Monday, July 12, 2004
wild west weekend!
Well, what an active weekend for two people who usually divide up their weekends at home between long baths, a bit of housework, a bit of shopping, a bit of family visiting and a lot of sleeping!
The fun and games started on Friday with the start of the Calgary Stampede. Mr J was given the day off work to go and see the parade which kicks off the 10 day long "greatest outdoor show on earth", so we dutifully trundled off into town to see the action. We'd checked out the parade route beforehand and found out that most of the downtown streets would be closed off at 7.30am (2 hours before the start). Given that neither of us fancied getting up to be in town two hours prior to commencement of the activities (not even if there were likely to be free pancake breakfasts involved!), we (or rather I) decided that we would park at the park and ride carpark beside the LRT (light rail transit) station, and get the train into town. Given that Mr J has the patience of a gnat where public transport is concerned, we were lucky that a train arrived just as we made it on to the platform, and it whizzed us into the centre of town in the space of about 15 minutes (for the princely sum of CAD$2 each).
When we got there, it was obvious that loads of people had not been as lazy as us, and had staked out their spot on the route - fully equipped with picnics, chairs, rugs, and in some cases kitchen steps and ladders! They were probably right to bring chairs and food as the parade was absolutely massive. Apparently it kicked off at 9.30am and finished at about 12.30pm after making a huge circuit of downtown Calgary. We saw a good bit of it from various vantage points, but the best we found was the fourth floor of a multi-storey carpark! This gave us a birds eye view of some of the many pipebands (many seemed to represent Canadian police forces - or should I say services!):
A variety of floats, including Hungarians:
Indians (correctly referred to as First Nations Peoples):
Very small horses pulling miniature wagons:
Librarians (!):
Loads of poeple on and with horses:
and the Calgary city council street cleaning vehicles cleaning up all the horse poo:
After an hour or so, we headed off to find something to eat, and I have to confess to yet again steering us towards a diner on 8th Avenue - named simply the Avenue Diner, its open for breakfast, brunch and lunch (no dinner), and they do lovely tasty food at very reasonable prices. We were first directed to it on a wet, sleety Sunday when we were here in May 2004. At that time, we were staying in the Delta Hotel and had thought that we might brunch in its restaurant. Unfortunately, we hadn't realised that it was Mothers Day in Canada, and the whole of Calgary (except us) had booked into hotel restaurants for brunch. Now, downtown Calgary on a wet sleety Sunday at the start of May just didn't look too promising in terms of finding something good to eat, but the Delta concierge sent us in the direction of the Avenue Diner, and it was a find. Its a very narrow restaurant located just off the pedestrian section of 8th Avenue (aka Stephen Avenue), and it has three distinct seating areas: a counter where you can sit on tall stools with red tractor seats bolted on to the tops; an indoor seating area; and for the summertime, an outside patio. Needless to say, in May, we sat in the very cosy inside, but this time around, the weather was nice enough to allow us to sit outside and watch the world go by. The breakfast/brunch menu (as you would expect for a diner) works around eggs cooked in what seems like a hundred different ways, bacon, sausage, pancakes etc, but they also do a great eggs benedict, and you might find things like braised lamb shank with apricot and parsnip on the lunch menu. They also keep filling up your coffee mug - CAD$2 buys you as much coffee as you can drink!
Anyway, I digress (as usual when it comes to food!) - we got seats on the diner patio just before the end of the parade and we were able to watch all the parade goers come back from the city hall plaza (where the parade finished).
This is a (rather close up) portrait of J sitting outside the diner, with a (rather unusually) green Calgary street behind:
Loads of people went past - with what seemed like two thirds of them wearing checked shirts, jeans, cowboy boots, and hats. Mr J went a little quiet during lunch, and when I asked what was bugging him, he announced that he would like a hat! I'm not sure whether he'd seen a particularly attractive hat,
or whether the cowboy thing was getting to him, but nothing would shake him in his conviction that he wanted a hat... I decided to say nothing, in the hope that he would get over it, but unfortunately, all through Friday, he kept muttering about wanting/needing/having to have a hat....
