It would appear I've been thrown in jail

The entrance to my "room"

Right so I went to Ottawa for a few days, it seemed a pretty cool place although kind of icy and really pretty chilly. There isn't a lot of stuff there but I got the feeling it was a pretty nice city, just had a good atmosphere. I had a nice look at the Canadian Parliament buildings, where you can go on a free tour, pretty sure that wouldn't happen back home. They did confiscate my belt though, as it was studded, I'm not sure what they thought I could do with it but presumably some pretty serious damage. So it's this big symmetrical building with one side being for the Commons and the other the senate, no Queen related stuff is allowed in the Commons. There is also a peace tower, apparently the largest peace monument in the world, so just stereotypical Canada there. The views from it would've been awesome but unfortunately it was a little cloudy and snowing. I should also point out that I stayed in a hostel that had previously been a jail, so I was sleeping in a cell which was different.

The Houses of Parliament, Canada style

I also went and visited some friends in a place called Perth, it's kind of small and spread out if that makes sense. Did manage to have this really nice meal of all local food though which was pretty cool. I also got a proper Canadian experience, driving to the middle of nowhere in the dark during a blizzard to get to a party. This was made all the more interesting by a suicidal deer that decided to jump in front of us, fortunately for both parties concerned we missed it (of course there I have changed my assumption about the deer being suicidal). Anyhow got drunk during a blizzard so that was cool. The next day there was an extra foot of snow or so, it just makes England's attempts look pitiful.

Quebec cunningly chosing cloud cover

Queen Victoria looks at her lovely library

The House of Commons, Canada style

Now for a little rant about trains, because I'm English and that's what we do. Now I wouldn't say the system back home is great but they seem to have decided to make it far worse out here. The main problem I feel is that for some bizarre reason they seem to think it should be like getting a plane, with a queue to board and sometimes checked baggage as well. Now this can lead to a train spending over half an hour waiting at a platform, why can't people just wait on the platforms and get on and off when the train arrives, it's crazy. However the trains are pretty spacious with free wifi so that makes up some of it. But being delayed for an hour so no apparent reason: signalling, train broke down, "someone on the line", etc. is just preposterous.