'Spring' Break?

Ottawa, Canada!

Since the beginning of exchange one question that everyone kept asking was "What shall we do for spring break?". At first we all agreed upon going somewhere hot as we dreaded the perils of the coming winter. Somewhere hot basically meant Mexico or Cuba. Eventually the majority decided that we should brave the cold and get the full Canadian experience! After all we are studying here so we should make the most of it. Plus Selin had just bought her Canada Goose jacket, so she desperately wanted to get her monies worth and Nic had come prepared with an array of winter boots hahaha!

Traditional Native Games

The day arrived where we would once again make the short trip to Toronto in order to catch our bus to Ottawa. This was probably one of the funniest bus trips I've been on. It involved late wake-ups (Mairi), sickness/hungeroverness (Mairi), wrong tickets (Myself and Alison), running around Toronto working up a sweat to print off the actual ticket (Me) and a pacing drug addict at the back of the bus (drug addict). After a lot of trouble, we made it to Ottawa. Considering Ottawa is the capital of Canada, it is quite small. One of the main attractions of Ottawa in the winter is the chance to ice-skate on the worlds longest naturally frozen river! Unfortunately we arrived a bit too late into the winter season to be be able to ice-skate but we did manage to experience the last day of the winterlude! This included native dances, spiritual songs, ice sculpture competitions, free green tea and various pieces of art and history! 

Getting native in a Teepee


After a few beaver tails (no pun intended-its actually a fried pastry dessert) we made our way around the historical parliament buildings of Ottawa and into a deli shop which Barack Obama had recently visited at ByWard market. The stay was brief but just long enough to see what Ottawa had to offer.

 
Chilling at Backpackers Inn

We had a chilled evening in the basement of the hostel after handling a shushing row with the another group upstairs. This was the evening Richard had "An interesting theory".

 

Beaver's all round!

The next stop was Quebec City!!!