Ottawa International Tulip Festival - A disappointment [modified]
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I gotta say, I don't think my expectations for an International Tulip Festival would be all that high to begin with :cool:
To truly understand the tulip festival in Ottawa requires some foreknowledge of the history behind it. During WW II, the Dutch royal family took refuge in Canada. After the war, as a way to thank the Canadians for their hospitality, the goverment of the Netherlands started shipping massive quantities of tulip bulbs to Canada every year. These bulbs have been planted in Ottawa and form the basis for the tulip festival... fast foward 60 years... that's a lot of bulbs!
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To truly understand the tulip festival in Ottawa requires some foreknowledge of the history behind it. During WW II, the Dutch royal family took refuge in Canada. After the war, as a way to thank the Canadians for their hospitality, the goverment of the Netherlands started shipping massive quantities of tulip bulbs to Canada every year. These bulbs have been planted in Ottawa and form the basis for the tulip festival... fast foward 60 years... that's a lot of bulbs!
I am not sure the Dutch people would be very happy to know this tulip festival is a represenation of their gratitude :~
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I am not sure the Dutch people would be very happy to know this tulip festival is a represenation of their gratitude :~
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I donno... Hiding the pretty things when there's a storm brewing seems almost commemorative after hearing Tim's story. :rolleyes:
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I donno... Hiding the pretty things when there's a storm brewing seems almost commemorative after hearing Tim's story. :rolleyes:
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:-D Cheers Smitha
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Being a long weekend, Nish and I decided to check out the International Tulip festival in Ottawa. We had never been to the Canadian capital before, and I had been so longing to go see the tulip festival that the Ottawa tourism website started advertising months ago. My cousin and wife who live in Corning, NY, were so tempted when I sent them the link to the tulip festival website that they decided to join us in the trip, and they drove over to Ottawa too. The information centre for the festival was pretty good and they gave us plenty of tips, maps, and a list of major attractions. But the one thing that confused me was they didn’t sell the tickets in the information centre - there is something called the tulip festival Passport that is an entry pass to all the tulip spots. They redirected us to the nearest Timothy’s café, and there they’d sell us the tickets only on cash – they wouldn’t take credit cards. There were four major tulip spots that were advertised – the Parliament hill, two major parks in Ottawa, and a casino. We checked out the first three and were pretty shocked – there were hardly any tulips! All that was left in what looked like tulip beds once, were the stems. Someone said the flowers were probably removed before it rained that morning, but even if that was the case, I am still pissed at why the information centre never warned us about it. I have seen pictures of the Seattle tulip festival[^] where they have huge tulip fields, but here I couldn’t even find any fields. And the website says this is the largest tulip festival in the world! We paid CAD 16 per head for the Tulip festival passport, for nothing! I can’t even contest it now, because I paid for it in cash and not using my credit card! And while I am writing this, I can still see the tulip festival website’s bloom indicator[^] showing 80%!!! The only things I enjoyed in the trip were the visit to the Parliament hill and the Arts Museum, and the fireworks at Dows Lake on Saturday night. And I am happy now that I planned only a 2-day trip and didn’t spoil my long weekend! I am now wondering if there was anything that I should have done that could have avoided this disappo
I used to live in Ottawa for years and I don't recall there being much in the way of tulips around at any point in time. The whole thing has some historical significance but I can't imagine there being anything worthy of going to visit unless things have changed drastically since the last time I was there. I don't know if this rule of thumb applies in other countries, but I've been to just about every part of canada and come to the realization that whenever you see any sign or advertising about a place that says "largest in the world" it's nearly always a lie and in fact usually a lie within the same country. I.E. Grande Prairie alberta had a big sign driving into town that said "Forestry capital of Canada" on it. Now I grew up in British Columbia on Vancouver island where there are more truly huge trees than you can imagine everywhere you look. The whole economy around here revolved around logging for many years and is still huge. To drive into Grande Prairie which is as the name implies on the prairies with no trees in sight other than some we would refer to as "toothpicks" in B.C. with a sign like that was just about the funniest thing I ever saw in my life. There are lot's of other examples and big cities are not