Hayley & Shaun in Canada: Calgary, AB

Happy New Year!

Dec 30th - Jan 2nd

We headed out of Edmonton for another 300km drive to Calgary, another big city in Alberta. This was the most amount of 'city' traffic we had to do out of our whole trip so far and it was interesting as we drove in during peak hour and the roads are quite different. We checked into the Glenmore Inn in glenmore about 20 mins from the main city area and the hotel was quite nice. As it was already quite late we had went for an indian buffet dinner at a restaurant across the road nad then had an early night. On the way back to the hotel I slipped (hayley) over the for the first time on the stupid icy bits of the car park!!! It hurt, and being so full from the indian didn't make it any better!!

On the 31st (-20!) we wanted to head into Canada olympic park which we though was almost like a ski area in the middle of the city. We were mistaken as canada olympic park was on the outskirts of calgary and instead we ended up at canada olympic station in the city where there was (another!) outdoor skating rink. So we went for a wander anyways and decided to go up calgary tower (like black mountain tower or sydney tower) where we got a pretty great view of the whole of calgary. It spreaded out as far as the eye could see and we could see the rocky mountains out in the distance too. It was a great view. We went walking around some of the main streets of the city which were quite nice and went through a couple of malls.

After lunch we got the train back to our hotel and bought tickets online to a nightclub for new years eve. We bought some drinks to have while we were getting ready and OMG they were soooo cheap compared to australia so that was good for us haha! And Shaun got a massive corona bottle for only $4! It was huge! We then headed back into the city and had dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory which was yummy and then we went over to the Whiskey Nightclub where we had bought tickets. It was a really cool nightclub with lots of different areas (pub style, night club, lounge) and they had lots of 'new years' themed party favours we could have. It was pretty busy there by the time it struck 12 and we brought in the new year with lots of dancing and some drinks. It was a really fun night and we both had a great new years eve together!

After chatting to all of you guys on skype until 2:30 in the morning we went to sleep and woke up pretty late on new years day. We had a late breakkie at the hotel and then went to one of the local shopping centres which was quite massive and saw a movie at the scotiabank cinema. We saw How Do You Know which was pretty funny. We then headed back to the hotel for a rest and got ready to go out for dinner in the city. We decided to go to a Teppanyaki restaurant as we like to go to those for special occasions coz they're fun and always really yummy! (for those who didn't know, new years day was shaun and mine's 2nd anniversary haha so we had something to celebrate!) We had a really yummy dinner and as usual were rolling out of the restaurant coz we were so full!

On the 2nd of Jan we checked out of our hotel in Glenmore and decided to see the real Canada Olympic Park on our way to Canmore. It was on the outskirts of Calgary and it was like just one hill with 2 chairlifts and a terrain park. You could see the whole thing from the bottom so it wasn't very big. But it was used for the olympics. It looked like a good place for beginners to go. We went for a walk around and had a look at the luge and bobsled track and then hopped back into the car to keep going. Although we quite liked Calgary, We were quite keen and excited to make a move as it was now onto our home for 3 months, Canmore.

Stay tuned for our adventures of officially living in Canada for the next 3 months,

Love Hayley and Shaun