Anyway, we got through the rest of Friday (in a hatless state) - went to Chinatown (where we came across an abandoned float):
and went to a shop we previously bought a wok in, in order to buy a small transformer for the wee stereo that we brought with us. We had previously tried just plugging it into the mains using a normal travel adaptor but it didn't work. Emma and Richard (previous occupants of Tuscarora) suggested we try a transformer, and loaned us one of theirs to see if it would work, and luckily enough it did. Needless to say, we couldn't keep their transformer, but we were able to buy a 50W transformer for CAD$13 (a darn sight cheaper than buying another stereo) from the Chinese hardware shop, and now we have music in the bedroom. Given that it had turned into a lovely day by this stage, we then dandered over to the Kensington district of the city, along beside the river:
where we wandered around a few bookshops etc, before hopping back on the train to get back to the car.
I have to say that I'm impressed by the public transport system so far. There is a bus-stop just at the end of our street here:
and the number 421 links up with the LRT at Brentwood station. For CAD$2, you can get on the bus here at 1.50pm (for example), transfer (for no extra charge) on to the LRT, and be right in the centre of town at 2.20pm. No worries about parking, and if you travel at peak times, trains go up and down to town at five minute intervals. Even if its not peak time, the interval between trains is a maximum of 15 minutes. In my limited experience so far, they're clean, quick, and while they seem to be used by a lot of people, you don't get the horrible overcrowding that you would associate with something like the London underground.
Oh - doorbell - hopefully sofas from Ikea .....
Yep - two large Ekeskog sofas, one for downstairs, one for upstairs. Luckily enough I managed to persuade the delivery guys to carry the upstairs one - didn't fancy the chances of Mr J and I getting a very huge sofa up a set of stairs with a turn in the middle! (Sofa pictures to follow)...
Right - where were we.... oh, yes, I was extolling the virtues of Calgary Transit (more to follow)...
So, we flaked out on Friday evening - Mr J played the Playstation and I read (just as an aside, the TV here is even worse that at home). We signed up for the basic cable package (TV and internet access) which gives us about 50 different TV channels, most of which are dire. We could sign up for a more advanced package, but in my opinion, that would probably give us another 100 or so channels, most of which would be dire! So, it seems like the winter evenings will be spent reading and playing the PS2, unless I take up sewing or something - having seen some of the quilts on display at the Stampede showgrounds yesterday, I could be tempted to give it a go (but we'll see!!).
Anyway, Saturday morning rolled around, and we were invited to Mr J's boss's house for "horse and buggy riding" and a barbecue. We didn't really know what to expect... However, we got up, collected another guy from outside the hospital (fellow in head and neck surgery from Switzerland - here by himself until his wife arrives in October) and headed off up to Dr T's house in the southwest quadrant of the city. Well, I say in the city, but i wasn't really. The house sits on a hill on about 20 acres of land, and in one direction, has the most amazing views of the Rocky Mountains, and in the other, has a great view of downtown. It was a beautiful older house - all hardwood floors, wood panelling etc... We arrived on time (for once!!), and then Mrs T drove us out to another piece of land that they own, fairly near the town of Cochrane. Apparently they bought it when land in this part of the world was dirt cheap (i.e. before the oil/gas revenue hit town) and now they use if for horse riding and also buggy riding.
Well we had a lovely time - first of all, we went for a walk - the type of land is known around here as the "high prairie", and it seems to be made up of what they call "sweet grass" and loads of different kinds of flowers, like this one:
They also had field lillies (just like the lillies at home, except that they were about 4 inches high), and loads of wild roses (appropriately enough as Alberta is known as the "Wild Rose Country"). We were lucky enough to have a beautiful day (with Mr J and I slathered in sunscreen before we went out). This is a picture of Mr J and the Swiss guy (Gary) posing on a rusty tractor, which has wild roses growing up through it.
Dr T then arrived with the buggy and two beautiful horses, and the four other people that he asked to his home for the day:
We (Mr J, Gary and I) were then asked if we wanted to come in the buggy for a ride, and needless to say we accepted. We trundled off round the land, slowly at first, and then Dr T got the horses into a brisk canter - at one stage, given that buggies don't have a great suspension system, I thought we were going to be bounced out but we held on tight and had a fantastic ride...
