ONTARIO day one

There was no real culture shock going from Quebec to Ontario. The funny thing was - again - that at the border with Quebec a lot of things in Ontario were bilingual, where they were unilingual in Quebec. The first stops we made in Ontario were actually more the bilingual things i would have expected in Montreal. First up was a visit to the Upper Canadian Village and later on the day we arrived in Ottawa, the capital of Canada.

The Upper Canadian Village is a historical site, that shows how the people used to live in Ontario until not so long ago really. Just like in Val Jalbert, there were all kinds of actors who lived their character very well. I really tested their knowledge about the period they were supposed to be living in and all them surprised me with their knowledge. The shoemaker, the silvermaker, the farm girl, the doctor's assistant, ... They really had fun being this character from the past. I would have loved a summer job like that.

However, Val Jalbert was a much more authentic and unique place that this town. It was interesting, but I'm not sure I would recommend it as a must see thing. After all, the Upper Canadian Village didn't really differ that much from a the port villages I saw on a trip to the South of England for instance.

The drive from there to Ottawa was again flat farmland and thus very boring, but when we arrived in Ottawa, an incredibly small capital, we already felt a charm that we missed in Montreal. Our hotel was very close to the Parliament and bascially to the center of it all. Just outside of the hotel was the final night of a street performance festival, so we had fun watching those acts and we easily found the old market area, that has been transformed into the place to be and eat!