East to Ottawa

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Ottawa is a cool city. There are so many beautiful buildings, like the old old Parliament buildings and the cathedrals. The art galleries and museums are famous and heaps of good musicians came out of Ottawa. Like Alanis Morisette! (I know I said good..) It's been wintery weather but the streets are usually filled with people doing going about their day. I came here to check out a local music festival, Westfest to see Ember Swift play...

I've finally arrived in Ottawa. Today I just feel like falling asleep. It's rainy outside and I'm enjoying not doing a whole lot. Ottawa is the city which has the most French culture that I've seen so far. There are gothicy-looking cathedrals and other buildings and I've heard quite a few french speakers. (I stopped briefly in Toronto on my way here but that doesn't rate a mention yet as I'm going to stay there for a week during pride festival in mid-June.) I caught the greyhound here which was relaxing, just looking out the window at the countryside and doing nothing. Then I made my way over to the hostel, feeling rather worn out and very relieved that this was not a 'party hostel'. It's in a cute little house with old couches on the porch, the staff are actually nice and showed me around and the rooms are fairly nice as dorms go. There is a back patio and a big lounge room so it feels like being at home. It reminds me of an old French house I saw in a movie.

here for westfest

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Last night the museums and art galleries were free so I checked out the National Art Gallery. I only had an hour which is no way near enough so I mainly checked out the contemporary art. Some of it was pretty amazing stuff and most was downright bizarre... like the giant baby's head that looked so so real. That was done by a Melbourne guy. Most of what I looked at weren't paintings but strange abstract abstractions. (Is that a word?) The random felt display was just a bunch of felt that was displayed in the way it had randomly fallen, so everytime it's displayed somewhere new it's displayed in whatever way it happens to fall. Then there were of course the blank canvasses and the pile of metal plates. Whatever, I'm no art buff and I'm not going to try to be all cultural and shit but some of those displays weren't 'art' to me.

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This French guy had put together the front page of a newspaper, supposed to mirror a real French paper. The page consisted of a photo of him leaping out the 2nd storey of a house and an article and quote to go with it. He apparently believed he could fly and had a fasincation with flying and judo. The photo was real: he actually did leap out of a house and was badly injured (uh der)but this was a re-creation or re-enactment. This time his judo friends were poised to catch him but he edited them out of the photo later on. I don't think he used photoshop because this was a few years ago. I liked this one though; at least the guy put some effort into it. It's definitely one of the more unusual ways to get your work displayed in a gallery. Hmm, maybe I could display something, I'm sure I'm weird enough.

ottawa backpackers
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Another funny exhibit was the TV with headphones. I just happend to pick the most bizarre probably. It was just some woman dressed in black doing sign language and looking very german as she talked about being 'the messiah of the shopping centre'. Then she started talking in a slowed down demonic voice and the lips were going really slow and her mouth was really ugly and it was all about the messiah in the shopping centre brainwashing people to buy, buy, buy. Well, that's obvious. But next time I'm in a mall I will be very, very, scared.

I think Ottawa would be nice to see in the winter. I've seen photos of people ice-skating down the Rideau canal and all the buildings and snow just make it look romantic. But I'm yet to see Montreal or Quebec City!!

I'm actually here for Westfest, which is a free music festival of Canadian and mainly local musicians and writers and artists on this weekend. Ember Swift is playing!! Yay. That will mean I've already seen 3 of my favourite bands in the last 2 months. It seems to be a good city for music, plus they have a ladyfest on every year in September.

PART 2// ember swift and her advice for me

ember's website

Today it is as cold as a Melbourne Winter!! I made it to Westfest though and saw Ember and Lyndell pull off another cool show. It was good to see them play and I spoke to Ember afterwards to say hi and make sure I haunt her all over again. She once said I had a haunting face and each time I approach her (which is on average about once a year) she always looks at me funny and asks if she knows me. This time she said I was out of context cos she was remembering i was from Australia and was trying to place me. Anyway I felt like a total groupie but why hide from the truth. It's not like I hesitated about going over to her like I maybe would have in the past. It's like travelling sometimes gives you a new confidence and you aren't as scared to talk to new (or semi-famous) people. She gave me a hint about which city I should decide to live in after explaining that Toronto is cool (in a way) and that Ottawa has its own kind of cool, she said, "I think Montreal is the one!" So that has me decided, almost... !

After the show I didn't hang around Westfest as it was a bit too community oriented if you get what I mean. I then went to check out the Parliament buildings in the city and walked along the canal. I also sneaked into a museum so I could go to their loo. All this fascinating information that you probably don't need to know.