immune. The locals who haven't been anywhere else will proudly tell you why it's true and believe it themselves. I guess what I'm saying is blast the tourist board for the hyperbole in their advertising and do some research before you go. I've seen some truly magnificent gardens out here in B.C. and huge fields of just about everything growing and I can definitely see why you would want to go see a tulip festival so a stern wag of the finger to the naysayers here who doubted the validity of the trip in the first place. Now if they had said "come to Ottawa..see a coach floating down the Rideau Canal" *that* I would believe! :laugh: Honestly though, if you are in to nature and want to see some really nice natural beauty type sights you will have to look beyond Ontario, it's been so heavily populated for so long I couldn't think of a single place in all the time I spent there that was worth going to see with the possible exception of Niagra falls, but on the other hand there are some spectacular falls out here in B.C. that you could go to and get the distinct feeling that you were the very first person to have ever set eyes on them, it's just that unspoiled and raw away from the cities. -- modified at 16:37 Monday 22nd May, 2006 Just thought of something, since you live
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I used to live in Ottawa for years and I don't recall there being much in the way of tulips around at any point in time. The whole thing has some historical significance but I can't imagine there being anything worthy of going to visit unless things have changed drastically since the last time I was there. I don't know if this rule of thumb applies in other countries, but I've been to just about every part of canada and come to the realization that whenever you see any sign or advertising about a place that says "largest in the world" it's nearly always a lie and in fact usually a lie within the same country. I.E. Grande Prairie alberta had a big sign driving into town that said "Forestry capital of Canada" on it. Now I grew up in British Columbia on Vancouver island where there are more truly huge trees than you can imagine everywhere you look. The whole economy around here revolved around logging for many years and is still huge. To drive into Grande Prairie which is as the name implies on the prairies with no trees in sight other than some we would refer to as "toothpicks" in B.C. with a sign like that was just about the funniest thing I ever saw in my life. There are lot's of other examples and big cities are not immune. The locals who haven't been anywhere else will proudly tell you why it's true and believe it themselves. I guess what I'm saying is blast the tourist board for the hyperbole in their advertising and do some research before you go. I've seen some truly magnificent gardens out here in B.C. and huge fields of just about everything growing and I can definitely see why you would want to go see a tulip festival so a stern wag of the finger to the naysayers here who doubted the validity of the trip in the first place. Now if they had said "come to Ottawa..see a coach floating down the Rideau Canal" *that* I would believe! :laugh: Honestly though, if you are in to nature and want to see some really nice natural beauty type sights you will have to look beyond Ontario, it's been so heavily populated for so long I couldn't think of a single place in all the time I spent there that was worth going to see with the possible exception of Niagra falls, but on the other hand there are some spectacular falls out here in B.C. that you could go to and get the distinct feeling that you were the very first person to have ever set eyes on them, it's just that unspoiled and raw away from the cities. -- modified at 16:37 Monday 22nd May, 2006 Just thought of something, since you live
John Cardinal wrote:
do some research before you go.
Lesson learnt, the hard way :)
John Cardinal wrote:
I've seen some truly magnificent gardens out here in B.C. and huge fields of just about everything growing and I can definitely see why you would want to go see a tulip festival
You understood my situation perfectly, thanks :)
John Cardinal wrote:
the possible exception of Niagra falls
I agree 100%, the Canadian view of the falls is magnificient!
John Cardinal wrote:
Caribana festival in Toronto, don't know if they still do that or not, but definitely worth going to.
The Toronto official website talks about a street festival in July, but they don't mention the word Caribana - but I guess it's the same. I should certainly check it out! Cheers, Smitha
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Nishant Sivakumar wrote:
The menu on that web-page is all screwed up if you maximize the window.
Looks fine to me...and that's odd considering that I'm the one running Firefox trunk. ;P
Once you wanted revolution
Now you're the institution
How's it feel to be the man?David Stone wrote:
Looks fine to me...and that's odd considering that I'm the one running Firefox trunk.
It looks to me like it doesn't properly recalculate the dropdown-menu placement when you resize the browser window.
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David Stone wrote:
Looks fine to me...and that's odd considering that I'm the one running Firefox trunk.
It looks to me like it doesn't properly recalculate the dropdown-menu placement when you resize the browser window.
