I’m completing Gerrod’s challenge on a rather jetlagged brain. I don’t think it’s too bad either What do you think?
Came back to London last week
Enough for great weather to peak
To drink some fine grain
And get on a plane
For limerick in order to speak
I promise I’ll get around to writing up about my time there, though expect the technical stuff to appear on my work related blog.
Arrived back in London today for a short visit before heading back to Calgary. Something is completely wrong with the picture below being the photo taken outside of my window, and the complete opposite (torrential rain, grey skies) what I left behind in Calgary.
This is not the world I remember! I’m not complaining though.
Seen in Drumheller…
This weekend, a bunch of us visiting Calgary from overseas including Megan, Chris and JJ, decided to head out to Drumheller (also known as Dinosaur Valley), located in the Badlands, an area north of the city holding vastly different terrain from the flat, generally brown prairie land that surrounds Calgary. We visited a number of attractions including a mini hike around Horseshoe Canyon, a visit to the world’s largest dinosaur statue, a visit to the Hoo Doos and the world class dinosaur museum, the Royal Tyrrell Museum.
Surprisingly for a Sunday, the town of Drumheller seemed awfully quiet, with many of the stores shut around town despite the small number of tourists arriving constantly in vehicles. Being a dinosaur-themed town, plenty of the visitors had tiny kids in tow, although besides us, I noticed a large number of other non-kid toting groups of people.
The World’s Largest Dinosaur, of course, a T-Rex menaces about the local Aquaplex. Towering at about 88 feet, all the cars look miniscule in comparison. Of course, the sharp teeth also mean it’s pretty menacing if you can’t tell by the people running away from it in the picture to the left. The climb up gives a pretty nice, although limited view of the surrounding area, and almost feels like you’re about to be swallowed whole. We thought a slide down it’s throat to leave would have just made the entire experience.
On to the best dinosaur museum ever, The Royal Tyrrell Museum, a surprisingly modern museum holds a wealth of everything fossil and dinosaur related. Apparently the surrounding area is rich in fossils and keeps people busy uncovering new things all the time. It’s a fairly interactive museum and so well designed it managed to keep the four of us entertained at least for a couple of hours. 
It’s well worth the entry price, and apparently they even organise sleep overs for groups of kids that it almost makes me want to be back in school (almost!) I have to admit, even though my favourite dinosaur ended up as the massive skull, triceratops, I couldn’t but help but be amazed by the weird creatures they had including the Axolotls (picture from patrie71’s Flickr stream under Creative Commons).
We finished off our trip to Drumheller with a trip to the Hoo Doos, a series of interesting rock formations that look like a bunch of smurf huts. Apparently erosion and plenty of human intervention mean that the formation is unlikely to last for much longer, so I certainly appreciated being able to see them before their demise.
It was great to get out of Calgary and a road trip away from the city. Check out the pictures here.
A couple of weekends ago, Eileen and KP graciously took Reshmi and myself up to Banff for afternoon tea at The Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel. Looking very much like a castle nestled amongst the pine trees, the hotel has a weird mix of old and new to please everyone. Much like the Fairmont Lake Louise, shopping is very much upmarket (who buys artwork in the $1000s when they’re on holidays in the mountains?) with a number of restaurants and bars to suit all tastes.
Although they stuffed up our booking, with the result being the four of us crammed on a small table perched a little bit away from the amazing views provided through the window, the company and food helped make it an enjoyable experience.
On their website, their menu lists afternoon tea as:
Our waiter, much like many of the staff around town, was an Australian guy (from Melbourne) and served plenty of tea to make up for the tiny little table. Considering how busy the rest of the dining area was, he did a pretty good job of keeping up glasses of water full, our cups of tea hot and made it a pretty pleasing experience.
Although afternoon tea is relatively expensive at $32 and unlikely to be up to par to many of the London based ones, the dining atmosphere and (potential) views are worth going at least once. Book ahead, and given our experience, it’s definitely worth confirming the details of your booking closer to your visit.
I almost thought I had returned to London last week after almost six or seven days of consecutive grey skies and plenty of rain all around town. It also somehow managed to get pretty cold at the same time, needing to pull out the jumper and the winter jacket I still have around.
Even the locals say that that much rain was extremely unusual. At least, everything seems to be really green as a result (despite all the additional mowing now needed – see above picture). Everything has returned to glorious days of unending sunshine (it’s truly dark at probably about 11pm these days!) although there’s been a few surprise showers roll in suddenly.
I thought I’d head out to visit another one of Calgary’s markets on Saturday, the Crossroads Markets. Aided with a map with a rough idea about how to get to there, what I thought would be an hour or two turned into an almost 20km hike all around Calgary, with a few stops along the way. The picture below represents my journey on Saturday, and at least according to the map, was 19.42km.
Here’s a twitter-fied version of my journey:
Crave really seems to have captured the appetites for Calgarian cupcakes. Being located near one of their main locations in Kensignton, what time I have spent around the area on the weekend, I’ve seen plenty of people walking about their trademark bags. Clearly labeled yet see perfectly see through plastic gives everyone else the opportunity to ogle at their brightly coloured buttercream creations adorning an almost invisible golden base.
I sampled one of their lime flavoured ones. Intensively tart and sweet at the same time and just as intensively coloured, I couldn’t keep thinking that the cupcake was simply a vehicle for bringing the buttercream home to roost. Even with a cup of tea, I still found the icing to cake ratio simply too much. With that in mind, although I found their larger cupcakes to be overwhelming, I think the smaller, bite sized ones might offer a better balance.
Expect to line up in this place, unless it’s at the end of the day when they’re almost out of stock. Great for a sugar rush, Crave offers tantalizing flavours although, in my humble opinion, could do more to balance the cake to icing ratio.
If you expect an overwhelming amount of buttercream, add two more points to this rating.
Details: Crave Cookies and Cupcakes
Found at: Several locations – see their website
Highlights: Strong flavours, with eye catching coloured cream
Room for improvement: An improved cake to buttercream icing (I would like to have some cake with that icing thanks!)
TheKua.com Rating: 4 out of 10