The Museum of Civilization and the French

The next major thing in Ottawa to visit was The Museum of Civilization - that resides over the Ottawa river in Quebec (Ottawa lies smack on the border of Quebec and Ontario in case you didn't know) and had a special exhibition on the city of Petra in Jordan - that's the one with all the tombs carved out of the cliff faces. This exhibition was, frankly, amazing - some of the stuff on display was just astounding and offered some incredible insight into the culture of the time. I DEFINITELY want to go and see the place!! Anyway, aside from this exhibition there was also a permanent display of Canadian totem poles that was also astounding - the height of some of these things is just....well, it's just wow.

What was also of interest to me was the hop over to the Quebec side - and the differences. Y'see, there is something of a disgruntled attitude over Quebec that i picked up on in Ottawa - mainly that they demand a lot, and offer little in return - and the fact that they are, of late, talking about seceding from the Union. As the bulk of the residents in Quebec are french, there are also some interesting ideas about the language (there is even a Bureau for the Protection of the French Language), especially on the signs. Basically, French has to be on either the left or top of the sign (English on the right or bottom) with the lettering for the French twice as high in height than the English - and they even have so-called language police whose job is to go round the city and measure this. C'est incredible, n'est pas?