Canada Day in the Nation's Capital

This year we have a house guest, Uncle Michael. Knowing the Ruicci's like to take it slow in the morning we started off the day with the England vs Portugal World Cup match. Nuff said.

Finally after a hearty lunch we headed downtown to check out the festivities. Managed to find a great parking spot near Bank and Cooper and loaded up with water and snacks we followed the steady stream of Canada Day merry-makers.



Couldn't resist a photo of this woman. Wow! What an outfit.



We jostled through the red and white crowds swarming Sparks Street passing by several musicians and buskers. One of the mimes had a huge crowd gathered around when he decided to do his mysterious "I will now proceed to cut off my arm with a machete knife". I was ready for it the moment I saw the huge blade but the older woman definitely was not and proceeded to scream and yell while her husband tried to calm her down. Hilarious. Even my kids knew it was a fake.





Later we strolled through the concert area in front of Parliament where I managed to jostle my way to the front of the RCMP officer photo line. Not a particularly difficult feat as most of the crowd was asian and not ready for my flurry of elbows.






After that we decided to head right down to the market area which involved waded through yet another busker crowd. It seems everybody knew there was a party going on today.

We managed to get a table at Fat Tuesday's for some grub and a pint. Our bellies full we stolled back up to Major Hill's Park to see Blackie and the Rodeo Kings.





After about a half hour wait we discovered that Blackie would not be first to hit the stage (even though they were listed first) but instead we were treated to some tradition Quebecer band called La Volée d’Castors. It was no Blackie. We sat through the entire set to see if Blackie would be next. No luck so we headed home for some supper and a rest.

We basically relaxed and watched the first half of the Brasil vs France game (which I had taped) before packing up again and headed off to catch some fireworks.

We started out by heading to Kanata for their fireworks show when I made a snap decision to go downtown for the infamous Parliament Hill fireworks. It definitely paid off and was a hit with the whole crew. We even managed to find a sweet parking spot that allowed us to avoid all the traffic on the way home.

Happy Canada Day, Canada.