Open Doors Ottawa Part I...
Today was Open Doors Ottawa. There were a lot of buildings, both public and private, that were opened to the public today and tomorrow, that are normally closed.
So, I met up with Malaika and Meena (two other guides) at East Block today and we headed to the Connaught Building (the home of Revenue Canada). However, only the ground floor was open.
We then went to Notre Dame Cathedral, which was amazing! The pillars are made of wood, but painted to look like marble -and they do look exactly like marble. On the way out, we ran into Marc, another guide, and he joined us for the afternoon.
We then headed to Earnscliffe, the official residence of the British High Commissioner in Canada. In line, we ran into two of our supervisors, both named Katie. While waiting in line, I went off to one side to get a photo of the British flag. A British guy came up and said, "Can I help you?" I told him I wanted a photo of the British flag, so he said he`d take one of me and the flag. After going through the residence, and looking at some of the photos, I realised that was the British High Commissioner who took my photo! On the way out I saw him again, so I got a photo of us and the High Commissioner.
We then went to the NRC labs (National Research Council), and took a short tour through their buildings.
After, we headed to the French Embassy, which was very impressive, despite the outside being vastly ugly. All of the rooms are at least two stories high.
On our way back, we stopped by Canada and the World Pavilion, and there were four Canadian Olympic gold winning athletes, so we got our photo taken with Catriona LeMay Doan.
It was late afternoon so we decided to have lunch before meeting up with about 12 other guides for drinks. We went to the Blue Cactus where I had sangria and a huge plate of nachos. Mmmmm....