Cities in the Prairies

Edmonton. A quiet city, in the middle of nowhere. It is 300km North of Calgary, the nearest other city. My guide book said not to go there, but said that if I am stopping over for a night, I should be able to entertain myself.

Well, I was stopping over for 3 nights, because it is 3 days between trains out here in the Wild West.

Wild is the operative word. Apparently, Edmonton gets some very harsh winters. Minus 30 to minus 40 is not uncommon, and add to that the howling wind from the arctic. Not very pleasant. I wonder how the people here survive the winter. Enter Edmonton's solution: The West Edmonton Mall. A huge, sanctuary for Edmontonians to escape the reality of outside life.

It is the world's largest shopping mall. It has shops. Lots of them, including 8 department stores. But that's only the beginning. Let me list of few of the other features of the mall:
- A regulation ice hockey ice skating rink
- A huge swimming area featuring a wave pool and lots of water slides, comparable to the Gold Coast's Wet'n'Wild water park. With a bungee jumping tower too of course.
- A sea lion and dolphin under water area, with numerous daily shows
- A theme park with lots of rides, including two big rollercoasters, one with lots of loops. In fact, the largest indoor rollercoaster in the world.
- A decent sized casino
- 2 mini golf courses and go karts
- A mall area themed like Bourbon Street in New Orleans featuring restaurants and bars
- It's own Chinatown
- And of course your typical shopping mall supplements like cinemas, food courts, etc., except bigger than most.

I had treated myself in Edmonton a dorm with only 2 beds (luxury for a backpacker) and got lucky, being the only person in the room for the first 2 nights. It was my first opportunity to sleep somewhere private since I left Melbourne, and it was good! I woke up in the afternoon of my first full day in Edmonton and spent the rest of the day in the West Ed Mall.

The weather was quite mild on the first day, so on my second day in Edmonton I put on my jumper and went to walk downtown to check out some sites. The mere jumper was a big mistake! It was absurdly cold. As I walked over the high level bridge over the river, I thought I was going to freeze. It was somewhere around zero degrees, plus or minus a couple of notches, not taking into account the spine chilling wind-chill factor. I persevered though, and was relieved when I got to my destination: An old cafe called Bistro Praha. It is a Czech restaurant which I read about in my guide book. So I went in and had a nice hot goulash just like my mum makes, and a pilsner, to warm me up. I was good to go again. But this time I thought "when in Rome...." and caught the bus to the West Ed Mall for the rest of the afternoon.

It seemed to be where the town's teenagers like to spend their Friday night. Galaxy Land, the theme park with the roller coasters, which was pretty much empty on my first visit, now had 300m queue of 13 year olds waiting to get in.

But my Friday night was to be spent in the old Strathcona area, where my hostel was. It is an old street just out of the downtown area, and seemingly the place with the largest concentration of bars and pubs. My sort of place! I went back to the hostel and rallied some troops together to go out. It was an open invite but I only managed to recruit Australians, so I went out on the town with 3 other Aussies guys. At times I'm frustrated about the fact that wherever I go, I always see mainly other Australians, but they can usually be relied on for a good time.

I remembered to bring a warm jacket this time. Good thing, too, because as we walked down the street in the literally freezing temperatures, it began to snow. It was nice.

The next morning I woke up disappointed that now snow had been left on the ground. Edmonton gets cold, but there is not much precipitation,

It was check out day, so I got my stuff together and decided to go and feel sorry for my sick stomach in the common room. I was so focused on uploading my photos and writing this blog, that I hadn't noticed it snowing away outside again. When it came to going out to get some supplies for the train trip, the city was already under a few centimeters of snow. I went out and loved walking around in the freshly fallen snow. The city, which I didn't think much of in terms of appearance initially, was suddenly a nice clean bright shiny place.

I guess snow appeals to us Aussies, but the Canadians don't agree with me. When I reflected upon my joy of seeing the snow fall, they responded with stories of what a snowy winter it has been for them. How sick they get of constantly shoveling meters of snow away just to get to their front doors.

The snow has other down sides too. For example, I almost get run over by a bus. I wanted to cross a main road so I pressed the button and waited for the little green man... or, rather, white man, as is the case in North America. As the white man appeared I was about to walk, but down the outside lane coming towards the crossing was a bus. It was honking. I was wondering why the bus was honking but thought nothing much of it and was about to step out onto the road. Then it hit me! Not the bus, but the realisation that the reason the bus was honking was because he knew he wasn't going to be able to stop on the snowy road in time to not go over the pedestrian crossing. I didn't step out and live to tell story.

I headed off to the station to catch my train to Winnipeg that evening. It was nice zooming through the snow flurries, watching through the window on the warm train. I had not upgraded this time, but my trip in cattle class was fine, because the train was quite empty, and I had met a nice German girl in the hostel who was catching the same train. We managed to get a rare 4 seater area on the train normally reserved only for groups of 2 or more traveling together, and had a comfortable journey. I might have even slept better than in my sleeper class.

The next morning on the train, as we zoomed through the flatlands of Saskatchewan and Manitoba, the scenery was a lot less interesting. The prairies were just lots of yellow fields, not too different to traveling through the dry Australian countryside.

I arrived in Winnipeg around lunch time and took the opportunity to have a look around. For the first time in Canada, I was quite unimpressed. It was a small city and completely uninteresting. And to make matters worse, dirty. There was rubbish flying around downtown streets and layers of dirt on the footpaths. Perhaps it was just because the cold winter had passed and the city hasn't had its spring clean, but either way it didn't inspire me very much.

As I typed this blog tonight I had a Swiss girl next to me, who was complaining that she is stuck here till Friday, and was afraid to go out around here due to stories of the place being dangerous. I didn't find it to appear too dangerous but admittedly there were some seedy types around, and so far it is the only place in Canada I had been approached by someone to buy drugs.

In the last two days I have seen about six movies on VHS in the hostel and have slept in a lot. Perhaps being in a town you don't like too much is a good excuse for some down time while traveling.

Tomorrow I leave Winnipeg. It may be a 32 hour train journey, but I look forward to it.