U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice started the second day of her visit to Nova Scotia with a cup of Canadian culture — popping into a Tim Hortons in Pictou with Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay.

MacKay included the coffee stop as he escorted his U.S. counterpart around the northern town early Tuesday before a scheduled speech.

Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice place an order at a Tim Hortons in Pictou.
(CBC)

"She learned about important things like a double-double," MacKay, the MP for the region, later told an audience in nearby Stellarton.

However, Rice eschewed the iconic Tims drink — with two creams and two sugars — in favour of a black coffee with sweetener.

Rice landed in Halifax a day earlier, on the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States. As well as meeting with MacKay, the secretary of state thanked the many volunteers from Halifax and other communities in Atlantic Canada who helped host 21,000 passengers after air traffic was shut down over the United States in the wake of the tragedy.

Peter MacKay and Condoleezza Rice, holding their coffee cups, stroll along Pictou's waterfront.
(Andrew Vaughan/Canadian Press)

After a speech in the capital on Monday afternoon, Rice travelled north to Pictou and spent the night at the Pictou Lodge.

Besides the stop at Tim Hortons early Tuesday, MacKay, Rice and the TV cameras visited the Hector, a ship that brought the first wave of Scottish immigrants to Nova Scotia, and the ship museum on the town's waterfront.

Rice then travelled to Stellarton to make a speech at the Museum of Industry.

At one point Tuesday morning, about 100 people were lined up outside the museum, waiting their turn to be checked by security officers.

Rice was scheduled to return to the United States later in the day.