Calgary!

Sorry for the delay, I have been meaning to post this for awhile! So as some of you may know, I spent last weekend in Calgary (AKA my future place of residence). My parents kindly donated some air miles my way so I could take a first round of summer clothes (among other things) out ahead of time, and so I could see the boy for the first time in about a month. See… aren’t they awesome people?!? Love the parents.

Anywho, got up bright and early at 5 am on Friday to make sure I’d be able to catch my 7:20 flight in time. Fortunately, because I’m traveling from London – the airport is Tiiiny … so I was checked in like about 5 minutes. Flight over was good – I was on WestJet (love them… you’ll see why later). The funniest part was when we were landing and we got through the clouds all you could see was white – London has gotten maybe an inch of snow so far this year – CLEARLY Calgary was a different story. I found it amusing to look around at everyone’s shocked/concerned faces on the plane as they realized we were clearly heading into a big blizzard. Then the WestJet steward came on and was like “in case you haven’t noticed already it’s a TAD colder in Calgary than in Ontario… but that is okay – because we’re from Calgary, and we love Calgary --- *woooo*" – it was super cute and distracted everyone from looking out the window for awhile. Once we landed, the baggage arrived pretty quick and I caught a shuttle bus downtown. It was only me and a really nice Australian girl who was headed to Banff on the shuttle, so we got to talking with the driver. I think they both found it pretty awesome that my first impression of my future home is a crazy blizzard.
Way to be Calgary, way to be.
Well at least now I can say I’ve seen the worst of it, right? Dear god, I hope that’s the worst of it.

Anyways, the boy met me at the drop-off point for the shuttle and we walked a block or two to our new apartment. It’s smaller than our one in London, but its right downtown which is handy. It will be fine for the first little while. I also don’t have a job lined up out there yet – so we didn’t want to go overboard with living expenses since we’ll only have one income – at least initially. Anyways, we quickly grabbed some lunch and then he had to head back to work for the afternoon – and I toured around 17th Avenue in the blizzard (not to worry, I stopped for Starbucks and a cupcake – so it wasn’t awful). Once the boy got home from work, we went to a cute little Italian place nearby for dinner called Gnocchi’s. It was delish, and not very busy due to the weather. The MIML took me by some of the grocery stores/liquor stores on the way home. I bought some wine and he bought some beer and we headed back and watched Christmas Vacation on TV. That was it for Friday.

Saturday we got up and went for breakfast at a diner down the road… gotta say, breakfast prices = slightly unreasonable. I feel like I will be making breakfast at home from now on. I just thought it was strange because my dinner entrée the night before was around $17 and fairly reasonable, and then I got eggs benny (I splurged) at this diner and it was like $13.50 and wasn’t even that great. After breakfast, the boy took me by where his new office is and then we grabbed a coffee at Starbucks – because it was still pretty frigid outside. Then we decided to hit Chinook Mall, we took the C-Train (its like an outdoor monorail – but I suspect I’ll always call it the subway because I’m wired to think like a Torontonian). It was enjoyable and pretty speedy as well. I saw like FOUR people wearing cowboy hats in DECEMBER, which I think is just awesome (although I bet their ears were freezing). People in my neck of the woods wear cowboy hats ONLY on Halloween or to the bar, so I find it so crazy that people wear them just because out West. Love it. The mall was good, lots of stuff to see. We found the boy some winter boots and I got some stuff from Bath and Body Works (obviously). Then we went to a nearby sushi place for dinner. The boy also bought the Planet Earth DVD set when we were out so we went home afterward and watched that on his fancy new TV, it was pretty awesome (both the TV and the DVD’s).

Sunday, I had to catch my flight back at around 2:30, so I grabbed a shuttle by about noon. Didn’t give me a lot of time in the morning, so we just ate a quick breakfast at home and said our goodbyes :( So sad! Oh well – only a few more weeks. I booked my ‘official’ moving flight – I’ll be a resident of Alberta by December 29th, woo exciting!

Guess that’s about it – that was an EPIC update. I’ll try and post more regularly so they aren’t always so long. Thanks for reading – if you’ve made it this far! As you can probably tell, getting in a workout wasn't my highest priority that weekend. I'll try to get back on the wagon shortly though. Sorry I don't have any pictures to share, I realized my camera was out of battery when I arrived there - fiddlesticks. I'll be sure to take lots when I move "for real". :)