The Trip part II - Ottawa & Montréal

When Nicolas left us on Tue 4th May, we went directly to Ottawa as planed, because we had our car for one more day. It takes about two hours of comfortable driving from Montréal. Ottawa is a very nice city lying on the southern banks of the Ottawa River, a major waterway forming the local boundary between the provinces of Ontario and Quebec. The city was chosen by Queen Victoria as a capital on December 31st 1857 as a compromise between Toronto and Montréal. It's a real bilingual city; about 80% of citizens under 25 are able to speak both languages.
We were staying in a great (little expensive, but yet the cheapest in the town) hostel Ottawa Backpackers. From the sights to be mention there is Parliament Hill, Major's Hill Park, Museum of Civilization and Rideau Canal (which when frozen creates officially the world's largest skating rink with its 7,8km length) and many governmental buildings and embassies. By an accident we also got inside the parliament and saw part of a political discussion :). In the evening we went to a karaoke bar with some really good singers! 

CA11 Ottawa 4.5.2010

Next morning we had to hurry up to be back in Montréal until noon to drop off our car in Thrifty office (but before to return GPS in Walmart :)). I think in total we made around 2500 km.
In Montréal we met Jean-Christophe, my friend who was studying in Prague 2 years ago. We were staying at his flat for 2 days. There is a great system of city bikes, which we were using very much! All you need to use Bixi is your credit card with a deposit of 250$, then is costs 5$ per 24hours and you have every 30mins of biking for free. First evening we also met some other ex-exchange Prague students in Bílý Kůň pub. The other day we were sightseeing around the well known places (Mont Royal hill, Olympic stadium, Port, etc.) That evening Canadians won over Penguins in a match in Bell Centre in the city, which was a huge holiday! :)
On Friday 7th in the morning we were leaving by Amtrack to Schenectady in New York.

CA12 Montréal 5.-6.5.2010