August 25, 2017

Photo Journal: A Quick Trip to Calgary

Nicole art + photography, social saturday life lately, photography, travel

Last week I took a much needed holiday. Originally it was supposed to be a five day getaway, spanning from Saturday to Wednesday, but when I got back home, my new work computer hadn’t arrived yet (my other one had been sent back, since the hard drive was having problems), and so I was “forced” to take an extra four days off 😉

My friend Chantelle and I planned a while ago to go and visit one of our college friends in Calgary, as she is working there for the summer. Since Chantelle has been wanting to visit Calgary for a while, and I grew up in the area, we both thought a holiday in the city would be fun. I have already shared some pictures of Heritage Park, last week, and if you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen some of these already, but today I am sharing some of the other pictures I took during my little trip to Calgary.

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Inglewood, Memorial Park and Lougheed House

I spent three days in Calgary, as the first two days were spent at a family gathering, so my first day in the city was Monday. We wanted to tour the Glenbow Museum, but when we found out that it was closed, we decided to go shopping in one of the older areas, a neighbourhood called “Inglewood”, instead. However, one thing we didn’t plan for was that almost everything is closed on Mondays! All of the art galleries and many of the shops we passed by were closed, which I thought was rather strange for a large city. Thus, instead of browsing, we mainly wandered around looking at old buildings, ate lunch in an English style pub, walked around Memorial Park, and then traversed the grounds of Lougheed house, because, (you guessed it) the house was closed! Even though we did get caught in the rain towards the end of the day, it was still a great time spent exploring and spending time together. And a note to the future- don’t go on a trip to Calgary on a Monday!

The grounds at Lougheed House, below.

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Heritage Park

The second day was spent at Heritage Park, and though I did already share some pictures of the historical settlement last week, this week I am sharing some photos of the village. We had perfect weather for our day at Heritage Park; sunny, but not too hot and although at first we had thought we would spend only half the day there, we ended up spending seven hours at the park, and still not seeing everything! My favourite parts of the day were watching the street theatre my friend was in, buying a twenty-five cent newspaper which was printed on a 150 year old printing press, and visiting the Famous Five centre in the replica of Nellie McClung’s house. It was great to see the rooms where they discussed women’s right to be considered “persons”, especially since I could see the real Nellie McClung house from the apartment I was staying in. The attention to detail at Heritage Park is fascinating, and as you walk through it, you don’t feel as though you are in a park, since all of the buildings are ones that were moved there, or are authentic reproductions of historical places.

Nellie McClung’s house above, and, below, a photo of her and Emmaline Pankhurst.

The village main “street”, strawberry ice cream from the ice cream parlour, and the ranch house (below).

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The Cityscape

The view from the balcony.

The third day, Wednesday, was, sadly, the day that Chantelle and I had to leave. After one last look at the view off of our friends apartment balcony, we said goodbye, and then headed downtown (which was only a few blocks away). Chantelle and I wandered around downtown for an hour and a half, before we left the city, because we wanted to be able to see the skyscrapers, and “experience city life”. I loved seeing the contrast of the old and the new. All of the historical sandstone buildings with a backdrop of metal and glass behind, is such an interesting sight. We also loved walking through the “+15” skywalk (which connects many of the buildings in the downtown core) and walking past, and almost going into, a building that was being evacuated! Whoops! (we were wondering why all of those people were milling around!)

Above, just a random pretty house I saw, and below, the boarding house across the street, which was overshadowed by many tall apartment buildings.

Then, after our feet were almost worn off, we left the city and headed for home. We stopped for lunch in Lacombe on the way home, because Chantelle has always wanted to see that town, and then the holiday was over!

It was a very short trip to Calgary, but it was so wonderful to just get away for a while. I don’t really like traveling, but because the nature of my day job is that I am almost always “on call”, it was actually really wonderful to literally walk away from my computer and leave the phone behind, and focus on other things for a while. And, because I wasn’t at home, I was able to take an actual break, without work staring me in the face!

Have you ever taken a very quick roadtrip somewhere? Do you like to travel, or are you a homebody? Have you ever visited Calgary?