The One With Maman

The basilica in Ottawa is the most popular church in the city to get married at; first you set the date and then you find the mate - there's a three year waiting list. Upon leaving the church as a married couple, you are greeted with...a giant black widow spider. Called Maman. I think it's the creepiest thing ever, but Jenny, who speaks on behalf of all Canadians, disagrees with me. Apparently 'Maman also betrays this maternal trust to incite a mixture of fear and curiosity.'

Jenny and I went and got our cultured-ness on at Canada's National Gallery where, as with the Museum of Nature, it was school children, retirees and us. Because we are cool. Obviously. And, once again, we were stalked by the security guards - how shifty do we look? What to say about the gallery? Well, there was a lot of optical illusion art which had a Demon Head Master feel about it, and yet, we couldn't tear our eyes away. There was also a painting which was so obviously about rain, but Jenny thought it was about sperm. Honestly! How does this look anything like sperm?

Yeah, looks pretty sperm-like eh?

Canada has a group of artists called 'The Group of Seven' whom its pretty obsessed by and so their work featured prominently. Moreover, the work of the Lagare guy was there and Jenny and I both remembered him from Anderson's class - yay for learning!

Without doubt, the best exhibit in the museum was called 'Love Empire' which basically consisted of getting up on stage and speaking into a microphone. Being the shy, retiring, exceedingly quiet girl that I am, I raced up on stage and sang the Canadian national anthem. Or the first line of it anyway. It's very wordy. And half way through, it goes all French.

So that was that; we also recovered from the 30degree temperature by hiding in the shade in a Byward Market courtyard where I got friendly with a bear.

And then it was time to say goodbye to Jenny. To whom I confessed I didn't know her name until four months after having first met her, but that was okay, because she had the same problem with my name! Thank you, Facebook, for rescuing us both with regards to one another's name. Jenny is wonderful and hilarious and absolutely made History of the Jews in Canada so much fun, and she always remembers about the Armenians. NEVER FORGET ABOUT THE ARMENIANS!