band. He looked like a cross between a roadie and a tattoo artist. We exchanged contact details and said we'd facebook each other.
Arrived back at the hotel to meet my Uncle Eddie, before we went out to check the place where the Ottawa Celtic Supporters' Club meets, a fairly popular sports bar. The food was so-so, average nachos and decent chowder but it could have done with more chow! We headed to an Irish bar and another bar near the hotel. We had three pitchers, which, lumped on top of the beers I'd had earlier and the hotel supplied popcorn, meant that I fell asleep as soon as I hit the pillow!
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