Cycling Trip - Day 9

August 24th
Ottawa: showtime

A pretty early start to get to St. Andrew's Presbyterian church for 10am. We decided to go there because they advertised an Iona service, and our thoughts travelled back to a year ago. However, the weather was gloomy. The church service kinda was too. The sermon inspired neither of us (it was crap) but S didn't walk out. We seriously wondered if he'd pulled out the wrong sermon by mistake as he started with, "Nearly 50 years ago, at the start of this century..." Huh? There was no eucharist or gospel reading and lots of pessimism about the youth of today. A member of the congregation did a nice job singing 'The Beatitudes" and our own singing wasn't bad either. We didn't linger for social time, but seemed like a nice community.

Then the sun had come out and we went to a walk-in medical clinic to deal with the poison ivy. It made the Hamilton health scene seem idyllic. S was the pawn in a power-struggle between the doctor and receptionist, which took much longer than we would have liked.

We had lunch at Zack's with a mega-milkshake then raced to Gray's tour bus hop-on point to get to Rideau Hall. Funny moment when P was reading in the folder about the thousands of trees, some of which were planted by foreign dignitaries. We look over to the nearest tree that turns out to be planted by Koningin Beatrix (of the Netherlands)!

We took turns for our make-overs changing in the bathroom of a restaurant. P wore a yellow dress, white shoes with flowers & had a beautiful hair-do. S wore a tie, shirt, belt, pants & cool shoes. We walked across the street to the National Arts Centre and sat in the Governor General's box seats, complete with a picture of Queen Elizabeth II at the entry door.

The show Wicked was Oz-some! Great time, great costumes, sets and lighting, great music, great seats, great anniversary! Of course everyone thought we were foreign dignitaries being hosted by the Governor General. Or at least we had fun acting that way.

We changed back into our normal clothes and caught a bus back to our bikes, and rode back to the campsite. But first we creatively deposited our outfits. P's hanging in a tree & S's lying on a sidewalk all done up. We were back "home" by midnight.

What a day! Thanks Ottawa!