We depart Calgary tomorrow for the UK, to be honest I couldn't really recommend this place for a holiday. I wouldn't say it's a bad place, it just isn't that good. To be fair the place looks really bleak and dead because it's winter. The trees are bare and the grass is brown. The entire city has a real "concrete" look to it, with a coat of dust for good measure.
We've made the most of our time here though, we spent yesterday at the Calgary Zoo. It was an epic journey, we must have been in that place for over 4 hours. Again, it was a bit drab due to the lack of vegetation but there were a lot of good exhibits. If you want details on the Zoo, check out Mel's blog. What can you say? There were a lot of animals.
During the summer the city hosts the Calgary Stampede, I suppose you could call it a pilgrimage to Mecca but for cowboys. Not exactly my cup-o-tea but the sort of thing Mel would dig. We were in town at the wrong time to catch it but we went and checked out the show grounds and Mel bought a few souvenirs in the gift shop.
Last night we were having dinner in the hostel dining area and I peered outside into the neighbouring park to see 2 crack heads hitting the pipe. This was a first for me, seeing a genuine crack head doing his thing in real life. And only 10 metres from our window. Just like a bum... but on crack! Yeah, not a postcard moment for Tourism Calgary.
We're heading to Chinatown for dinner tonight, hopefully they don't serve their Kung-Pao with cockroaches like in Vancouver. We'll probably head straight to the airport after checking out and await our trip to England then Scotland. It's going to be tops, can't wait.
Well, this is my last entry from Canada. The next time you hear from me I'll be in bonny Scotland...arrrgh!
Cheers, Justin.
