Oh Calgary...Yee-Haw
After a whopping 48 hours in Calgary I am ready to judge, and be judged in return if my comments do require it!
The rumours are true folks; the Globe & Mail and my beloved CBC were not lying: Calgary is BOOMing. Period. As Meghan so poignantly put it at breakfast this morning in lovely Marda Loop, "It feels like California". Think of every stereotype encountered in magazines and movies that you have of the big C and apply it to Cowtown, sans palm trees and convertibles. I can now understand why there has been a 'shortage' of construction materials and labourers: EVERYbody is renovating. It's unreal. Seriously.
Surprise surprise, I spent all afternoon in a car yesterday which was extremely bizarre after being so privileged as to be able to walk everywhere in a decent period of time in Montreal. The car was fun to drive, the tunes were good, singing was fun, but I had to sit in traffic and lights and...it was just so different than the past while in Montreal. Something else that was so different from Montreal is that while sitting in traffic, stopped at the lights on a sunny day, windows down, what do you here? Country music. Ah. Sweet crooning about beer and lost romances. Calgary.
It's weird. After having lived in Vancouver, Montreal, Calgary, and Smithers, I always felt like Calgary was a place where I could return to (whether I like it or not) if I ever felt the urge to hunker down and work and buy a house. Vancouver was too expensive. My french is lacking for Montreal and jobs appear scarce there. Smithers is too far from a major centre...but lovely. But Calgary, Calgary seemed affordable, etc. My fallback city has been nixed, I think. House pricing is off the charts (on my mum's street the average housing/lot price is over $1,000,000 for sure, with an undeveloped lot behind her that looks out onto a bunch of bushes, aka "just like a country lane", that is up for close to $3,000,000 including the planned house to be built on it...no view...no waterfront...just a "cute country lane"...woah). I don't think you can buy a house in Calgary for less than $200,000 now. I suppose that's on par with Montreal, but considering how low it was just a few years ago, these ginormous leaps in price are hard to stomach. That and the cost of living on the whole is just so much more. I miss Segal's.
Oh, but then there are the mountains, still gleaming with snowy peaks, so close they look as though you can touch them with your fingertips. This is something that Montreal just don't have!!!
Well, with all that said, the weather has been extremely cooperative since the eve of my arrival with the sunshine shining bright (I can't type the '-ly' that I think is supposed to be on the 'bright' because I'm in Alberty...when in Rome...). Jasper and I have been going for multiple long walks every day with all the stay-at-home moms and their purebred pooches, whom are all very nice, I might add. And, can I just say that I love the bikepaths here. They're so cheesy, but so peaceful. Think Rachel bikepath transplanted along the riverside, with trees and the sound of water, no cars, and people ringing their (mandatory) bells when they want to pass you. It's so...cute! It seems rather gingerbread-y but kind of nice when you wish to escape the spontaneously opening car doors (Anna) and potholes and general chaos that comes with riding on the car-roads. Bike paths are cool when you feel like leaving the daredevil rush of the street behind. The other positive thing about the bikepaths, in Calgary at least, is that they help to create an ecosystem network throughout the city. For example, today I saw fish in the river (trout, I think), two families of goslings (yellow fuzzy-wuzzies), geese, and a pheasant (which was a real surprise). There was also a beaver's house and there were definitely coyotes lurking in the bushes but they tend to only come out at night once the traffic has died down. Entuka, it's all pretty neat, especially considering that what I saw was about a 5 minute drive away from downtown...or maybe a 10-15 minute bikeride would be the better parameter to explain the proximity of wildlife to the hussle and bussle of the oil town.
The following is something that would only happen in Alberta: I was walking Jasper along the back strip (as we like to call it: a bank that's wild and not developed) when he started taking a crap. Lo-and-behold there was an old arthritic labrador there with like owner. With a bag at the ready, the old guy came over to me and told me not to pick 'it' up, "I don't know if they've changed the by-law or not", he said, "but it used to be that you didn't have to pick-up in wild areas like this one. Besides", he added, "you're only replacing what 6,000 buffalo used to leave behind." Then he asked me if I hunted with my lab. I said no, but had my oh-so-cool response ready: "I work in the bush with him". This led me to find out that the old guy had once worked in Banff National Park sampling trees one summer, way back when. It was a great conversation.
What else? Well, owning a car is fun *sarcasm*. Insurance, repairs, and gasoline...oh my. You can fill in the rest of the blanks.
Other fun Calgary tidbits: best Huevos Rancheros I've ever tried in Canada @ the Galaxy Diner, yum & everybody's friendly--it's true!
Cheerio, Lins.
The rumours are true folks; the Globe & Mail and my beloved CBC were not lying: Calgary is BOOMing. Period. As Meghan so poignantly put it at breakfast this morning in lovely Marda Loop, "It feels like California". Think of every stereotype encountered in magazines and movies that you have of the big C and apply it to Cowtown, sans palm trees and convertibles. I can now understand why there has been a 'shortage' of construction materials and labourers: EVERYbody is renovating. It's unreal. Seriously.
