Signs of snow

The early morning sun bounced of the white exercise yard and beamed through the bars in windows, lighting the south corridor of the penitentiary in such a way that made it almost angelic instead of the demonic place it is renowned to be.

Another night incarcerated was again disturbed by ghosts of the past and present (it's hard to tell the difference without proper scientific equipment). Eventually arising from disturbed slumber we were faced with the outside world covered in a light covering of powder snow. By the end of the cold (seriously so) day some of it was still lying around. It was nice to see the early morning sun reflecting off it though. Gruel for breakfast again and we then did the official tour of our residence. Needless to say all our suspicions were true:- Incarceration, cruelty, torture, santioned murder (all often unwarranted) went on here. The spirits ain't happy. We saw and heard the gruesome details - highlighted by the gallows with the trapdoors below purposely a key design in the building structure. Now we are really looking forward to tonights sleep.

Released into the exercise yard known as Ottawa City the four of us headed into the cold biting wind, catching a late' and hot choc on the way to the Museum of History. Cool building with seriously big totem poles. These should not and cannot be denigrated. If you are into totem poles - this is the place to visit. They have built the biggest, most awsomeness and possibly most expensive building to house them in. So whatever one must do in Ottawa (apart from not spitting on the sidewalks) is respect totem poles. Well that's what we figured anyway. They also have an IMax at which we watched a show on the Vikings which was (seriously) good. In the fading light (4:00 pm) we headed back across a really cold, noisy, steel bridge to correct yesterdays retail mistakes and have pre-dinner drinks at the Irish pub before dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant.

This was a fabulous cultural experience as well as good value (ie cheap). The staff were genuinely bored, obviously a family run (and paternally) controlled affair with half the early patrons being relatives. The food was great, however it did leave the impression that (like Sydney) it would be great place to visit but not desirable to live there long term. And so, a short stroll home in the dark cold wind through the ever increasingly easy to identify druggies, drunkards and homeless to the sanctuary that doubles as a haunted house we look forward to another restless nights sleep.