Ottawa, Canada

We arrived in the capital city of Canada on the 9th October after a four hour train journey. Selina - please see the train picture taken just for you!!!

Ottawa is a fantastic city. It has only been capital since 1867 when Queen Victoria choose it for its extensive waterways and it's location. Ottawa is surrounding by a lot of land and forests meaning it would be difficult to invade and give ample time for a response. This is the reason we love Ottawa - it is beautiful. As it is Autumn the leaves on the trees are red, yellow and orange and they surround some fantastic architecture.

On our first day we walked eight flippin miles!!! This was to get to a country park where we thought it would be nice to eat lunch plus Tony was dying to feed some ducks!!! Once we finally got there it was another 1000 miles to actually get in the centre of it. We did wonder why everyone had bikes. We decided to cut our losses and eat lunch by the lake and walk back!

While in Ottawa we had a boat trip along the river which was really interesting as well as a trip to the Museum of Civilisation which was brilliant. We learnt about the history of Canada and the influences of the French and English of the Aboriginals that existed before the Europeans discovered Canada. Apparently the French didn't realise how big Canada was and had they have realised they would never have let England take over.

We have also had a tour of Parliament hall which included seeing the Canadian house of commons, the press room and the Parliament's library as well as travelling up the tower. There is an elegant room in the building dedicated to the Canadian royal family which was strange to us because clearly they are the English royal family. The Queen still has to sign all bills which pass through Parliament here.

As Tony loves his art we took a trip to the gallery.

While walking the streets of Ottawa Emily found a statue of a different Emily - This Emily fought for the women to be recognised as persons so they could work in Parliament and vote and she won. Emily was happy to pose next to her with her sign reading 'Women are persons'. (Coming soon, Photo is still on the camera!!)

It is in Ottawa that we experienced our first Thanksgiving. We had a brilliant time.We gave the hostel $7 and they put on a fantastic spread. There was enough food to feed the 5000!! We had turkey, beef, stuffing, veg, pasta, rice and every kind of cake you can think of. We played board games with the Aussies and the Germans and we lost badly!!! Then we all watched Love Actually and got drunk!!!!

Toronto, Canada

Tony and Emily have arrived in Toronto. Today we have been up in the CN tower and been around the town. Toronto is much like London. It was a good place to start. However finding a supermarket was a nightmare!! Once we did find one we was shocked by the fact that we couldn't get the right portion sizes - everything is huge. Instead of buying pasta sauce for two we have to buy it for six (by British standards anyhow). In addition alcohol is not sold in supermarkets. Tony is out trying to find the only place that sells beer (apparently it is twenty minutes walk away).

As Emily has great organisation skills we have also been to the train station today and booked our train ticket to Ottawa (the next stop). We leave on Toronto on Thursday.

We have done the falls and before we went to them we visited a vineyard and Tony got drunk on testers!!!

The falls were brilliant. We went up to the falls in a boat and we got soaked by the spray. It was really funny. As you can probably expect Emily found the Hershey store almost instantly but she was good as she didn't buy anything.

After the falls we went to see a village which has been preserved. It is like going back in time. They will not allow anyone to open up fast food chains there as they want to keep it looking prestine. However we managed to find some Ben and Jerry's ice cream (Yay for us).

We have been to an island off Toronto which was beautiful. Tony fed the ducks. However it rained today so that was a bit of a let down. We have looking forward to leaving Toronto for Ottawa as it is mean't to be a really amazing city.

Me and Tony have met people in the hostel. Last night we spent the eveing with a man from Brazil. He told us about South American and that we shouldn't worry about Peru, Argentina or Chile but Bolivia is a worry. Gun crime is high. However apparently they have a new president who is tough on crime. His usual respone is "kill him' so hopefully all the bad guys should be dead by the time we arrive!!

Also while Emily was making pancakes this morning (we get free coffee and pancakes every morning) She met a girl from Sweden and a guy from Manchester. They were well travelled and interesting to talk too.

Sri Lanka

Tony has just accidentally deleted 4 hours worth of blog update in a single click. Hes not happy as there is no time to do it all over again before Canada!