Surprise surprise, I spent all afternoon in a car yesterday which was extremely bizarre after being so privileged as to be able to walk everywhere in a decent period of time in Montreal. The car was fun to drive, the tunes were good, singing was fun, but I had to sit in traffic and lights and...it was just so different than the past while in Montreal. Something else that was so different from Montreal is that while sitting in traffic, stopped at the lights on a sunny day, windows down, what do you here? Country music. Ah. Sweet crooning about beer and lost romances. Calgary.
It's weird. After having lived in Vancouver, Montreal, Calgary, and Smithers, I always felt like Calgary was a place where I could return to (whether I like it or not) if I ever felt the urge to hunker down and work and buy a house. Vancouver was too expensive. My french is lacking for Montreal and jobs appear scarce there. Smithers is too far from a major centre...but lovely. But Calgary, Calgary seemed affordable, etc. My fallback city has been nixed, I think. House pricing is off the charts (on my mum's street the average housing/lot price is over $1,000,000 for sure, with an undeveloped lot behind her that looks out onto a bunch of bushes, aka "just like a country lane", that is up for close to $3,000,000 including the planned house to be built on it...no view...no waterfront...just a "cute country lane"...woah). I don't think you can buy a house in Calgary for less than $200,000 now. I suppose that's on par with Montreal, but considering how low it was just a few years ago, these ginormous leaps in price are hard to stomach. That and the cost of living on the whole is just so much more. I miss Segal's.
Oh, but then there are the mountains, still gleaming with snowy peaks, so close they look as though you can touch them with your fingertips. This is something that Montreal just don't have!!!
Well, with all that said, the weather has been extremely cooperative since the eve of my arrival with the sunshine shining bright (I can't type the '-ly' that I think is supposed to be on the 'bright' because I'm in Alberty...when in Rome...). Jasper and I have been going for multiple long walks every day with all the stay-at-home moms and their purebred pooches, whom are all very nice, I might add. And, can I just say that I love the bikepaths here. They're so cheesy, but so peaceful. Think Rachel bikepath transplanted along the riverside, with trees and the sound of water, no cars, and people ringing their (mandatory) bells when they want to pass you. It's so...cute! It seems rather gingerbread-y but kind of nice when you wish to escape the spontaneously opening car doors (Anna) and potholes and general chaos that comes with riding on the car-roads. Bike paths are cool when you feel like leaving the daredevil rush of the street behind. The other positive thing about the bikepaths, in Calgary at least, is that they help to create an ecosystem network throughout the city. For example, today I saw fish in the river (trout, I think), two families of goslings (yellow fuzzy-wuzzies), geese, and a pheasant (which was a real surprise). There was also a beaver's house and there were definitely coyotes lurking in the bushes but they tend to only come out at night once the traffic has died down. Entuka, it's all pretty neat, especially considering that what I saw was about a 5 minute drive away from downtown...or maybe a 10-15 minute bikeride would be the better parameter to explain the proximity of wildlife to the hussle and bussle of the oil town.
The following is something that would only happen in Alberta: I was walking Jasper along the back strip (as we like to call it: a bank that's wild and not developed) when he started taking a crap. Lo-and-behold there was an old arthritic labrador there with like owner. With a bag at the ready, the old guy came over to me and told me not to pick 'it' up, "I don't know if they've changed the by-law or not", he said, "but it used to be that you didn't have to pick-up in wild areas like this one. Besides", he added, "you're only replacing what 6,000 buffalo used to leave behind." Then he asked me if I hunted with my lab. I said no, but had my oh-so-cool response ready: "I work in the bush with him". This led me to find out that the old guy had once worked in Banff National Park sampling trees one summer, way back when. It was a great conversation.
What else? Well, owning a car is fun *sarcasm*. Insurance, repairs, and gasoline...oh my. You can fill in the rest of the blanks.
Other fun Calgary tidbits: best Huevos Rancheros I've ever tried in Canada @ the Galaxy Diner, yum & everybody's friendly--it's true!
Cheerio, Lins.
posted by Unknown at 2:50 p.m.
2 Comments:
Hey LIns,
What a great post. You capture a lot of what's funny (both good and bad) about Calgary. Are we going to end up there for good? Put up some photos of those mountains and see if you can't convince me.
I hope you enjoy the drive up to PG and that you do end up swimming in Waterfowl lake with the jazzer. Just make sure he towels you off before you make the driver's seat all dirty...
Des
Very funny! Me make the driver's seat dirty?! HA!
The mountains were spectacular, alas, I was far too lazy to get film because I felt as though I was never going to leave Calgary. Then I was too cheap to buy it at Lake Louise when I stopped for gas (but, ironically enough, I paid for the gas...). Ditto for Jasper (although the gas was surprisingly on par with Calgary and cheaper than what was ahead in BC). And...then...well, I suck. But, you can tell how guilty I feel because of how much I thought about it, right? Right. Instead, you'll have to read my latest post to soak up all of what the mountains have to offer and not just gaze at their magnitude. :) I hope that's sorta consoling...if not a consolation prize?!!! Sorry :( Now that I have a digital camera at my fingertips (I love my job) I'll work MUCH MUCH harder at the photo thing. I was regretting not getting one of those photo cell phones...it would have come in handy on the drive!
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