Following that, it was back to Dr T's Calgary house for a BBQ, where Mrs T kept a close eye on Dr T's burger cooking skills ("Is that smoke coming out of that thing??", "Don't drown the burgers in BBQ sauce!", "Are you sure they're cooked through?" etc) while, at the same time, rustling up a sumptuous spread of potato salad, green salad, lettuce, onions, tomatoes, pickles, cheese, corn on the cob, chips and dips, home cooked baked beans, cheesecake, melon, cookies etc (there I go on and on about food again). The weather was so good that we were able to sit out eating and chatting in the garden and all in all, it was a lovely day. The only embarrassing bit was when Mr J told Dr T that I wouldn't let him buy a hat, and Dr T offered him his own hat (cringe!). While it was a very nice hat (see picture just above this paragraph),... it wasn't really the done thing... (I might have to let him buy a hat...)
Sunday then rolled round, and we were out again - this time to the rodeo at the Stampede Grounds in the southeast of the city.
Yet again, I managed to persuade Mr J to use public transport and it worked out perfectly, We parked at the Brentwood park and ride, got to the platform just as a train was pulling in, and were deposited right at the front gate of the Stampede Park just in time. We've never been to a rodeo before (not many of them around in Carrick!!), and we thought it was great (probably a very politically incorrect statement - animal rights people feel that it is cruel). We had seats in the grandstand, and had a reasonable view of the rodeo itself, and a great view of the big screens that they have so that you can see the facial expressions of the riders close-up. The place was packed:
and the action was fast and furious:
With steer wrestling (get your horse to run after a steer, jump off your horse and wrestle the steer so that all of its body is on the ground - in the fastest time possible):
Calf roping (get your horse to run after a calf, lasso the calf, jump off your horse, wrestle the calf to the ground, tie three of its legs together - in the fastest time possible)
Barrel racing (done by ladies - ride your horse as fast as possible around three barrels):
And several other mad events such as bare back riding on specially bred "bucking horses", saddle back riding on bucking horses, and the craziest of the lot, bare back riding on bucking bulls. The bulls are specially bred for these events, and have names like "Quiet Riot", "Whirligig", "Assassin" and "Crunch Time"! The trick with bull riding is that you are supposed to be able to hang on on the bull's back for 8 seconds. If you can manage that, you get a score out of 100 for style!!! Yesterday, out of 10 cowboys, only one managed to stay on for the full 8 seconds - everyone else got thrown off in about 2 seconds.
Apparently the cowboys who participate in these events are professionals who do it for a living. They're a bit like jockeys, and they travel from rodeo to rodeo in the hope of winning prize money. In the Stampede rodeo, the same cowboys ride in the same events over nine days in the hope of accumulating the most points that they possibly can. The last day of the Stampede is then the final, and the overall winner of each event walks off with a large sum of money. Well - that's if they can still walk! Its not an easy way to make a living, and we saw several guys get a battering yesterday.
I said earlier that I thought the bull riding was the craziest event, but in hindsight, I think that honour really should go to the "mutton busting". This is where children, aged 5-6 years, ride bareback on sheep to see how long they can stay on:
I don't think there's a lot you can say about that, but apparently its the way to get kids started on a rodeo career.....!
Following the rodeo, we then wandered off into the grounds of the Stampede Park. If you can imagine a combination of the Ideal Home Exhibition, the Balmoral Show, a a craft fair, and a huge fairground, you'll have some idea of what goes on. They had a load of agricultural exhibits:
and huge halls where people were trying to sell massaging chairs, things for chopping vegetables into weird shapes, gadgets for getting fluff off trousers (you get the picture).... but most importantly of all, we found a place that sold a huge variety of hats! Mr J now has a hat to call his own - pictures will follow in the next day or so (bet you can't wait!). The funny thing is that nobody looks twice at someone wearing a hat in this city.... not sure what the citizens of Carrick would make of it though...
Other purchases included a glass flower to hang up in the front window, and two slices of fudge.
