Ottawa trip - relief from home sickness

After coming to Montreal, homesickness was killing me. With French language and non-veg food everywhere and no friends, no parents, nowhere to go i was just waiting for weekend to run to Ottawa to meet Sharath (my RV classmate)...booked my tickets on Greyhound and took 7 am bus to reach there by 9:20am..it was raining all along.I met a french girl on board who was very nice and was sharing her experiences of her Bangalore an Mysore trip. I didnt know where to take the bus, didnt have the map either and all i had was his address. I went and asked a security person at bus station and he guided me, but i couldnt get the right bus stand so came back to ask him again. He then dropped me to nearest bus station in his car as he was going same direction and asked me to take bus No.85 from there.

It was my first time in local bus at Canada and didnt know how to buy ticket or request stop. I gave 4 dollars to driver, but she refused to take it from anyone that day(i dont know if they have free service in early morning), then i requested her to inform me when the stops come and got down and walked my way to Sharath's house. It was one big relief for me to see a known face and talk to him in our language. Just relaxed for a while and planned our trip for the next 2 days.



We took a bus and reached Dow's lake to see the tulip garden. Though the tulip fest was over last month, the flowers were still good enough to take pics. Then we went to Canadian Parliment house and clicked few snaps there. The fountain with fire in the middle caught our attention a lot. Then we moved to Rideau canal, where they allow ice skating in winter, but now being summer there was no activity. From there we saw Ottawa city hall and met a very nice old lady who guided us about Rideau falls and Rockcliff gardens. we decided to cover those areas on next day as it was quite far. We then went to Bayshore (where lot of wipro guys stay and there is a nice shopping center). We were tired at the end of day and bored of eating burgers, so came home and made some rice and sambar and enjoyed the feast.


Next day morning we tried our hands at making Rava dosa (which obvi tasted good) and then took a bus to Brittania shore. It was a nice shore on Ottawa river which was very wide and resembled a sea shore with a spit, yatches and water skiing around. We spent quite sometime there taking pictures and then came back to bus with freezing hands (due to cold wind on spit). We went to Rideau falls from there (which took sometime for us to figure out as it was behind a building). It was very small but resembled Niagara falls. It is joining point of Rideau river to Ottawa river. Rockcliff garden is a area where Canadian prime minister and other dignitaries stay and it was a very quite and posh area. We then went back to Carlingwood mall from there for lunch and i ended up eating a egg fried rice thinking it was veg fried rice (food in canada is always dangerous for veggies). Went back home and took some rest before i had say good bye to Sharath and move back to Montreal at 9pm. I started to feel homesick again :(...