canada day weekend, part 2.

If you haven't already read part 1 of this Canada Day Weekend series, you can find it here.

On Sunday, which was CANADA DAY (!!!), I drove to Chinatown for church and just left my car there all day. It was the first time I didn't bus downtown for Canada Day! I'm not sure if my day felt authentic or not! Haha, I'm kidding. Bussing is an adventure in itself as you see some of the most excited people on the bus, but having a car made the day more relaxed. It would be hard to take the bus with a large group and not lose people.

After church, we headed downtown and walked along the canal, showing our guests some of the sights along the way including City Hall, the convention centre, Rideau Centre, the NAC, and stopping to watch some buskers. First we went to the National Art Gallery where we only made it through the Canadian exhibit (you could spend all day at the art gallery).

Afterwards, we headed to Major's Hill Park where there were lots of people relaxing and lots of vendors.. including PC who gave out free ice cream! Noms. Perfect for a hot day!

At this point we had a group of over 20 people, so we split up for dinner which would have otherwise been impossible. My group had shawarma before heading to Parliament Hill to catch Simple Plan (and other acts). Phone service in the downtown core started to go very in and out at about this point, probably because it was such a busy crazy weekend. Once you split up, there was very little chance of meeting back up again.

I split up with yet another group and we went out for drinks (I was so feeling a beer all day, which is funny because I'm not generally a beer drinker.. but realized at this point that maybe it wasn't a good idea because I was driving home) and we ended up catching the fireworks on the street near the American Embassy. Totally fine for me since I do see the fireworks every year. (Personally, I think the best places to see the fireworks are any place near the art gallery- Major's Hill, up on the hill beside the gallery etc etc)

At about 10:30pm, I got about 8 texts that were clearly sent at some point earlier in the day (some saying "just finished dinner, where are you?" and "what time are the fireworks?" etc) but luckily this also meant that it wasn't hard to meet back up with the rest of our group and drive home.

All in all, an exhausting but patriotic day! A happy happy Canada Day!!

part 1 | part 2 | part 3