James Tucker in Cov

All the good weather and luck I had built up in Kingston evaporated the second I headed north to Ottawa to get my UK visa sorted out. The morning was nice, but by lunch, when I'd left the High Commission and had some time for sight-seeing, it was raining rather hard. Getting around Ottawa was an absolute nightmare, largely because the system of one-way streets really clogs when people park across the intersections, which seems to happen rather a lot. I got a look at the By-Ward market, where they charge $7 for a lunch-time pint, and at the giant spider in front of the national gallery. ( I wish that national museums would take a cue from the UK and drop admission fees, though).
I headed around to Parliament, which looked pretty good on top of its multicoloured hill, and did what little of the tour was open that day (ie. going up the Peace Tower, then back down), but that at least allowed me to dry off before making the long, long walk to the new Canadian War Museum, which is excellent, even if it is out of the way. The current exhibition on the Seven Years War is really quite something.
And then I trudged back in the rain to try and find a cab, got stuck in yet more gridlock, missed my bus home, caught another cab to the train station (dinner having been abandoned), and then got to sit on a Via rail train for an hour and change as it tried to tow another train (!) near Brockville. So, I've not got a lot of kind things to say about Ottawa, except that I'm sure it's nicer in the sunshine, and that their hockey team is finally playing to its potential (ie 5-7).