A Guided Tour of the House of Common in Ottawa - A Free and Educational Attraction

We were supposed to visit the parliament and senate buildings in Ottawa last Friday. But it was raining cats and dogs therefore we decided to stay home to rest a little instead. Though there was no admission charge to visit the Canadian Parliament buildings, visitors must reserve tickets to do so. We did our homework and reserved some tickets online almost a week ago for a guided tour to the House of Common last Friday. Due to the forecast of heavy rain, we changed our ticket reservation to the following Monday. When the day of the guided tour came, we were ready to go! While we were in downtown Ottawa, we went to visit Shirley at her café. But we found out that she sold her business sometime ago therefore no longer was working there. We were a little disappointed at not able to see her but were happy for her.

The House of Common tour started at 12:20pm but we needed to be there at least 20 minutes before for security clearance procedures. The Parliament buildings are currently under extensive renovation, therefore the Centre Block Building where the original House of Common was located has been closed to the public for some time. The government found a temporary location for the House of Common and some building work was done to accommodate the 338 elected government officials representing Canadians in the Lower House.

The House of Common guided tour was about 40 minutes long and our guide did an excellent job explaining briefly to us in a nutshell about the working of our government and the process of how our laws were made. It was an educational and interesting guided tour and we learned a lot about how our Canadian governement works. After the tour, We had some middle eastern food for lunch at a Mediterrean restaurant downtown. It was Andy and Ya's first time trying this food and they liked it! We were happy to introduce them to some new delicious food!

After lunch, S., Andy and Ya went on their way driving back to Toronto while Mar. came and picked me up as I decided to stay a couple more days in Ottawa! RT, Ottawa, Canada mon082024