go ahead, be gone with it We had a spectacular day here in Ottawa. The weather was hot and sunny - perfect for a little sight-seeing - so we got ourselves out this morning and headed downtown. We got lucky and found a boat that was ready to launch for a cruise down the Rideau Canal. It was very cool to see the city from the canal and learn a bit about the buildings along its banks and about the construction of the canal itself. One interesting tidbit: Germany built its embassy at a time when they were concerned about being spied on, and were so concerned with bugging devices being implanted inside building materials that they imported every single part of the building from their homeland.

After the cruise we strolled into the Market and found another cool open-twenty-four-seven diner called Zak's, where I had the best poutine so far down here in the East. It was scrumptious, if not a tad on the heart-attack-provoking side (i.e. tons of cheese curds and gravy). Dee-lish.

Then it was down to the Ottawa River to visit Rideau Falls. That was pretty nifty to see, too. It was a perfect day to walk around the city observing the gorgeous red and yellow leaves on the trees. See more of my (and froo's) photos here. That set includes some pics from our homemade turkey dinner last night, although we had chicken instead of turkey. Did I mention we forgot to eat the cranberry sauce? We had so many yummy items (mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, carrots, broccoli, cheese sauce and sweet potatoes!), that somehow we missed the can of cranberry goodness. Oops!  | ¶ 11:18 p.m.