ByWard Cafe

 

May 2025 - Ottawa ON - Toronto ON

Ottawa ON

Saturday Day 2 Ottawa

It was meant to be a totally rainy washout, but we lucked out.

It was pouring at 9 but as we were doing a city bus tour we didn't mind. We had one stop at the Canadian War Museum.

Some photos from the bus.

Maman, the spider at the Art Gallery of Canada. John immediately thought of the Barcelona spider which I happened to post last Weekend Roundup!!

The rain stopped when we reached the Tulip Festival!

The Canadian Tulip Festival (French: Festival Canadien des Tulipes; Dutch: Canadees Festival van de Tulp) is a tulip festival held annually each May. The festival claims to be the world's largest tulip festival, displaying over one million tulips, with attendance of over 650,000 visitors annually. Large displays of tulips are planted throughout the city, the largest of which are often in Commissioners Park on the shores of Dow's Lake, and along the Rideau Canal with 300,000 tulips planted there alone.

The festival is a cultural and historical aspect of the special Canada–Netherlands relationship, having originated with commemorative donations of tulips to Canada from the Netherlands for Canadian actions during World War II, when Canadian forces led the liberation of the Netherlands and hosted the Dutch royal family in exile. The Netherlands continues to send 20,000 bulbs to Canada each year (10,000 from the royal family and 10,000 from the Dutch Bulb Growers Association).

Back on the bus for ByWard Market where we have the afternoon to ourselves, the bus took some back to the hotel immediately and also came back at 1:30 for any others wanting a ride.

The ByWard Market (French: Marché By), is a retail and entertainment district in the downtown core of Ottawa. We had lunch and then strolled around.

We took the bus back and then went for a stroll AND the sun came out.

We stepped into the Supreme Court of Canada, after a vigorous security screening, John even had to drink from his water bottle.

We visited the Bank of Canada Museum.

As we left for the included Oh Canada Eh dinner and show the skies opened again with torrential downpours.

The show was the highlight of the evening. In the middle is Vince, one of our guides, they always get their man!!

Sunday Day 3 Ottawa

Surprise! It was raining but it was also cold! But, again, we were spending the morning indoors at a museum.

Back at the hotel we grabbed a quick lunch before heading out for a river cruise, and it stopped raining! BUT it is COLD, feeling like 2 C or 36 F!!!

Being suckers for punishment we went for a walk when we got back.

On our way it had gotten so windy and cold that we cancelled our Joey's reservation and settled for something close by. We have Joey's in Toronto so can go there anytime. We had a delicious dinner at Brown Social House.

Monday Day 4 Ottawa

Monday Mural Camara de Lobos Portugal.

The bus pulled away from the hotel at 11:45 AM, no rain! 

It would be 7:15 PM when we pulled into the Burlington parking lot.

We had a 30 minute coffee/bathroom break and a 45 minute break at the Big Apple. It is the first long weekend of summer and the sun finally came out so it was packed!! We've been here before.

We picked up our car and were home around 8.

Tuesday we treated like our usual Saturday and lazed around. We started watching MC Australia and had apple pie and ice cream for lunch!

Signs from Porto Portugal

Wednesday it is STILL raining so golf was cancelled. John took a trip to Longo's with me. 

More binge watching, this time with chips and coke!

Thursday RAINING.

I was fooling around and up popped Gemini, a generative artificial intelligence chatbot developed by Google. These drive me crazy. Instead of writing what I really wanted to say, I said "go away".

This was Gemini's response, we laughed and laughed.

Friday some rain and a picket line, CUPE union, I'm guessing postal workers as I headed to Longo's for vegetables.

COOKING/EATING

Saturday OTTAWA Oh Canada Eh dinner

Sunday OTTAWA Brown Social House

Monday OTTAWA  toasted sandwiches 

Tuesday chicken a la orange 

Wednesday frozen gluten free sole chips and coleslaw

Thursday hamburger patties, gravy, mashed potatoes and beans. TIP I used packaged gravy but instead of water, I used red wine beef stock.

Friday steak baked potato chimichurri and roasted fennel . No chimichurri, I bought parsley instead!

WATCHING

A Working Man  Levon Cade left his profession behind to work construction and be a good dad to his daughter. But when a local girl vanishes, he's asked to return to the skills that made him a mythic figure in the shadowy world of counter-terrorism. Any movie with Jason Statham is a good watch! Movie was made in 2025 and there is a subtle scene when we see the Russian gangsters and as we leave their building there is a Ukraine mural painted on the wall.

We are binge-watching MasterChef Australia Season 17 episodes 1 to 15, now we have to wait!

I went back to Call the Midwife.

We watched to latest The Handmaid's Tale episode, only one more to go!

Who Killed Garrett Phillips?  is a 2019 two-part documentary. It delves into the 2011 murder of 12-year-old Garrett Phillips in Potsdam, New York, and the subsequent investigation and trial of Oral "Nick" Hillary, a Jamaican man and ex-boyfriend of Garrett's mother, Tandy Cyrus. The documentary examines the complexities of the case, highlighting issues of racial bias and prosecutorial misconduct.

He opted for a bench trial and was ultimately acquitted. During the trial, it was revealed that public state prosecutor Mary E. Rain withheld exculpatory evidence from the defense. This, along with other instances of professional misconduct, led to Rain being banned for two years from practicing law.

READING

I read Life Sentence introduces a new kind of forensic heroine - a crime-solving Goth-girl mortuary technician who talks to the dead. The tension builds up nicely through the story, with plenty of little shocks along the way that kept me turning those pages.