Happy Canada Day!

...was what everyone was shouting two days ago on the first of July. We were in Ottawa for the Canada Day celebrations and I gotta say it must have been the best day here so far. It was incredible to walk on the streets with what must have been hundreds of thousands of people. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if there were half a million folks there, the streets were just completely packed. Everyone wore either a Canada T-shirt or at the very least some red/white clothing. The weirdest thing was you didn't really see anyone totally 100% wasted - like everyone would have been had this thing been in Finland - not even in the middle of the night. Pretty amazing, eh? The atmosphere was simply unbelievable, everyone seemed just... I don't know... happy?

So we walked a lot again. We took an amphibus tour on the streets of Ottawa and along the Ottawa River. We watched the Snowbirds fly above us in formation and doing stunts. We ate candy apples made by the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory (holy cow was it messy). We sat on the grass at Parliament Hill watching/listening to Barenaked Ladies and other bands play. We waved Canadian flags. We witnessed probably the most beautiful fireworks I've ever seen. And, as the night went on, things only got better.

I'll upload a few pics when I have more time. Dan's going to be here any second now and it'll time for some board game awesomeness.

EDIT: OK, it took a while but I finally got around to uploading some Canada Day pics. Enjoyh!

So the day didn't start out too well, because...



...we ran into a furry, which...



...sometimes transformed into a Canadian zombie furry!! Why the children didn't wet themselves in fear is just beyond me.



Oh no! Moar furries! Ruuun!



So, since it was still morning there weren't that many folks on the streets. But as the day went on, more and more people appeared and in the afternoon it was already like this:



And this:



You might wanna click on the pics to see them in full size. After walking around for some time and having the first dissapointing meal in Canada, we went on the Amphi-Bus tour. Here are some pics from the tour:



This is the Museum of Civilization methinks. It's one of the most popular museums in Canada. We didn't go.



Now they're pretty big on ice hockey here, so I was surprised this was the first statue of an ice hockey player I've seen.



Oh nooooo we're gonna drownn heeeeeeeelp! Apparently one of these things actually did sink a while ago, but hush hush don't talk about it ok?



A pic I took while the bus was floating along the Ottawa river. Looks a bit like Jyväskylä. There's a bike path going along the river, looked like a really nice place to go for some biking/walking/rollerskating. Anyway, moving on.



There were some street performers. This dude was pretty funny, pretty talented and pretty creative when it came to collecting money from the folks watching the show.



Yes, even dogs were donning red and white. I don't know what to say.



This furry was educating people about the horrors of baby seal clubbing. Yeah, apparently some folks here show how big manly men they are by clubbing baby seals to death. I guess nothing makes women want to have your babies more than boasting about bashing in some baby seal skulls.



So this pic is from the Parliament Hill. That's where the main(?) concert was held, well I'm pretty sure it was the main one, there were others in at least 2-3 parks around the town. But as you can see, there were already quite a lot of people there and the concert hadn't even started yet. They had a nice countdown going though:



This I found rather puzzling:



The water fountain was literally on fire. Makes you wonder what they put into the water around here. Put on your tin foil hats, people.

Now in the next pic the fine, handsome gentlemen aren't the point. Yes yes, I know they are well-groomed individuals to the highest degree, but try to ignore that for a second and instead look closely at the roof behind the handsome gentlemen. What do you see?



Yes, snipers! For a second there I thought I was in Uhmerikuh! No terrorists here, though, just all kinds of happy folks, gays, hippies, liberals and San Francisco liberals. Live and let live, eh? I'm lovin' it.



So finally the show started.



Then finally the Barenaked Ladies hopped onto the stage. I had another pic of their concert, but seems like it has vanished somewhere into the deepest pits of the editor. And at this point it'd take ages to get it back here, so no thanks. After the concert there was fireworks, but as the quality of my camera is what it is, I decided to skip taking pics this time and just concentrate on the show. Didn't regret it.