Calgary

Slept in nicely and then wandered over to downtown to pick up tickets for a festivities later that afternoon. This was through Mark's roomates company which was holding the party at a bar. He works at Price Waterhouse Cooper, so we climbed to the top of a very elegant building to get these tickets. We then strolled around downtown through the pedestrian street and eventually met up with Pat at a Greek place where we had lunch. After that we kept wandering downtown. Eventually we started heading back to Mark's place and stopped by MEC to pick up some necessities. I'm starting to hate going into MEC during days off. After a quick stop at Mark's house we went off to Booker's for the bar party. Mingled around there for a bit. After we had exhausted our meal and drink tickets and the rain stopped we headed back to Mark's place. He went off to pick up a friend at the airport and then we went out to experience Calgary Stampede craziness for the night. Cowboy hats and belt buckles everywhere. The line up at Cowboys was huge as it is one of the most popular bars, so we went to a smaller place. Blah blah blah and I forgot my VISA at the bar that night.

The day after, we slept in again. Mark went off to pick up more people from the bus station who were visiting for the weekend. So there would be 7 people staying at his place for the night. We got denied a free Stampede breakfast because we were too late, so we went for shawarma. After that it was off the the Stampede grounds. Huge grounds, Midway, stands and best of all... rodeo. We went to the rodeo show for a bit. It was pretty impressive, all done very professionally, and I couldn't understand any of the cowboy jargon being tossed around by the announcers. But we got to see some calf wrestling, bull riding, bareback riding, and other stuff. This was part one of the "cowboy experience." The other half would come from staying with a Rancher going through Alberta. After the rodeo, we wandered through the agricultural show for quite a while. Every brand of edible meat was being promoted, lets just say it wasn't meant for vegetarians. I did a survey that tested who you choose your pork chops. You went through a catalogue and had to choose what chop you would buy out of 30 on each page. My slections ended up being pretty random. I also got a hilarious I heart alberta beef sticker that now adorns my waterbottle. We then headed off to an italian restaurant for dinner. The main catch was that they served legitemate Italian pizza. It was awesome. Best pizza I've had in a long time, simliar to the stuff I ate regularly in Croatia. I then biked back to the bar to retrieve my VISA, it took awhile to find a manager and through the idiot bouncers, but I got the card back eventually. That night we stayed in to conserve money.