First sight of Cowtown

Flying into Calgary felt like a homecoming. It felt like we were at last on our way to our final destination…well, for now. At the airport, we were welcomed by one of the airport Greeters – an elderly man wearing a red and white cowboy outfit, big white cowboy hat, a bolo tie (yes, a bolo tie – I had to look it up), and a pair of cowboy boots to round it off. He seems to be around 80 years old. The team of Greeters also include cowgirls of around the same age dressed in similar cowboy outfits.

We ate our first Calgarian meal at Katzy’s restaurant in an eerily quiet airport, only later realising that it was late Sunday evening during a long weekend. The last few days had been a bit of a blur as we are still adjusting to the time zones and late setting sun.

We took an Uber to our airbnb, which is just East of the city. Our hosts, Todd and Leanne, welcomed us to their beautiful – hippy, retro, gypsy-ish – little house at the end of the street. Leanne is a waiter at a local diner and Todd packs beer and and works as an arborist. He says he just works at the beer place to get free beer for himself and his guests. The home is equipped with a shared kitchen, lounges and bathrooms. A mix of alternative and old school music is always playing from early morning to evening, and there is a hot tub which is permanently switched on.

In between the admin of the first two weeks and continual job hunting (for Sigrid), we try to explore as much of the city as we can. Our main modes of transportation are busses and trains. Something that’s quite visible on public transport is people with drug problems, mental illness issues and also homeless people.

We spent an afternoon riding a train to the end of the line and took a bus to explore the neighbourhoods. The majority of the houses are built of wood and are built very close to each other – it looks like something out of a SIMS game. There are many parks with play areas, basketball hoops, baseball pitches and ponds, which are usually full of kids playing, people walking their dogs, sport teams and cyclers.

As everything seems to be shockingly expensive, i.e. food, drinks and activities, we spend a good deal of our free time walking along the river (Bow river, which originates from the Bow glacier in the Rocky mountains) and to the parks. We’ve also managed to open bank accounts, registered for medical insurance, got new phone numbers, met new friends, visited a few different churches, went to a Stampeders football game (the crowds have large cow bells instead of vuvu-zelas); rented a car (quite a stressful experience driving on the right side of the road) and drove to Banff National Park, where we saw one of the glacier fed lakes, walked through Banff town town, explored the coffee shops and shared a Beaver Tail pastry (a flat, deep fried, doughy pastry with Nutella topping).

We will share more specific adventures as we go on. We are still settling in and are in between airbnb’s, Sigrid is still going for interviews and there’s a possibility of moving to Edmonton, a city 3 hours north of Calgary, but the best thing about the unknown is the unknown of what might come.

We are keeping the faith, breathing, exploring, having fun and enjoying the new sights and sounds.