Taffy and Tails

Hello again!!

Well we have now officially done the proper tourist thing in Ottawa! Brenda had organised a skating party on the canal with some friends of hers, so we met up with Kim and Pierre, and then went and had Maple Taffy and Beaver Tails.

What on earth is that you might ask? Well Maple Taffy is kinda like a Maple Syrup lollipop, where they boil down Maple Syrup until it is nice and thick, and then pour it into a blob in the snow and stick an ice-block stick in it. It was very nice!! It was very very sticky and we thought our mouths might stick together, but was well worth the probable trip to the dentist!! Lee was in sweet-tooth heaven. :)

MMMMM!!! YUMMY!!!! Maple Taffy. (note our patriotic all black jackets!! go kiwis!)

Then we moved onto the Beaver Tails... after we went skating for a while... (honest we went skating... we didn't just put our ice-skates on and go and eat!!). Beaver tails are quite a famous Ottawa thing, and they have stalls on the canal that sell them. They are like a big flat donut that you can get with different toppings. Becs went for the cinnamon and sugar, while Lee had chocolate and hazlenut topping (which is pretty much straight nutella on top of a warm donut... delicious!). Was definitely a great experience, and i am sure one that we will have again while we are here. YUM!

Lee in line to get our Beaver Tails. This is just after Becs stacked it and then refused to go any closer to the stall! On ya Lee for coming to the rescue. :)

Becs record of no falls while skating is now gone! :( While we were getting in line to get the Beaver tails, the ice was very uneven and slippery... so sure enough, klutzy Becs managed to end up on the ice!!! But she was told that it was done very gracefully, and managed to get back on her feet with no problems. She was happy about this because she had envisaged falling and not being able to get back up, and the authorities having to get in a crane to lever her off the ice! Thankfully not necessary. :) Whew!

This is us at the very starting point of the canal, which runs for 11km or so... soon you will get a shot of us at the other end of the canal, having skated the whole way! :)

This is us with Kim and Pierre on the canal with one of the snow plows they had to use to clear the ice coz it was snowing! (Pretty wicked eh?? Must be thick ice!)

The day was topped off by stopping at Wild Wings restaurant, where they specialise in... yep you guessed it... chicken wings. There are big buckets on all the tables for you to throw the bones into, and big rolls of paper towels for sticky fingers! Bill and Brenda were there to show us the ropes thankfully, as it is all a bit different in this part of the world!! We sampled a couple of different Canadian Beers, which were not too bad at all... and were both happy to find a good lager that we can drink! :) It ain't quite Steinlager, but all in all not toooooo bad!! :) The wings at this place were pretty good too! They come in about a million different flavours, and taste pretty good. Think of KFC covered in yummy sauce, but a million times better!! We then stopped at another restaurant/bar for a couple of drinks on the way home, which was very enjoyable. :) We are hoping to get back to that place sometime as they have live music there at times, which is always good.

One of the other crazy things that Becs has done recently, is to jump into an outside spa-pool when it is minus fifteen degrees outside! That was an experience and a half... you can sit there and play with the snow while you are soaking in the tub... was great for the legs which still had not recovered from aerobics 4 days prior!! (yep... i am fit... NOT!) Will definately have to do that again soon... no excuses as the spa (or hot tub as they call it) is right outside the back door!

So the mission for the next few days is to get our Ontario drivers licenses so we can buy a car. And we are going to Toronto on Thursday to visit Lee's little sister Danielle, and meet her boyfriend Drew. We are really looking forward to that! :)

Hope that everything is well wherever you are in the world...