Day 55 June 30, 2011 Day off Ottawa

Initially we had planned to be in Ottawa on Tuesday and Wednesday, but after speaking with an anesthesia resident at the University of Ottawa, I was convinced that I could get more residents to volunteer if I came on Thursday instead of Tuesday. This still meant that I would go to Kingston on Wednesday but I would be in Ottawa on Thursday. This turned out to make a huge difference, but it had nothing to do with research.

Mike’s family friend works in the Governor General’s office and there was a possibility that I would be able to meet with the GG on Tuesday when I was in Ottawa. Having changed the date to Thursday, we managed to be in Ottawa for the arrival of Will and Kate, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Needless to say, the GG was not interested in seeing us today!

The most exciting news though is that Sarah, whom I haven’t seen since Newfoundland, had managed to get the weekend off and had flown to Ottawa to join us! She arrived just in time too, because after dropping her bag in our hotel we walked down to the National War Memorial near Parliament Hill as the motorcade for Will and Kate arrived.

We watched in awe as a phenomenal number of cars and motorcycles, lights flashing drove up the memorial. The streets were absolutely packed, but Sarah and I managed to weave our way up to just across from the memorial and we were able to see Will and Kate as they walked through the crowd back to their cars. The entire time we were standing there, all I heard was people talking about Kate. Could they see her, what was she wearing, how beautiful she looked etc… Not a single person was interested in the Prince.

We have been following a charity through Twitter called Five Hole For Food, who go around to different cities in Canada and set up street hockey games. The entry fee to play in the game is a can of food, their goal to raise as much food as possible. We have been communicating back and forth and happen to both be in Ottawa so we were going to try and stop by to play. As we were walking to where they were set up though it started pouring rain, and by the time we got there, the “rink” (fences) was still there and set up, but everyone had left.

Sarah, Mike and I then met up with Darren Fielder, a friend of mine from camp who I used to work with. Darren had just moved back to Ottawa after living in Calgary for a number of years. Darren showed us around Ottawa after dinner and we watched the rehearsal for Canada Day on the stage in front of Parliament Hill.

Tomorrow I get back on the road towards Toronto.