This is the 6th of a series of posts dealing with my 2024 trip to Eastern Canada. I’ve made minor corrections to these reports (typos, bits I don’t feel like making public). Also, I’ve added additional thoughts with the hindsight of a year later or to add further clarification. These are indicated by “NOW”.
I walked to the McDonald's across from the ROM for breakfast. I walked west along Bloor St to Christie Pits Park and then east to Metro (grocery store) where I bought an overpriced lunch for later. I returned to Wilson Hall, collected my stuff, and checked out. I took a 510 streetcar (Toronto Transit) to Union Station. Transit security checked everyone as they left the streetcar for payment. I dropped off the one piece of luggage at the luggage storage place and then went to Union Coach Terminal. I took a Megabus to Kingston Megabus Terminal, getting a prebooked top front doubledecker seat. I was told that luggage automatically transferred over but you actually have to carry it to the new bus. I took another Megabus to St-Laurent Station, Ottawa. I ate half of the bacon wrap lunch on each bus, at points using my left hand to eat and drink while my right took photos.
[NOW: The luggage storage was at an INS Market.]
At St-Laurent Station I took an O-Train (Ottawa Transit) to Rideau Station. I checked into Saintlo Jail Hostel, a converted jail. I walked to Bank St and headed south. Whereas Toronto was filled with construction and intermittently cloudy and rainy, Ottawa is also full of construction and constantly cloudy and chilly but not rainy. A slight improvement I suppose as I could relax a little with the camera. The Bank St branch of Comic Book Shoppe closed after I last checked. I also passed its earlier location but it still has one more location. I also visited Turning Point (just off Bank), Howard's, Compact Music (no DVDs there). Black Squirrel is a coffee shop/bookstore and I got a book discussing superheroes by comic book writer Danny Fingeroth. Vertigo Records had no DVDs. A bit to the west of Bank, Haven is a breakfast place etc with a small section of $5 books.
[NOW: I deleted a part about Glebe Video (located inside a chruch) that I misremembered because it may be defamatory to post what I misremembered. I passed it after Compact Music. Haven is now closed.]
I briefly returned to Bank to switch over to the west (Queen Elizabeth Drwy) side of the Rideau Canal and walked north along it. Would have been really nice in the sun, but there are two more days left. I left the canal and passed the US Embassy. I crossed the Alexandra Bridge over the Ottawa River to Gatineau, Quebec. Due to construction, the pedestrian sections on the sides are under construction but the normal road has three temporary sections: pedestrian, then one lane for bikers each direction. I had dinner at the McDonald's on rue Maisonneuve. A tourist office was closed for the day but I grabbed a few booklets from outside. I wandered the south side of Gatineau a little and noticed that a kind of doctor in Victoria had tried to reach me. Annoyingly they did that dirty trick where a doctor's office calls at the end of the day and when you call back you get a message that you can't record a message. I crossed the Portage Bridge over the Ottawa River back to Ottawa and passed the Supreme Court of Canada and the Peace Tower, which is currently closed due to construction.
[NOW: I’d rather not go into the nature of the doctor so I edited that part out.]
I visited Indigo and found a map book for the area that I wanted, but it's $24 so I might just keep using the older one I have. I returned to the hostel. So far I'm enjoying Ottawa more than 11 years ago but I hope it becomes sunny before I leave here.
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