So - that was the wild west weekend as experienced by P&J...
More to come hopefully...
The fun and games started on Friday with the start of the Calgary Stampede. Mr J was given the day off work to go and see the parade which kicks off the 10 day long "greatest outdoor show on earth", so we dutifully trundled off into town to see the action. We'd checked out the parade route beforehand and found out that most of the downtown streets would be closed off at 7.30am (2 hours before the start). Given that neither of us fancied getting up to be in town two hours prior to commencement of the activities (not even if there were likely to be free pancake breakfasts involved!), we (or rather I) decided that we would park at the park and ride carpark beside the LRT (light rail transit) station, and get the train into town. Given that Mr J has the patience of a gnat where public transport is concerned, we were lucky that a train arrived just as we made it on to the platform, and it whizzed us into the centre of town in the space of about 15 minutes (for the princely sum of CAD$2 each).
When we got there, it was obvious that loads of people had not been as lazy as us, and had staked out their spot on the route - fully equipped with picnics, chairs, rugs, and in some cases kitchen steps and ladders! They were probably right to bring chairs and food as the parade was absolutely massive. Apparently it kicked off at 9.30am and finished at about 12.30pm after making a huge circuit of downtown Calgary. We saw a good bit of it from various vantage points, but the best we found was the fourth floor of a multi-storey carpark! This gave us a birds eye view of some of the many pipebands (many seemed to represent Canadian police forces - or should I say services!):
A variety of floats, including Hungarians:
Indians (correctly referred to as First Nations Peoples):
Very small horses pulling miniature wagons:
Librarians (!):
Loads of poeple on and with horses:
and the Calgary city council street cleaning vehicles cleaning up all the horse poo:
After an hour or so, we headed off to find something to eat, and I have to confess to yet again steering us towards a diner on 8th Avenue - named simply the Avenue Diner, its open for breakfast, brunch and lunch (no dinner), and they do lovely tasty food at very reasonable prices. We were first directed to it on a wet, sleety Sunday when we were here in May 2004. At that time, we were staying in the Delta Hotel and had thought that we might brunch in its restaurant. Unfortunately, we hadn't realised that it was Mothers Day in Canada, and the whole of Calgary (except us) had booked into hotel restaurants for brunch. Now, downtown Calgary on a wet sleety Sunday at the start of May just didn't look too promising in terms of finding something good to eat, but the Delta concierge sent us in the direction of the Avenue Diner, and it was a find. Its a very narrow restaurant located just off the pedestrian section of 8th Avenue (aka Stephen Avenue), and it has three distinct seating areas: a counter where you can sit on tall stools with red tractor seats bolted on to the tops; an indoor seating area; and for the summertime, an outside patio. Needless to say, in May, we sat in the very cosy inside, but this time around, the weather was nice enough to allow us to sit outside and watch the world go by. The breakfast/brunch menu (as you would expect for a diner) works around eggs cooked in what seems like a hundred different ways, bacon, sausage, pancakes etc, but they also do a great eggs benedict, and you might find things like braised lamb shank with apricot and parsnip on the lunch menu. They also keep filling up your coffee mug - CAD$2 buys you as much coffee as you can drink!
Anyway, I digress (as usual when it comes to food!) - we got seats on the diner patio just before the end of the parade and we were able to watch all the parade goers come back from the city hall plaza (where the parade finished).
This is a (rather close up) portrait of J sitting outside the diner, with a (rather unusually) green Calgary street behind:
Loads of people went past - with what seemed like two thirds of them wearing checked shirts, jeans, cowboy boots, and hats. Mr J went a little quiet during lunch, and when I asked what was bugging him, he announced that he would like a hat! I'm not sure whether he'd seen a particularly attractive hat,
or whether the cowboy thing was getting to him, but nothing would shake him in his conviction that he wanted a hat... I decided to say nothing, in the hope that he would get over it, but unfortunately, all through Friday, he kept muttering about wanting/needing/having to have a hat....
