Well I’d been hearing about this glorious otherworldly entity of fun known as The Ex since I first moved to Ottawa back in 2005 – a good number of my Torontonian friends raved about it, while Ottawa also has its own much smaller version (though it doesn’t last nearly as long).  Ironically enough, I lived there for 4 years and it only ever happened in August – while I was at home living with my parents in Timmins, so I never got to go to that one either. :(

My friend Anna just came back to Canada from a 6-month exchange in Australia so we decided since she’d never been either (sad, really – considering she’s lived her for like 14 years) we’d make the trek over (though it didn’t hurt that we had free passes either).

:D

Games weren’t really either one of our things, but we hit nearly every ride there; including the big slide… I think we might’ve been the only people who weren’t kids or parents attending to kids that DID end up going down the giant slide.

I was surprised though, how many duplicates of rides they actually had there – it really got me thinking about whether or not the double rides was to cut the lines for rides in half to accommodate more park attendees, or whether it was to overall make the festival look much larger then it was actually required to be…. that and then I started thinking off on a tangent about how many of the carnies had emotional relationships or disgruntled pasts with the other carnies that would then require them to be placed on games much further apart so as to not cause any commotions while people were visiting the carnival….

Anyway, that aside we both had a great time…. so definitely worth the trip if you’ve never been, or can’t find the time to make it up to Wonderland before the end of the season….

…..that and they have funnel cake…. do you really need a better excuse?

<3 Stephenson