An Ottawa ByWard Market shop girl says she nearly passed out with excitement when U.S. President Barack Obama made a quick stop into her store on Thursday after finishing up business on Parliament Hill.

The president's surprise stop at the historic ByWard Market created what has become the usual pandemonium Obama now encounters wherever he goes, with crowds of eager shoppers - some screaming with excitement -- rushing to meet the U.S. president and to grab a picture.

Obama's stopped at a French bakery for cookies, a souvenir shop where he picked up a key chain with a moose on it for his daughter and a scarf for his wife, and then the Beaver Tails Hut where 17-year-old Jessica Milien works.

"It was overwhelming, I almost fainted. I couldn't believe I was standing in front of President Obama," Milien told Canada AM Friday.

A U.S. Secret Service agent appeared at the window of the Beaver Tail hut and said the president had asked for one of the hot pastries her store sells. Milien, who has been a huge fan of Obama's, was selected as the employee who would hand it to him.

"He asked me my name and we had a little conversation and then we took pictures," she recounted, calling it the most exciting day of her life.

"Meeting him meant that there is possibility to succeed at anything in life. He's inspired me to work hard and achieve every day," she added.

BeaverTails Canada Inc. founder and co-owner Grant Hooker had invented a custom-made Beaver Tail, called the Obama Tail, which was served at the Canadian Embassy during the Obama inauguration back in January.

So that's what was served to the man himself: an Obama Tail, a tail-shaped deep-fried pastry, coated with cinnamon and sugar and topped with maple-flavoured eyes and drizzled with a Nutella "O" for "Obama."

Hooker says he had sent out an invitation to the president to come in and try it but he never dreamed Obama would do it.

"I had said there was a snowball's chance in Florida he would actually accept," Hooker told Canada AM.

But accept he did, though no one at BeaverTails knew he was coming ahead of time.

"We didn't have the faintest hint," Hooker says.

Obama and his massive security team also shuffled their way through the crowds to stop in Le Moulin de Provence, a local French bakery. There, the president picked up maple-leaf-shaped cookies for his daughters - which he got on the house, says employee Isabelle Corriveau.

"He wanted to buy shortbread cookies, but we gave them to him, for his girls," she told Canada AM. "He said thank-you and then he left."

After Obama shook hands with all the employees in the shop and posed for pictures, Corriveau says she was struck by how friendly the president was.

"I think he's down-to-earth and really nice. He's a really nice person actually, I think," she said.

Obama and his 50-car motorcade also made an unexpected visit at the indoor market across the street from the bakery, where he drew screams and cheers from shoppers as he wandered through the aisles and chatted with vendors.

Earlier in the day, about 1,000 onlookers gathered on the snowy lawn of Parliament Hill to catch a glimpse of the famed American president. They received only a brief wave from Obama, who was joined by Prime Minister Stephen Harper. But many said it was the moment they had been waiting for.

"We're so tired, we haven't slept," Stephanie Scott, a Toronto resident who arrived on the Hill at 4:30 a.m. told CTV Ottawa.

Some Americans even made the trip to Canada just to see the U.S. president.

"Why do you think I'm here? It's because I couldn't go (to the inauguration in Washington)," said Rita Bruney of Brooklyn. "I missed him one place, so I'm catching him on the other side."