Anyway, we got through the rest of Friday (in a hatless state) - went to Chinatown (where we came across an abandoned float):
and went to a shop we previously bought a wok in, in order to buy a small transformer for the wee stereo that we brought with us. We had previously tried just plugging it into the mains using a normal travel adaptor but it didn't work. Emma and Richard (previous occupants of Tuscarora) suggested we try a transformer, and loaned us one of theirs to see if it would work, and luckily enough it did. Needless to say, we couldn't keep their transformer, but we were able to buy a 50W transformer for CAD$13 (a darn sight cheaper than buying another stereo) from the Chinese hardware shop, and now we have music in the bedroom. Given that it had turned into a lovely day by this stage, we then dandered over to the Kensington district of the city, along beside the river:
where we wandered around a few bookshops etc, before hopping back on the train to get back to the car.
I have to say that I'm impressed by the public transport system so far. There is a bus-stop just at the end of our street here:
and the number 421 links up with the LRT at Brentwood station. For CAD$2, you can get on the bus here at 1.50pm (for example), transfer (for no extra charge) on to the LRT, and be right in the centre of town at 2.20pm. No worries about parking, and if you travel at peak times, trains go up and down to town at five minute intervals. Even if its not peak time, the interval between trains is a maximum of 15 minutes. In my limited experience so far, they're clean, quick, and while they seem to be used by a lot of people, you don't get the horrible overcrowding that you would associate with something like the London underground.
Oh - doorbell - hopefully sofas from Ikea .....
Yep - two large Ekeskog sofas, one for downstairs, one for upstairs. Luckily enough I managed to persuade the delivery guys to carry the upstairs one - didn't fancy the chances of Mr J and I getting a very huge sofa up a set of stairs with a turn in the middle! (Sofa pictures to follow)...
Right - where were we.... oh, yes, I was extolling the virtues of Calgary Transit (more to follow)...
So, we flaked out on Friday evening - Mr J played the Playstation and I read (just as an aside, the TV here is even worse that at home). We signed up for the basic cable package (TV and internet access) which gives us about 50 different TV channels, most of which are dire. We could sign up for a more advanced package, but in my opinion, that would probably give us another 100 or so channels, most of which would be dire! So, it seems like the winter evenings will be spent reading and playing the PS2, unless I take up sewing or something - having seen some of the quilts on display at the Stampede showgrounds yesterday, I could be tempted to give it a go (but we'll see!!).
Anyway, Saturday morning rolled around, and we were invited to Mr J's boss's house for "horse and buggy riding" and a barbecue. We didn't really know what to expect... However, we got up, collected another guy from outside the hospital (fellow in head and neck surgery from Switzerland - here by himself until his wife arrives in October) and headed off up to Dr T's house in the southwest quadrant of the city. Well, I say in the city, but i wasn't really. The house sits on a hill on about 20 acres of land, and in one direction, has the most amazing views of the Rocky Mountains, and in the other, has a great view of downtown. It was a beautiful older house - all hardwood floors, wood panelling etc... We arrived on time (for once!!), and then Mrs T drove us out to another piece of land that they own, fairly near the town of Cochrane. Apparently they bought it when land in this part of the world was dirt cheap (i.e. before the oil/gas revenue hit town) and now they use if for horse riding and also buggy riding.
Well we had a lovely time - first of all, we went for a walk - the type of land is known around here as the "high prairie", and it seems to be made up of what they call "sweet grass" and loads of different kinds of flowers, like this one:
They also had field lillies (just like the lillies at home, except that they were about 4 inches high), and loads of wild roses (appropriately enough as Alberta is known as the "Wild Rose Country"). We were lucky enough to have a beautiful day (with Mr J and I slathered in sunscreen before we went out). This is a picture of Mr J and the Swiss guy (Gary) posing on a rusty tractor, which has wild roses growing up through it.
Dr T then arrived with the buggy and two beautiful horses, and the four other people that he asked to his home for the day:
We (Mr J, Gary and I) were then asked if we wanted to come in the buggy for a ride, and needless to say we accepted. We trundled off round the land, slowly at first, and then Dr T got the horses into a brisk canter - at one stage, given that buggies don't have a great suspension system, I thought we were going to be bounced out but we held on tight and had a fantastic ride...
