The Royal Canadian Mint

After the Parliament Buildings we walked for miles, mom got us lost, and then got us back on track - she said it was a minor detour of sightseeing. 

The Royal Canadian Mint was a blast!  The tour showed us how they made the coins.  Most of the coins made at this mint are either collector's items or investor's items.  If there is a defect in the coin it becomes more valuable because that means there is only one coin in the world that has this defect and also because 99.9% of the defects are hand picked and are thrown back into the meltdown area.  If they happen to be missed by the people who are watching for defects --- this makes the coin all that more valuable.

I got to see MILLIONS of dollars worth of rolled metals that were ready to be stamped out into coins.  Gold was one of the most valuable --- and Platinum beat out the Gold.  This mint also has contracts from all over the world to make other country's coins.  They also made the Guiness World Record for making the largest gold coin -- it was about the size of a large pizza and worth at that time 2.5 million dollars -- now it is worth 5 million on today's market.  The tour guide said there were only 4 made --- 3 were sold and one still is in the deep basement vault below the mint.  There are armed guards everywhere you turn inside this mint.   The mint rents vault space out for people to store their valuables here --- that is how well guarded it is!    This mint made the Vancouver Winter Olympic medals all out of recycled metals from computer boards. 

When my friends were up from Texas we toured the Edmonton City garbage dump.  That was a cool tour too!  Anyway, at the garbage dump they said that they shipped all the recycled metals down to Ontario where the Winter Olympic medals were made --- now I know the mint that made these medals!

Where they make the coins that we use as money is in the Winnipeg mint.   That mint is one of the largest in the world.


From the mint we walked over to the Tulip Festival and took in some festival music and an open market.   Then we walked back to the hotel, dumped our backpacks and stuff and went for a Thai dinner.  We doubled back to the Parliament buildings to take in a Haunted Walking Tour of Ottawa.  It really was a cool lesson in history.  I didn't know that there was a lot of nasty politicians way back then.  wow.  some are supposedly still hanging around as ghosts!  One of the oldest jails in Canada is now a hostel --- this place has the freakiest ghost stories and it was pretty cool to tour it.  The stories about the jail and some of the prisioners there freaked me out a bit.  I didn't know the history of Canada was so violent.

 Me lifting an actual gold bar - they had 2 guards standing by this exhibit at all times.  It was in their gift shop at the mint.

 I made it onto a coin!

 Mom as the Tooth Fairy coin - an actual coin they have made!

 A giant spider statue our 'walk' --- we walked forever!

 One of many beautiful gardens of tulips.

 A giant kaliedescope in the Tulip festival --- it was totally cool!  You could swivel it around and no picture was the same.

 Some of the music we stopped to sit and listen --- this group was super talented!

 Looking at the many exhibits in the tulip festival.

 A statue of Terry Fox --- everywhere you turn there are statues in Ottawa --- it is so cool!

 OurHaunted Walk tour guide -- she had tons of ghost stories to share.  We walked for over an  hour and a half ---I had my exercise today!

 Mom and I behind bars in the "Drum cells" --- there were barely big enough to stand up in!

after that we went back to the hotel to call it a night.   I had to weigh in the next day at noon and my first fight is scheduled for 6 pm --- so I want to get a good nights sleep.