Calgary has been on my Canadian hit list for the past couple years as Canada has increasingly become a place of interest to me; it’s like the United States, but it isn’t the United States,. For a travel hipster like me, that’s a cool reason to visit. So far I have visited Montreal, Toronto and Newfoundland and Calgary has been next in queue. Part of my interest in Calgary has come from the annual Calgary Stampede which is a huge, ten day rodeo in the middle of July with many other events and activities, and always seemed similar to Cheyenne Frontier Days, a comparable event in Cheyenne, Wyoming each July for ten days. I couldn’t visit the Stampeded this year owing to my friends’ wedding in Prague at the same time, but I was able to visit in August.
The people I talked to while I was in Newfoundland told me how the province of Alberta (within which Calgary is situated) is different from the other places I had visited in Canada. Alberta is more western, mountainous, scenic and rural. It’s always really fun to “discover” a new sort of mico-culture in a country, it makes you feel like an explorer, even if you are only discovering something for yourself by learning about it for the first time. This is a constant thrill of travel for, the constant mini-discoveries that seem to be everywhere, all the time if we keep our eyes and ears open and stay curious.
Before I got into the rest of Alberta, I would spend some time getting to know Calgary. The city is very similar to Denver, Colorado (where I was born and still have a home) — in terms of personality, architecture even the style of bars and restaurants. Both places have a historic, western feel, aren’t so populated (though Denver, increasingly less so) and are each about an hour away from the Rocky Mountains. There are even rivers that run right through the middle of city. The climates are high-altitude, sunny and dry. In many ways, Calgary feels like Canadian Denver but without difficulty finding parking spaces or good Asian food. I’m somewhat surprised that they two cities aren’t officially sister cities or best friends or something (they should date?) owing to their similarities.
Highlights included seeing Rod Steward, the famous 1980s popular music star, in person at the hotel bar I was staying at, going on a couple of hikes and eating very good food. I had my first ever dim sum (surprising right?) in Calgary’s China Town at a restaurant called the Silver Dragon. I went to hot yoga at a place a couple of times. There are a lot of different neighborhoods to explore around the city, each with a distinct personality and aesthetic. The people that I met there were all friendly and happy. While I was in town there was a theater festival with short one hour plays by individual actor/producers. I went to a couple of them that were outrageously quirky and fun (see the poster for “Underbelly” below).
I really like Calgary. I think I’ll go back again for longer, and definitely during the summer.
