200720041243 Calgary, AB, Canada

Just another quick one as I'm supposed to be getting ready to go out for the day (not sure what we're doing but that's okay).

Calgary's been pretty fun so far. They had a massive storm on Thursday night when I was out on the town in Banff. All we could see from there was lightning and heard the thunder pretty far off but by all accounts it was the biggest storm Calgary's seen in many a year. There was hail too, which destroyed most people's flower beds. It also caved in part of the roof of the West Edmonton Mall, which is pretty crazy.

Luckily, as soon as I got here, the weather was stunning, and in the two days that I spent at the stampede, I managed to turn a few shades darker (only in some places, how annoying) when I thought I'd already spent enough time in the sun in the Rockies.

The stampede was wicked fun. On Saturday I went in by myself and ran into Amanda and Simon that I know from Vancouver. We hung around a bit and then I met up with some more friends from Van (Michelle, Michelle, Lisa, Carrie and Cameron) as well as Mary. Michelle, Mary and I went on some rides (the Drop of Fear was awesome, even though I'm positive that we weren't clicked in properly and would have died if we'd leaned forward at all) and then we saw Nelly Furtado play live later on (she was awesome).

On Sunday I saw the final of the Rodeo, which was so much fun, asides from the wicked sunburn I got from sitting in full sun for 5 hours without any sunscreen (stupid, yes). Luckily I was already somewhat brown and hopefully I won't lose too much skin. Hooked up with the people from Van again and hung out before going to see the chuck wagon racing and the evening show, both of which were very entertaining, especially once we worked out how the races worked (there were way too many people and horses going on). The evening show was awesome, somewhat Cirque du Soleil-ish, and the most hilarious camp thing I've ever seen. The show smiles on about 300 kids was pretty disturbing. After the show, we met up with yet more people from Vancouver (all up about 20 or 30) and hung in the Nashville North tent (country music) til they closed. Not a lot of hot cowboys on a Sunday night though, sort of disappointing. I ended up staying at the University dorms since Mary's was too far away.

Yesterday we took our time getting into town, and just hung around in Dairy Queen and went to the pub etc. I was supposed to meet Mary but somehow in the 20 minutes I was in the pub, another thunderstorm started. I waited it out a while and then got brave and went out in the rain. Thank goodness for block-spanning malls so I didn't have to be outside so much. Ended up having a BBQ here since the storm didn't last long (although a friend of the family's house got hit by lightning!) and then went out for a few drinks and attempted dancing with some of Mary's friends. We sat down in the park for a little bit at about 11.30 and this guy came up and tried to sell us ladies' clothing from his backpack. What a weirdo!