Calgary – The Heart Of The New West

Or maybe the new slogan should be:

Everything’s bigger in Texas Calgary

It’s weird to say, but I think it’s true. Calgary has become like it’s oil counterpart of the south and has monster-sized everything. Being here is quite weird. Upon arriving into YYC, my mother and brother and I went to the new CrossIron Mills http://www.crossironmills.com/. The new supersized mall in Balzac (which is just outside of Calgary), it’s the same size as West Edmonton Mall, but all on one floor. It is quite the spectacle. And I think that it’s more or less just than than an actual mall. People are not going to go there to shop, you’re going there to gawk and stare at the ridiculous of the scale of this mall.

And it’s patrons. We ate lunch at a burger joint, South St. Burgers, which is basically like a Subway for burgers, but not as good. The burgers were nothing spectacular and I was expecting more. But I was not suprised to see a 12 year old who probably weighed as much as I do chowing down on a few burgers.

After burgers, my mother insisted we go to the Bass Store. Which is basically a hunter/hick/redneck’s wetdream. The first you have to do to enter this store is pass through a turnstile. A turnstile. Sorry, is this a theme park? Apparently it is. There was one of those electronic shooting ranges for kids, and all your Buck Hunter arcade games. Upon every wall, surface and floor of this store there was some kind of dead, stuffed animal. I swear that the wildlife population of Alberta has decreased by 30% to just fill this store with stuff. There’s moose, elk, a herd of reindeer, duck, geese, packs of wolves, bears. If it loves in the Canadian Wilderness, it’s in this store. It’s ridiculous, but apparently Calgary lives through the phrase – “bigger is better.” As clearly evident by this mall.

Anywho, after this mall, we came home. To a workzone. Our house is currently being renovated, we are getting our main floor repainted, hardwood floors, new kitchen, the words. And by we, I mean my parents. They are doing all said renovations. We are all currently cooking on a barbeque, microwave and toaster oven. We have our fridge in our garage and the kitchen table is down by our TV. Secluded to basically one floor as the basement is being used for storing all of the stuff from upstairs. Not exactly what I was looking forward to when I came home, but it will have to do.

Amongst all this chaos, my brother is moving up to Edmonton shortly, so this adds to the stress and a few fights have been caused by arguing over whats going where and who’s doing what. I, being probably the most laid-back member of the family, just get to sit back and stay out of everything here.

So this is day 2/3 away from my girlfriend in Victoria, and I can definitely tell it’s more wearing on her than me. Here I have a lot of my friends and I am going to be busy just about everyday I am here. And she’s feeling pretty lonely at home in Victoria. I’m not really sure what to do in my situation. It’s hard for me to just be like, “Yes Dear I won’t do this” and “Okay I miss you too” a lot of the time. And I really do miss her and care for her and love her, I just worry about her and whether I am the biggest thing in her life and if she can survive without me. I was in a situation before in my life where I felt like my girlfriend was dependant on me and NEEDED me to survive. I don’t feel that my girlfriend is this way, but I’m trying to be cautious that it doesn’t become like that. I know that she’s mature and can handle being by herself and that’s one of the things I like so much about her. I’m hoping she meets me at the airport and we can drive home together and pick up right where we left off.

Speaking of picking up where I left off. I think that’s a sign of a real and true friend. I feel that there are people here that I can hang out with, for the first time in four months, and it’s like I never left. We’re cracking jokes and being dicks to each other and all that, and it’s great. That’s one of the greatest things about coming back is bein able to hang out with these people just like you did before you left. But that’s not the case with everyone here. Apparently a lot of my friends don’t even talk to each other and they live here together, I’ve kept in better touch with some of them while I’ve been away. Maybe that’s because of force of being away and you HAVE to make an effort to talk to find out everything. At the bar on Thursday night, we were talking about our one friend in England right now, and how many postcards we had gotten from her. Everyone there had gotten about four or five. And I’ve gotten something like 10+. Maybe that’s just because of the bond I have with this person, or maybe it’s bad posting, or maybe it’s because I’ve made the effort to talk to her while she’s gone and I think I’ve tried to maintain the relationship we had before we left. She’s said that our bond has even gotten stronger, and I don’t think that’s a false statement. