Stampede Time in Calgary

So after a bus ride through the Rockies that took about the same time to fly from Melbourne to LA I arrived in Calgary, home of cowboys and the Calgary flames. I arrived on Thursday night and was graciously received by my Uncle Kev, Aunty Lou and my two little cousins Daniel and Jamie. What was even more gracious was getting off the bloody bus, now it wasn't the end of the world, well not until they played to only movie on the whole trip, which just so happened to be one of J-Lo's classics, Maid in Manhattan. Though's bastards at greyhound have a sick twisted sense of humour. Anyway, I get back to Canyon Meadows, the suburb my family lives in and crash for the night.

The next day I have a 6:30 start which I handled surprisingly well, had a coffee and we went to the Calgary Stampede Parade, well Jim (Lou's Dad) and I any way. There were floats and marching bands, trucks with folks doing line dancing on the trays and live bands passing by. Quite the spectacle. One thing that did catch my attentions, apart from the promo girls were the aussie's on horseback chanting Aussie Aussie Aussie. Well me being the minority, I yelled out as loud as I could OI OI OI but I only got funny looks from the people around me. I decided to keep my mouth shut from then onwards. And the most common factor in this parade is horses, bloody dozens of them trotted past doing what horses do best in front of 400 000 people. Shit everywhere. Now don't get my wrong, the parade was organised bloody well but I couldn't help wonder why they didn't do the horses after the marching bands. makes sense doesn't it.

After the little parade I went back to my aunt's company bbq and got a couple of burgers into me and started drinking. Got to love free beer, tastes so much sweeter. Well I got there early and they were expecting about 400 people, but unfortunately the bar girls didn't show up, so me being the nice guy I am offered my services and jumped behind the bar. Not only was I right next to 3 full kegs; it was the best shaded area in the whole joint. So after about 4 hrs of solid drinking a serving cowboys the shindig wound down and I headed to the train station. Played a bit of hack with a couple of locals, chatted to another bloke who told me to stay at the Pink Palace when I get to Greece.

Along comes Saturday, I'm meeting some friends from Vancouver at the stampede, so I head into the city and have a look around. It's a pretty nice city but has nothing on Vancouver. Has pretty big central mall though, that winds through a series of building and underground too, so that was interesting. I guess it's done like that because it gets really really cold there in winter and window shopping isn't the funnest when it's -20 degree's outside. Get a call from Jared and eventually find them in the Bud light tent in the stampede, they were a couple of beers up so I start charging. One thing leads to another and I'm about 3 up in half an hour. Though’s dam beer drinking genes I get from my dad, costs me a fortune in piss. So we head out and about looking at various rides that were the price of 3 overpriced beers so we decided to got to another beer garden. Good times, we drink some more and eventually make our way into the main stadium and watch the chuck wagon races. I heard amazing things about these crazy guys on the chucks but was kind of disappointed. So after about an hour or so we ditched the chucks and headed to the city for more beer and some partying.

I went home, got changed and arrived in the city only to be told that the others are piking. Well I thought screw that, I was there already so I might as well make the most of it and started looking for a bar. I arrive at Cowboys. Now it's a $20 cover, which was ok, but the atmosphere was worth a million bucks. I just went to the bar, got a beer and started dancing. Oh my god are there some good looking cowgirls in Calgary, so after a number of attempts to pick up a lassy the bar closes. So out we go and all of a sudden I’m going to an apartment to get more fucked up. I wake up on a couch and go home.

The world cup was on so Uncle Kev and I watch that with not much interest in who was going to win, although Kev hates the French so he was backing Italy. After the game we go for a drive along the elbow river and check out various valleys and mountain. Beautiful country out there. We stop a few times and have a good old yarn, nearly hit a deer then stop at a great little waterfall called Elbow falls. Pretty touristy but worth a look for sure. It would of been even nicer if the sun was out and about however there was a severe storm to the south.

Now a little advise for the stampede, drink at least a 6 pack at home before you get there. It's over priced and you can only really get bud and canadian. Also, have a good look around, I kinda just hung with my mates and drank. And take lots of money, I had a $200 budget for the week, well that went in the first day. And unfortunately the only way to experience it all is the pay for a lot of entry fee's, something we just could not afford. That said, it's pretty bloody full on and no doubt why they call it the biggest show on earth.