Calgary Day One - Settling In

We drove in to Calgary from Edmonton, about 185 miles, and got in early in the afternoon. Calgary and Edmonton are sort of rival cities, both founded around the same time (late 1800s), both about the same size (about 1.4 million metro population), and both centers for cattle ranching and the oil and gas industry. But Calgary had the Winter Olympics in 1988 (It's just too cold in Edmonton that time of year, and the mountains, where you can ski, are a little farther away.) And Calgary has the Stampede. 

Calgary has a mix of architecture, mostly modern, mostly bland steel and glass, but some unusual. It also has one of those tower buildings (the Calgary Tower) with an observation deck that were popular to build from the early 60s to the mid 70s. (see Seattle Space Needle, Skylon Tower, CN Tower)

Calgary glass and steel: bland versus imaginative.

The Calgary Tower: Sorry, Calgary. It took Toronto a few years, but they had to outdo you!

We got in the day before the Stampede began. Spent the afternoon checking out the environs. Our AirBnB was in a high rise on Riverfront Ave, which is next to a very nice park on the Bow River. The apartment was small, about the size of a hotel room with a kitchen added in. Except for the bathroom, it was really one long room with just a partition separating the "bedroom" from the kitchen/living room area. There was a small balcony overlooking a garden. The tenants seemed to be a mix: Many Chinese of all ages (The apartment building is on the edge of Chinatown; the halls always smelled of Chinese cooking); and many 20-somethings, probably being put up in that building by their employers, and who were taking advantage of the close by clubs, pubs, and restaurants.

Our waterfront  high rise AirBnB

I went for a run for the first time in two weeks. That had to have been my longest time without a run in years! I ran around Prince's Island Park, a very nice city park on a small island in the Bow River just a quarter mile from our AirBnB. There were a couple of bridges that led to the park. The park had paths, some macadam paved, and others gravel. The Canada geese in the park acted very Canadian: not as obnoxious and testy as the ones I see in public parks south of the border. They're still messy birds, though! I crossed the Bow River to the north side of town on an odd pedestrian bridge. In the middle of the bridge, a young cellist was playing a Bach cello suite. It was a nice break. Since I was running, I didn't have any money with me, so I gave him a tip via QR code. Busking has come a long way!

A popular pedestrian bridge across the Bow River near Prince's Island Park

Bach Busker with QR code tip jar.

After my run, we went out for dinner in Chinatown. Dodged in to a restaurant just in time to avoid an early evening thunderstorm that came through (with Tornado Watch!). That was our last bit of bad weather for our stay in Calgary.

The next few days would be packed with things to do, so we went back to the AirBnB to rest up.