I’ve been away from Edmonton for the past week. I’ve been in Calgary for some training. This has given me an excellent opportunity to observe the city in its native environment.
It is quite clear that Calgary is the richer city. Not necessarily better, but it is richer. The locals feel much more open about spending money on expensive cars. Or fashionable clothes.
The buildings are also higher (do they have something to prove?) but that might just be because they haven’t had an in-city airport that prevents skyscrapers from being built.
Now, I’ve never really been in downtown Edmonton during the workday, but I don’t feel it flaunts its money as much. That same fact makes it hard to compare/contrast, because I’m not sure what my Edmonton baseline is.
I have to continue with my theory that Calgary hates drivers. They seem to work very hard to make it as inconvenient as possible.
I wish I could say more, but on the drive down last Saturday, I felt myself getting sick. It really hit me by Tuesday, getting the worst on Wednesday. That evening I started taking cold medicine so Thursday was pretty good. I’ve slowly been getting better. This did mean I didn’t get to do as much as I would have liked to do.
There were two things I would have liked to try and do. I could have checked out the zoo, which I’ve heard very good things about. But I felt that it was more important to get a lot of sleep instead of gawking at animals. The other thing would be to perform my favourite foreign city hobby and climb the Calgary tower. Unfortunately I found out that you can only do that on one day each year.
I did have a good walk to what I think is the best game store in Alberta, and then along 17th Avenue.