Ottawa, the last two weeks

Since we have come back from Montreal we have been busy doing not much, we have been out for a roller blade and bike ride, and looked in shops for winter clothes.
I have been working at Stations 51 and 13 for the long shift(what a stupid idea that is) Sunday of the 24 hour shift the station i was at 51 and had 14 calls for the day, and the station i am normally at had 34 calls!! I have still not been to a fire but am meeting lots of people. Today i ever got to go into a big room where we were told that anything we saw in the room stays in the room.
And not the mention we got to go for a tour of the Cirque Du Soleil tents and set up yesterday.
Sarah is still looking for a job, has applied for some but is still waiting to hear back.
The weather is starting to change with the days being cooler and the nights starting to get down to around 4 degrees, but not much rain which is good, the leaves on the trees are starting to change as we move towards autumn which is really neat to see for us.

Last week end we headed out to a small town called Carp and looked at the Diefenbunker, it is a cold war nuclear bunker build for the prime minister of Canada in the event of a nuclear war back in the 60-70 when every one was worried about it. It was an interesting place to visit, different that is for sure, the bunker was build and used up to the mid 1990s as a secure listening post after the cold war finished, the tour took you though the different levels and showed you the kind of things and equipment that they would have used to survive for what they thought would be about 30 days, dreamers.....
After the bunker we headed to Mike's mums for dinner with his younger sister and boyfriend also coming so got to meet some more of the family.

As for things to come, we are off to Quebec City on Friday for 6 days and hoping to see lots, also trying to decide where we want to go for holidays over the next year.....
But you will have to keep reading to find out where we are planning on going.

Montreal

We figured we had better write about Montreal before we did the next big trip.
Well it has been almost a month since we went to Montreal but here are the highlights.
On the 8Th Sept we drove north to Montreal, and stopped in to meet Kathy's aunt Jacqueline who had offered to let us stay with her. we then dropped off our bags at her apartment and headed into the city.
The first thing we notices was the driving, it was almost indescribable, no in dictating and random lane changing, luckily we had been warned.
We went to the info centre in town and then looked around. It was big.
We decided that as town was busy we went for a drive and headed to Mount Royal and drove around the Cimetiere Notre-Dame-Des for a bit and got lost people from the Titanic where bury here. Then we went and looked at St Joseph Oratory, the place was Hugh, it went up the side of the hill and as you headed into it you got further up the hill. Then back to Jacquelines place for dinner and to talk about New Zealand as she was heading there for January.
The 9Th was a rainy day so we decided to head into the city and go and look at the under ground city, the first thing we did was get lost...
After we figured things out we wondered around for over halve the day under the streets of Montreal looking at shops.
We then decided to head over to La Ronde the adventure park but was only open on the weekends but the rides all looked good, we also looked at the site of the 1967 world expo, and managed to get lost and end up at the casino not that we spent any money.
Next we headed over to the stadium from the Olympics in 1976 i think, the stadium was strange looking but we did not do the tour as was not really our thing.
The 10th the weather was nice so we headed into the city to wall around the area known as old Montreal. We found the info centre in the old city a brought a walking tour map and headed on our Merry way looking at the old buildings and everything else there was to see.
The area was amazing and some of the buildings were old, one next to Notre-Dame Basilica was build in the late 1600.
The church was very nice inside, not being big church people was decided to look in anyway and were glad we did, the inside of the church was very colourful, and the front was amazing to see.
We then headed down to the water front to look before meeting Elizabeth and Robert, friends of Kathy's for drinks and dinner.
We plan on doing some more trips to Montreal and looking around more and look at things near the city as well, Jacqueline said we were more than welcome anytime so we figured we will have to take her up on that offer.

