Two Sides Of The Guides

R's sister J arrived last night with her son, while her husband (L) is scheduled to arrive late this evening with their daughter (I will be employing my secret parking strategy to pick them up). Now the birthday week is in full swing and we will do our best to show them everything the Ottawa area has to offer in the few days they are here.

We got off to a bit of rocky start this afternoon, as we delved into unfamiliar territory in rainy conditions. We decided to save Parliament Hill for another day, and went out to see the Supreme Court building and the Currency Museum -- tourist destinations that we'd never visited before. The two were opposite extremes of the guide spectrum. They under-guided us at the courthouse, and they over-guided us at the Currency Museum.

Although the Supreme Court is a hulking mass of a building, the tour covers only two rooms: the lobby and the courtroom itself. Our law-student tour guide had us sit on benches in the back of the surprisingly small (but elegant) courtroom while he explained the workings of the court. It took him about 10 minutes, maybe 15. It took us almost that long just to get the monstrous double stroller and carseats through the security scanner.

The lobby was impressively large, rising the full height of the front of the building. We were in the lobby only briefly, because the guide offered to let us out through the back door (actually a garage door), as a way to avoid taking our caravan back down the steep stone stairs in front of the building. As it turns out, we got an exclusive look at the Supreme Garage, which opens up into the parking lot. Very few people get to see this part of the building.

The view from behind the Supreme Court building is spectacular, and usually is part of any driving tour that we conduct for visitors to Ottawa. You can pull your car right up to an observation point that looks out over the Ottawa River, and provides a striking view of the Library of Parliament -- our favourite piece of local architecture. Any visitor to the Supreme Court should not miss the view.

Since our visit took less than 30 minutes, we still had time to catch the last English tour of the day at the Currency Museum, located just across the street from the Supreme Court, in the bottom of the Bank of Canada building. The museum is quite small, composed of only 7 small gallery rooms, but the tour took most of an hour -- and we only visited 3 of the rooms! The guide was so enthusiastic about his subject material, he kept us at the front desk for the first 15 minutes before we even saw a display. He knew his stuff, but he was one long-winded dude. Once he set us free, I found these tokens from Calgary and Ottawa in one of the displays. One gets you bread, the other gets you beer. I thought they were amusing.

After the lengthy lectures about using beaver pelts and compressed tea leaves as currency, we were pretty worn out, but J managed to find this sweet interactive display about counterfeit bills. She spotted the phony $20 bill, but she totally missed the mark on the $100. Better luck next time!

The consensus of the group was this:
-The Supreme Court is worth visiting, especially since it's a quick, free tour of a large and elegant building on a scenic spot.
-The Currency Museum is also free.