Oh...I see. Nice...very nice. :rolleyes:
Once you wanted revolution
Now you're the institution
How's it feel to be the man? -
Being a long weekend, Nish and I decided to check out the International Tulip festival in Ottawa. We had never been to the Canadian capital before, and I had been so longing to go see the tulip festival that the Ottawa tourism website started advertising months ago. My cousin and wife who live in Corning, NY, were so tempted when I sent them the link to the tulip festival website that they decided to join us in the trip, and they drove over to Ottawa too. The information centre for the festival was pretty good and they gave us plenty of tips, maps, and a list of major attractions. But the one thing that confused me was they didn’t sell the tickets in the information centre - there is something called the tulip festival Passport that is an entry pass to all the tulip spots. They redirected us to the nearest Timothy’s café, and there they’d sell us the tickets only on cash – they wouldn’t take credit cards. There were four major tulip spots that were advertised – the Parliament hill, two major parks in Ottawa, and a casino. We checked out the first three and were pretty shocked – there were hardly any tulips! All that was left in what looked like tulip beds once, were the stems. Someone said the flowers were probably removed before it rained that morning, but even if that was the case, I am still pissed at why the information centre never warned us about it. I have seen pictures of the Seattle tulip festival[^] where they have huge tulip fields, but here I couldn’t even find any fields. And the website says this is the largest tulip festival in the world! We paid CAD 16 per head for the Tulip festival passport, for nothing! I can’t even contest it now, because I paid for it in cash and not using my credit card! And while I am writing this, I can still see the tulip festival website’s bloom indicator[^] showing 80%!!! The only things I enjoyed in the trip were the visit to the Parliament hill and the Arts Museum, and the fireworks at Dows Lake on Saturday night. And I am happy now that I planned only a 2-day trip and didn’t spoil my long weekend! I am now wondering if there was anything that I should have done that could have avoided this disappo
> Anyone here who went to this tulip festival and had a different experience? I'm actually from Ottawa and I've never been to the tulip festival. :-O The weather's been sucking something fierce most of last week. I gotta wonder if that had anything to do with it...
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John Cardinal wrote:
do some research before you go.
Lesson learnt, the hard way :)
John Cardinal wrote:
I've seen some truly magnificent gardens out here in B.C. and huge fields of just about everything growing and I can definitely see why you would want to go see a tulip festival
You understood my situation perfectly, thanks :)
John Cardinal wrote:
the possible exception of Niagra falls
I agree 100%, the Canadian view of the falls is magnificient!
John Cardinal wrote:
Caribana festival in Toronto, don't know if they still do that or not, but definitely worth going to.
The Toronto official website talks about a street festival in July, but they don't mention the word Caribana - but I guess it's the same. I should certainly check it out! Cheers, Smitha
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Smitha Vijayan wrote:
The Toronto official website talks about a street festival in July, but they don't mention the word Caribana - but I guess it's the same. I should certainly check it out!
Yes definitely, I just checked and Caribana have their own website now: http://www.caribana.com/[^] Used to be very cool back in the '90's
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I wish it were! Cheers Smitha
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..forum signature didn't he :-D your's looks just like his :) :rose:
**You know you're obsessed with computer graphics when you're outside and you look up at the trees and think, "Wow! That's spectacular resolution!"
**I stole his and modified it :-O Regards Smitha
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Smitha Vijayan wrote:
The Toronto official website talks about a street festival in July, but they don't mention the word Caribana - but I guess it's the same. I should certainly check it out!
Yes definitely, I just checked and Caribana have their own website now: http://www.caribana.com/[^] Used to be very cool back in the '90's
Thanks John! Cheers, Smitha
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> Anyone here who went to this tulip festival and had a different experience? I'm actually from Ottawa and I've never been to the tulip festival. :-O The weather's been sucking something fierce most of last week. I gotta wonder if that had anything to do with it...
Daniel Desormeaux wrote:
I'm actually from Ottawa and I've never been to the tulip festival.
Good for you. BTW, I really liked the city. I loved the old bulding architecures, and the Parliament hill is awesome! Cheers, Smitha
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..forum signature didn't he :-D your's looks just like his :) :rose:
**You know you're obsessed with computer graphics when you're outside and you look up at the trees and think, "Wow! That's spectacular resolution!"
**Monty2 wrote:
..forum signature didn't he
No, I did not! She stole it! :omg: Regards, Nish
Nish’s thoughts on MFC, C++/CLI and .NET (my blog)
Currently working on C++/CLI in Action for Manning Publications. -
Smitha Vijayan wrote:
The Toronto official website talks about a street festival in July, but they don't mention the word Caribana - but I guess it's the same. I should certainly check it out!
Yes definitely, I just checked and Caribana have their own website now: http://www.caribana.com/[^] Used to be very cool back in the '90's
Hey John, I just checked the 2006 Caribana schedule, and I find that I will not be in Toronto during the festival season :( My India trip has been scheduled during that period. I will miss going to it :( Regards Smitha
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