Then I heard another couple had the same idea - Will and Kate. Great, I thought, now we'll never get anywhere near Parliament Hill because of all the Royal watchers. In fact when I looked at our schedule and compared it to Will and Kate's, I discovered that we were scheduled to arrive at the Ottawa airport on Thursday June 30th at the same time. I had visions of getting trapped at the airport.
Luckily when we arrived in Ottawa, the situation was calm. Angie and Dylan picked us up and we went back to their apartment and then off to the Civilization museum for some fun displays.
The next day, Canada Day, we awoke early, dressed in our red and white, and headed across the street (literally) to Jacques Carter park to begin our Canada Day celebrations.
We looked at the displays and then decided to see if we could get near Parliament Hill. We walked across the Alexandra bridge, through Major's Hill Park (which had more displays and activities) and we made it across the Rideau canal to almost the East Block building. But after that point, the the police had blocked the entry to Parliament Hill because there were too many people. I read later that the crowd was probably near 300,000. So we turned around, walked back to the east side of the Chateau Laurier Hotel and waited on the street for the royal couple to come by (we waited about 1/2 hour).
The royal couple in a landau. Amazing RCMP horses!
We then went back to Major's Hill park and watched the program from the "jumbo tron".
Will gave a speach.
Catherine watched, and then the snowbirds flew over.
We enjoyed the activities, purchased a huge polish dog from a street vendor (delicious) and hung out until the amazing fireworks that evening.
Okay, so maybe the royals didn't spoil my fun as much as I thought they would...and it was kinda cool to see them (did I admit that?).
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