Do you want a leaf in a bag?

I know I always moan and complain about my sleeping patterns but last night topped it all. I mentioned our bed was squeaky and no doubt that put thoughts of 'oh a night away, what are they doing'. Our bed looked lovely and solid and expensive. Under our big thick saggy mattress that made you roll into the middle whether you wanted to or not, was a piece of hardboard, actually several pieces of hardboard. Whenever you got into bed, the whole thing creaked and groaned, whenever you moved, breathed, turned or did anything bed related, it groaned and squeaked REALLY LOUD! Our room was really hot and despite the fact we opened a window on arrival, it stayed hot. So we abondoned the feather duvet (Huffle is allergic to feathers anyway) and slept with just a sheet, had the window open all night so we could hear the revellers returning past on the street below. We ended up sleeping upside down with our heads where our feet should be. This seemed slightly better as the end of the mattress was less buggered than the top and middle. We got some sleep eventually but both woke up achey, tired and a bit grumpy. Not a good first night! Our neighbour's shower appeared to be behind the back of our bed too so we heard his showering antics which I have to say took rather longer than it should have. He didn't sing though.

Breakfast was a frittata, potatoes and peppers, orange, kiwi and melon slices, yoghurt, toast jam and a fruity pastry. All too much to eat in one go but it was nice to pick at. Plenty of coffee and tea too. We spoke to our host about the room and as everyone else had checked out, he said we could move to another room after he had cleaned it. We packed our stuff in the original wardrobe so he could clean the room and went out for a day of exploring the city.

Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography. Canal. Not a bad photo of us. Parliament buildings

 

We explored for five hours, walking over 10km and 14,000 steps (so my phone told me). It was cold, -7 feels like -13* and my legs and face were really cold but all wrapped up as best we could be, it was an okay temperature to walk in as long as we didn't stand for too long. Parliament Hill was our first stop. There were some amazingly lovely buildings here. A Big Ben style tower called the Peace Tower topped the Government building but unfortunately it was closely guarded by Police and we weren't allowed in. Much later we found out you could get in for free but had to get a ticket from another building. We may do that tomorrow as the view from the top of the Peace Tower is supposed to be breathtaking (if you can manage the many steps up there). The view along the river and locks was really good and the buildings opposite too.

Street, statues and Peace Tower and parliament building

Parliament Building, Peace Tower, Fire Fountain and a Beaver Gargoyle

There were plenty of funky statues as well (we love a good statue) which we enjoyed taking photos of and posing with. We made use of the 'facilities' and were both very impressed with the warmth, size and cleanliness of men's and women's toilets, despite them being in a large portocabin. We are showing our age now but we did laugh about the fact that we came out marvelling at how nice they were.

Our queen not riding sidesaddle much to Huffles annoyance and the five lady statues. All very random but good.

The toilet sign for the impressive loos. Parliament Building and reflections

The river, reflections and copper things

 

Lots more walking, buildings and statues and then we happened upon a coffee house on the Sparks Street Boulevard. Here we had a nice warm, a rest and a hot chocolate (which were not artificially over-sweetened as seems to be the case in many places over here), with a small something each. This then enabled us to carry on our walking on towards the Byward Market where we ate last night.

Statues, reflections and our warming snack

Naked People statue was called 'Joy' and was made in the '70's. The bear was huge and was catching a salmon. No name, no plaque but we liked him.

There was a lot more walking, some shoe perusing (from Huffle not me - he wants some sturdy slippers for his old flat feet, though he was appalled that I looked at a pair of gorgeous boots (Huffle edit - in a shop called I saw you coming) which were over $500 boasting a $20 discount - whoop de do). There was an outdoor market which we looked at and then found the indoor market. Here we sat down and had a lovely home baked bagel each while watching the world go by (and a weird world it was too). This is a University City which boasts to be the political and technological city of Canada and although most of the students have probably gone home for Christmas, there were some very interesting characters around.

Time to drop Huffle off. He thinks he's a maverick (in N.America it seems it means an unbranded calf!). Flying Monkeys pooping? A pub for Grandad and two fur clad men!?!

 

My feet hurt a lot so we headed back to the B&B but our host was still cleaning (he seems very thorough) so we sat in the lounge, made ourselves a drink and read through some information leaflets. Once our room was ready we lay on our very quiet, very comfy bed and had a good relax before our late afternoon/evening session out. I soaked my feet in the sink which wasn't easy as I had to half stand on a chair to reach. We FaceTimed home to talk to Moo and the kids. Small had enjoyed football and was taken out for a bagel and hot chocolate by his friends mum and Smallest had been to his party and had a good time eating three pieces of cake because no one else wanted any.

Early evening, we set out for Parliament Hill to see the Christmas Lights. It was in fact a light and sound show projected onto the Parliament Building. I was a bit disappointed we had walked so far again and not been dazzled with proper lights. Still, it kept us amused for a few minutes before we realised it was too cold to stand around and walked towards the main part looking for somewhere to eat. We always have the same problem when we don't know exactly where to go. We trudge around not going in to places that are empty, checking Trip Advisor on places we are not sure and generally walking round and round getting hungrier and hungrier.

A piece of street art we hid behind to get away from annoying man who spoke to loud on his mobile while smoking - he was very boring and talked through his nose

We decided on a place called Play which was a restaurant where you had smaller food plates which could be paired with a particular wine. We chose arancini to start and mine was paired with a Barbera D'Asti which was lovely and Huffle had Montepulciano D'Abruzzo as we had been to both of these places. I had Gnocci and Huffle had Steak. Small meals but very tasty. We had dessert (not so small) which was three gelatos for Huffle - After Eight, Candy Cane, Strawberry, and I had Baked Alaska which was nothing like I thought it was going to be. Homemade Brownie with rum, Shortbread Dough Gelato covered in a soft meringue that had been blow torched. Nice but sickly. I had a lovely coffee (decaf, I wanted to sleep tonight).

When we were looking on Trip Advisor we noticed a place that had hundreds of board games that you could play whilst eating and drinking. As the night was still fairly young, we decided to try it out and although it was very busy and the waitress told us there were no tables, she let us stay anyway. We had Baileys on Ice and played Carcassonne and Ticket to Ride Nordic. The place was full of students playing all sorts of games. We attempted to try a new game but were too tired to read the instructions. It was quite hard not being distracted by what everyone else was doing but it was a really good idea and a nice way to end the evening. We had to pay $5 each for playing but imagine if you wanted to learn a new game before you bought it? Very clever. You could also buy brand new games there too.

Our final steps were 21,000, walking 15 km. We grabbed ourselves a water at the B&B, checked our photos, wrote the blog and went to sleep in our new upgraded Gold Room. Our bathroom is no longer in a small cupboard and we are not on the Main Street. Sleep please zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

 

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