Montreal

Work for Fraser

I start on shift on Thursday night at Station 13 for my three nights, i started on the ladder but was changed to the pump about 30 minutes later, we had dinner and i got the hang of things.
Then i got a bucket of water tipped on me. I had been told about this, so figured it would come sooner or later.
The calls soon started and in total we had about 10 calls between 7pm and 12am mostly med calls and mostly homeless drunks, with the odd false alarm thrown in.
Friday night similar thing we had about 8 calls and again med calls this time no false alarms just med calls, the guys are really helpfully with the med calls and helping me get up to speed and it helps that the pump driver was a paramedic before he joined the fire service. and yes they tried to get me with water again but saw it coming this time so avoided that.
Saturday night and we are into the same things but started with a VSA(vital signs absent), this was different from home as i guess here the paramedics have to be seen to do as much as they can, which meant us doing CPR for about 40 minutes, and them doing their thing.

Good things i have found about work already, learning new things, driving through the Byward Markets at night on the weekend(all the good night spots), and the fact that where ever you go the humor is just the same, remembering to close your window when you drive past another fire engine, and don't stand out the front of the station unless you want a bucket of water on you.

Monday 1st Labour Day

Monday 1st Labor Day.
Today we decided to get out and see some

of the city in a different way, we pumped

up the tires on mike and Kathy’s bikes

and put them on the back of the car and

headed to the Alexandra bridge parked

the car and rode the biked along the

Rideau Canal.

We rode up the eastern side of the canal

all the way to hogs back falls and then

back down to the first lock where we

crossed over to the other side and headed

back to the river.
The whole canal was nice to ride along, it

was flat all the way up and back down and

being a holiday lots of people were doing

the same thing.
Once back to the Ottawa river we rode

along the track below parliament buildings

up to the bridge crossed over and then

headed back down to the Alexandra bridge

and back to the car.
We had prefect day and even managed to

get sun burnt.

And as for the picture of the purple people with the couch, well it has been frosh week here for the uni student.

We also court up with Frances and John, Frasers aunty and uncle from Christ church they were doing a tour though the US and canada, so we meet them at the museum of civilisation and walked around and talked before they headed of to Montreal. It was good to see them.

The other big news i almost forgot

we went and brought roller blades,

shock horror, exercise..........

Saturday 31st August

Today was the second day of the Gatineau hot

air ballon festival, so we decided to spend the afternoon wondering and looking at the festival.

We arrived at about 2pm the hotest time of the day and was it hot. We had timed it so we could watch the air force sky divers and then watch all the hot air balloons take off.

There was so many people, we walked around and looked at the carival games, just like the summer show at home but more of them.

We then went and found a good spot in the

shade, not that there was much, and watched

all the balloons inflate and take off, there was

heapes of them. Most balloon i have ever

seen in one place.
We then went and found some good healthy

food to eat for dinner before talking to the

firefighters from the Gatineau city dept.

By this time even more people had turned up

so we found a sit and watched the interesting

shaped ballons fill up thinking they were going

to flight somewhere. But no they stay there

until it got dark and some of the other balloons

returned ands set up as well and then they all

did a light show to music.

As the music played different ballons would

light the flames, very spectauar at night that's

for sure.

Friday 30th August

Friday was a slow day around here, being so hot. We took up an invitation from Kathy's dad to drive us around a bit and show us some of the shops, so off we went to the MEC(outdoor store) and then to IKEA. The ikea was huge just walking through not really looking for anything in general took about 20 minutes. after that we all headed out for lunch.
After lunch and a bit of a sit down we both decided to go to the war museum, it was huge.
We ended up getting kick out at closing time having only see half the museum, and we had
spent 3 hours at that point.
Some of the exhibits where amazing, like the picture of me in the ground of four, that is a dead German soldier in the mud in front of me...

Next stop we drive around town and looked at some stuff and Sarah took lots of pictures, also looked at where i was to start work on the 4Th, station 13. Not sure why but most of the pictures on here are churches.

Home for dinner and then back to the Ottawa side to watch the fire works from the hot air balloon festival, the firer works where amazing better then what we normally see at home. Then went for over an hour in total, the pictures don't really do it justice.



The last picture i have included is of the car we drive around in, everyone asked what it was like as we said it had some rust in it. So here is the picture of it. it may look rusty but it get us around. don't think it would pass a Warrant at home but......