Canada Day: The Party Continues

Sorry to leave you with that cliff hanger. Here, as promised, is Canada Day Celebations continued!

The Citadel had the official Canada Day Ceremony. Wooed by promises of a flyover (I'm a sucker for them), I hurried over to see what was up. I stopped to take a few pictures of the end of the parade from on top of the hill, but they didn't turn out so well, so they're not going in here.

I realize, at this point, that I have not posted pictues from when I actually visited the Citadel. I promise I will :) Seriously. The post is already started, I just have to add in the pictures. I take loads of pictures, so it takes quite awhile to go through 300-400 photos and pick which ones will end up in here.

We were greated by these as we came up the hill:
There were about 5 of them gaurded fiercely by men in berets. I have no idea what they are, but they come into play a bit later. I thought they were just a neat display for all of us folks.

Anyway, I wanted to hurry inside since festivities were supposed to be from 11AM - 2PM and I didn't want to miss anything. That seems to be the theme for my summer. I wandered around for a bit, trying to find the best place, and decided on the top of the wall surrounding the grounds. I wish I hadn't stopped to look at the parade, because then I would have been closer to the noon-day cannon. Oh well. This was my view:
The naval band and a choir sang for awhile, so I just contented myself taking pictures. Up on the wall was actually a great idea since I had a view of pretty much everything.
Look at this cute little girl in he Canada Day best! She was sitting with her grandmother, but then that lady in blue came out of the school room (that door behind her), and this little girl just jumped right up. Mom, how come you never bought me a dress as cute as that. In all honestly, probably because I would have refused to wear it. Oh well...

And then there's this little doll which her adorable green apple hoodie. There was a rope lining the parade grounds and she could not figure out how to get over it. She finally just went under.

Ok! So, then the noon day cannon went off. Again, I wish I was closer because it was a bigger song and dance then when I went to the Citadel a few weeks ago. The cannon fires every day at noon and they actually call the atomic clock in Ottawa each morning in order to find out the exact time. It's not noon until it goes off. When I went, there were only 2 guys firing the cannon, but for Canada Day, they had 7. There were too many tall people in front of me so I couldn't see.

After it went off though, those big guns out front started firing. It was a 21 gun salute!! Who knew?! I thought they were just there as props and weren't going to do anything. They were going off duing people's boring speeches. Guns wait for no man!

I'm glad I did go in right after the parade though and didn't wander too much (just the brief delay to take pictures), because this is what it looked like after the noon day cannon went off.

Throw them 'bows!

Wow! That's a lot of people cramming to get in! The door way and bridge are really narrow, so these people were just stuck. They missed a lot of stuff just waiting to get in the door.

So, then I left the wall and went down to run around and see if I could get a better picture of the stage and people. Lots of boring people giving boring speeches, but lo and behold, who's speech is next?? MY PANCAKE FRIEND!

She kinda looks like she's going to sneeze...

She's actually the member of Parliament that represents the Halifax area. I just thought she was a helper. Not so much... Whoops. Just hammed it up with one of the Official Canada Day Party.

Then the mayor came up and gave the Official Canada Day Proclamation. I just like him because everyone else was in suits and he was in these RAD plaid shorts. I want a pair!

His was the last speech, so then the Canada Day cake made it up on stage and they gave him and the MP a sword to cut the cake. Chris needs to stay in the military, because I seriously want to do this.

They look like they're going to stab that poor guy in the head. He fired rifles for me when I went to the Citadel a few weeks back.

MMMMM cake! They said everyone could come up on stage fo a piece, but kids were first. Much as I look like I'm 12, I am not, so I let them scramble around. It was a veritable stampede. They then announced that there were 4 other cakes, so I just made my way over to find those ones. I passed a small group of 4 bagpipers, but was far more interested in icing. I did stop to take a picture of these guys:

How classy do they look? They were taking pictres and the guy that's third from the right was really hamming it up with people taking pictures with them. It's times like these that I wish I had a buddy to take pictures for me. I should have just handed my camera over and gotten someone to take pictures for me. They had a drummer and an officer calling out orders and they marched to different places around the grounds. I was standing by the drummer in order to take this picture and he right faced up next to me. I was seriously about to get run over! Had to hurry out of the way. That's ok, cake was calling.

mmmmm cake! served by men in kilts. mmmmmmmmmm men in kilts!


tiny piece, but I know you're all jealous of my Canada Day cake.

Then I started hearing gun shots. Aw, man! Was I missing something?? So I rushed all the way over to the othe end of the yard.

cool, huh? They were backed up by a drummer and a bagpiper playing calls. Can you imagine how fierce looking this would be with those big hats and those pipes playing?

That was the end of the celebration. I asked around about the flyover, but noone could tell me anything. It was 2:00, so I'm pretty sure it was cancelled. Oh well. Everything else was still pretty neat. I stopped off at Bubba Rays to get some wings for lunch. They were voted best wings in Halifax, and boy were they right! There are 6 different ways of preparing the wings (breaded, fried, baked, etc.), about 50 sauces, and then 3 ways of adding the sauce (tossed, sauce on side or S.O.S. and wet and wild extra sauce), making for a dizzying array of combinations. I got breaded, S.O.S. and dangerously hot. They were totally worth it. I also go poutine, but it wasn't that great. The gravy was too salty for my taste.

Since I got up so early for those pancakes, I decided to take a nap before the fireworks. I couldn't convince any of my roommates to go with me, so I just went alone. Kayla was getting ready to go out and wanted to wrap a flag around her some how and wear it as a dress. She looked like a bad stripper act, so I convinced her to wear real clothes. Fireworks started at 10 and I wanted to get a good spot, so I left at 9:30. Glad I left early, because the fireworks were not where I thought they were going to be, but rather up by where I work.

I passed this on the way. Canadians really do say "eh," eh!

And I'll leave you with the a shot of the fireworks!