It all started with a Facebook lady who bootlegs people across Ontario and over the boarder to the US, & shows them some common natural wonders, accepting gratitude in green paper form only.

I have always wanted to see Ottawa (its the capital, after all), and even booked my US B2 visa appointment there.

Apparently, Ottawa was never really interested in seeing me in return, because every time my trip would cancel, or postpone, or the time would just not be the best one.

Although, last time it was “the best one” was probably during Mesozoic era. I just think our world would be its better self without humans. Just saying.

Lets step aside from Mesozoic era back to the lady from Facebook. So she posted about this Tulip festival in Ottawa, and I was like – yea, lets go, I have always wanted to see tulips. Never seen these flowers before, eh.

ANYWAY.

I sent the link to my friend, she sent it to her friends, and so there were 5 of us who all drove to Centennial GO train station, left the cars there, and conveniently hopped in one of the guys’ car. I was late to the meetup because they all just entered Centennial GO in Google Maps, whereas I used exact address which led me to some other dimension spot.

A 4 hour drive is pleasurable enough if you are not the driver of course 🙂 Then making it pleasurable becomes a little tricky.

Tulip festival started from a peculiar occasion during World War 2, when the hospital room of the Ottawa Civic Hospital was declared Dutch territory such that Princess Margriet (born there) would still be considered royal blood. To show their gratitude, Dutch have been sending Canada 100,000 since then each year, the so called Tulip Legacy.

I do not think the Facebook lady would prefer tulip gratitude over some green paper gratitude, but you never know.

One thing to note – there were not 100,000 flowers. Raised in Europe, I forgot that for any Canadian event, you gotta lower down your expectations. Unfortunately, anything of such sort here would be on a lower scale, and here is an example. A country-wide tulip festival, so crowded on a gloomy rainy Saturday that they brought police cars patrolling the streets, is not any bigger or fancier then any regular blooming Central Park in Europe in the middle of spring. See below, & please do take into account that I tried to take pictures making tulip beds look bigger than they are. Technically, any picture’s top edge aligns with where the people were, so I just cut them off.

And even though I did not find a place to buy some tulip bulbs, the walk was a nice one. We were picking some folks we knew for sure we could chase, to take a picture of us.

Up next was the Parliament Hill. Turns out, they do offer FREE tours inside, and on weekends as well. For those, you need to sign up in advance, and show up on time, neither of which we did. Right, because why would we, if one day it might be our office 🙂 Dream big or go home!

We got some dinner and set out to our AirBnb home, which was somewhere on the edge of the world. It worked out nicely as we got started with some beer, which with some horror stories, slowly turned itself into Irish liquor.

It was all fun and games until we found there was no warm water in the house and we warmed up the pots and pans to shower. Nostalgia of any kid who grew up starting from 1990s and till probably 2010. Some battery powered flashlight would complete the picture.

I was so drunk I set my calculator alarm for 7:00 pm next day, not AM, but still overslept only 10 minutes.

We were in time to see the Smith Falls (small town south of Ottawa with, you guessed – some falls) and board a cruise ship which took us on a tour around Kingston waters. Its amazing and shocking how many ships sank in lake Ontario, and how many people drowned during different construction projects. Along the shore, there is 3 or 4 of the defense towers left (out 18) which helped protect the town against Americans in 1800s. Their cone shaped roof would also be removed.

Today is the Long Weekend, and I am sitting here, writing my blog and helplessly trying to fight Docker Desktop which would not run unless I install their paid version because “Windows containers not supported”, wishing so desperately to be somewhere on the coasts of Nova Scotia… or Cuba 🙂

19.05.2024