Ottawa

   Even though we did have some blinding rain on the drive in, we had a good time in Ottawa.  Yesterday afternoon we went to the National Gallery of Canada.  While I don't want to injure the sensibilities of any Canadians who might come across this,  I found the art in the Canadian Artists section to be (I'll be nice here) derivative.  Otherwise there were some interesting things to see, particularly in the modern art section.  We were surprised at the small display of Indian and Inuit art, which. is the Canadian Art equivalent of American Jazz and Blues.  Today we looked at a couple of other galleries -- We're considering buying another print by Inuit Pudlo Pudlat -- we already have two by him.  We're considering it but ($$$) is a major consideration.  --- lest I forget:  in front of the main entrance to the National Gallery is a giant (30 to 35 feet high) stylized spider with eggs --- We didn't really understand the relevance to anything.
    We also went into the Notre-Dame Cathedral -- An impressive neo-gothic painted blue and gold, which looks much better than this description makes it sound. 
   Today we walked around the city -- visited a couple of galleries, had a street polish dog (DA) and bratwurst (dw), went through the now-wow-and-today shopping district (oddly, I found nothing to buy) and a farmers market. 
  But the highlight was visiting the Parliament Building.  (which also included ascending the Peace Tower -- 350 ft. up -- just beneath the great clock and carrilon -- built 1919 to comemmorate the end of WWI -- which had a great view of the city)  The real highlight was attending a Parliament debate.  After a series of short (1 to 2 minutes) speeches by back-benchers, they got to the meat of the afternoon:  Accusations of malfeasance and graft flew thick and fast (Hear, Hear!) (Pounding on the desk) (Hear, Hear!)  Followed with a stout defense by the Conservative Leader ("That is not the case!  We will thoroughly investigate any hint of fraud we find!  Might I remind the Honorable Liberal Member, that the Liberals cut the budget for health care in 2004 while we Conservatives strongly protested that action!") -- (Hear, Hear!) (Pounding on the desk) (Hear, Hear!)  It was great.  We had the honor of hearing a 1 minute speech by Justin Trudeau -- son of Pierre -- a hot new face in Canadian politics. 
   --- Lest I forget:  Personal comment to Cary N.:  What's the point of a sober and courteous comment?  and to Hilary S.: You needn't read that book on Carravagio any time soon (or even ever) :-) -- Wow, that's the first emoticon I've used in this blog --
   Finally, I was wondering if our Montreal signage experience was unique to us, so I looked on the web for comments.  A couple I found:  "Our GPS was useless.  The street names and numbers had no relation to what our GPS was showing" --- "and what's up with the blue "Tourist" markers?  Are the numbers next to the names distances? Exit numbers? Prayers needed to find it?  Because there are several places where the markers just disappear or go from 3 to 1 to 8 in just a few blocks" 
   I imagine we'll try Montreal another time, but when we do, we'll get a map in advance.  DA