French, French, French!! We must be in Quebec! All the street signs on this side of the river are in French only, whereas on the Ontario side they are in both languages. In the Civilization Museum both languages are used, but the French signs are above the English. Had to retrain my eyes to look in the right place. The exterior curved walls of this museum reminds me of the Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. Here's a photo taken from across the river on Parliament Hill and one close-up. The other is of the Grand Hall featuring the culture of native peoples on Canada's west coast. Lots of beautiful totem poles.
I am ashamed to say that I know almost nothing about Canadian history so this is a good place to start. One of the galleries featured biographies of twenty influential Candians and the only one I knew was Pierre Treudeau. While I was reading, a young woman came up and asked if I had any questions. We started chatting and she has just graduated college with a degree in history and is working here this summer. I confessed my ignorance and we had a nice discussion about how intertwined American and Canadian history was in the 1700 and 1800s with our effort to get the French to join us in the Revolution and the War of 1812, and the parallels of their railroad opening their west to development.
I also commented on the multi-culturalism of Ottawa. In a 2 block area near downtown I had seen Persian, Ethiopian, East African, Indian, and Japanese restaurants. I asked about Mexican and she told us about a restaurant on Bank Street in Glebe. We hadn’t noticed it on the way into town, but with that recommendation, we found it and stopped for dinner. We sat in the patio on the street and watched the busy activity. The food was quite good and we went home happy with our first day in Ottawa.
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