Yes okay, I am a Nerd!

MP3 track of the day: Main Theme - Band of Brothers

Weather: Sunny, warm but windy

So after getting up early I left the dorm at around 8am, my first stop being the parliament area. This area of Ottawa is stunning; beautiful Gothic style buildings surrounded by gardens. I spent a couple of hours here, taking photos, walking and sitting on the benches (It was windy in the morning but still the sun was strong; I applied sun cream for the first time on this tour).

After a while I decided to move on towards the Canadian Military Museum. On the way I took more photos of Gothic style buildings next to modern buildings (and, surprisingly, they work well together).

At around 11:00 I had made it to the Military museum; 11:15am I went into the museum expecting to be out in 3 hours. At 5:58pm I left because the museum closed at 6pm (I still hadn't really finished). The museum was fantastic, spilt into six areas:

• Battleground - Wars on Canadian soil, earliest times to 1885,


• For Crown and Country - The South African and First World War 1885 - 1931,


• Forged in Fire - The Second World War 1931-1945,


• A violent Peace - The Cold War, Peacekeeping and recent conflicts, 1945 to present,


• Hall of Honour,


• LeBreton Gallery - a big area with tanks and planes,

I decided to spent along time in the Hall of Honour and the first section (Battleground) because, in my opinion, the early years of any war museum is the best area to find out about the forming of a country. Being aware of time I went through the 'For Crown and Country' a little faster; still only 50% done and it's 2:30pm. I went for a quick lunch (which, because it was 2:30pm the museum restaurant had closed, so it was a 'fast food' lunch of biscuits, chocolate and crisps) and then headed back. Again I went through the WW2 section pretty quickly because I wanted to focus on the 'A violent peace' which had info on the Korean war and 'war if ' scenarios for the outbreak of WW3 (Cold War). Buy this time it was 17:40 and so I raced into the LeBreton Gallery and did a quick 10 minute tour.

I know I'm a nerd; nearly 7 hours in a museum (I could have done with two more hours) but I loved it, one of the best military museum I've been too. When I'm home in the summer I might see if I can get cheap train tickets to London for the day to go to the Imperial War Museum (Don't think I've been ... shocking really).

One thing I loved about the museum is that it showed the Canadian prospective to war and there was one thing that confused me. Within the WW1 and WW2 sections it showed disagreements between the British and French Canadians. The French Canadians, towards the end of WW1 wanted to pull out of the war, Canada had done enough. The French were also against compulsory conscription for WW2; this surprised me as the Western Front was in France and in WW2, France was occupied ... why did they not want to fight for France like the British Canadians for Britain? At the end of the day I found a guide (who was French Canadian himself) and asked him the question. The main reason is set (surprisingly) within the 'Background section'.

When the British defeated the French for control of the Canadian provinces the French settlers remained in present day Quebec; they felt that France had abandoned them. Over the years they lost connection with France because of this loss, and they disliked the British because of their victory over them. Therefore the French Canadians had little ties to Europe, they were in effect in their own country ... the only connection was that they spoken French. The British Canadians, on the other hand, still had strong ties to Britain (The Queen is the head of Canada after all) and therefore the majority British Canadians pressed for immediate involvement which strained relations with their French counterparts.

There were a lot of happy and sad parts to the museum, but one sad part I shall remember forever. In the Hall of Honour there was a letter from a mother to her son. I read part of the letter which started by saying that she was glad to hear from him because she was starting to worry ... it had been a long while since he had wrote. She then described a food parcel she was going to sent to him and that it was over weight and it would be rejected; therefore she had to remove some of the stuff (she listed all the things she was going to sent to him ... load of treats). She then continued and said that the rest of the family was fine and that is as much as I could see. I then looked at the title the museum had given the piece and it said ' A mother last letter' - I presume that means her son was killed ... I wonder if he ever read the letter or got the food parcel ... a massive lump enters my throat every time I think about it.

Once out the museum I headed back to the hostel, however not before I stopped to take a couple of photos of some spider thing. Finally I'm back and it's 8:30pm ... I'm starving and so I need to get some food.

Looking forward to tomorrow where I'm going to go to some small falls and downtown.

Toodle Pip