Following that, it was back to Dr T's Calgary house for a BBQ, where Mrs T kept a close eye on Dr T's burger cooking skills ("Is that smoke coming out of that thing??", "Don't drown the burgers in BBQ sauce!", "Are you sure they're cooked through?" etc) while, at the same time, rustling up a sumptuous spread of potato salad, green salad, lettuce, onions, tomatoes, pickles, cheese, corn on the cob, chips and dips, home cooked baked beans, cheesecake, melon, cookies etc (there I go on and on about food again). The weather was so good that we were able to sit out eating and chatting in the garden and all in all, it was a lovely day. The only embarrassing bit was when Mr J told Dr T that I wouldn't let him buy a hat, and Dr T offered him his own hat (cringe!). While it was a very nice hat (see picture just above this paragraph),... it wasn't really the done thing... (I might have to let him buy a hat...)
Sunday then rolled round, and we were out again - this time to the rodeo at the Stampede Grounds in the southeast of the city.
Yet again, I managed to persuade Mr J to use public transport and it worked out perfectly, We parked at the Brentwood park and ride, got to the platform just as a train was pulling in, and were deposited right at the front gate of the Stampede Park just in time. We've never been to a rodeo before (not many of them around in Carrick!!), and we thought it was great (probably a very politically incorrect statement - animal rights people feel that it is cruel). We had seats in the grandstand, and had a reasonable view of the rodeo itself, and a great view of the big screens that they have so that you can see the facial expressions of the riders close-up. The place was packed:
and the action was fast and furious:
With steer wrestling (get your horse to run after a steer, jump off your horse and wrestle the steer so that all of its body is on the ground - in the fastest time possible):
Calf roping (get your horse to run after a calf, lasso the calf, jump off your horse, wrestle the calf to the ground, tie three of its legs together - in the fastest time possible)
Barrel racing (done by ladies - ride your horse as fast as possible around three barrels):
And several other mad events such as bare back riding on specially bred "bucking horses", saddle back riding on bucking horses, and the craziest of the lot, bare back riding on bucking bulls. The bulls are specially bred for these events, and have names like "Quiet Riot", "Whirligig", "Assassin" and "Crunch Time"! The trick with bull riding is that you are supposed to be able to hang on on the bull's back for 8 seconds. If you can manage that, you get a score out of 100 for style!!! Yesterday, out of 10 cowboys, only one managed to stay on for the full 8 seconds - everyone else got thrown off in about 2 seconds.
Apparently the cowboys who participate in these events are professionals who do it for a living. They're a bit like jockeys, and they travel from rodeo to rodeo in the hope of winning prize money. In the Stampede rodeo, the same cowboys ride in the same events over nine days in the hope of accumulating the most points that they possibly can. The last day of the Stampede is then the final, and the overall winner of each event walks off with a large sum of money. Well - that's if they can still walk! Its not an easy way to make a living, and we saw several guys get a battering yesterday.
I said earlier that I thought the bull riding was the craziest event, but in hindsight, I think that honour really should go to the "mutton busting". This is where children, aged 5-6 years, ride bareback on sheep to see how long they can stay on:
I don't think there's a lot you can say about that, but apparently its the way to get kids started on a rodeo career.....!
Following the rodeo, we then wandered off into the grounds of the Stampede Park. If you can imagine a combination of the Ideal Home Exhibition, the Balmoral Show, a a craft fair, and a huge fairground, you'll have some idea of what goes on. They had a load of agricultural exhibits:
and huge halls where people were trying to sell massaging chairs, things for chopping vegetables into weird shapes, gadgets for getting fluff off trousers (you get the picture).... but most importantly of all, we found a place that sold a huge variety of hats! Mr J now has a hat to call his own - pictures will follow in the next day or so (bet you can't wait!). The funny thing is that nobody looks twice at someone wearing a hat in this city.... not sure what the citizens of Carrick would make of it though...
Other purchases included a glass flower to hang up in the front window, and two slices of fudge.
So - that was the wild west weekend as experienced by P&J...
More to come hopefully...
Comments:
Post a Comment
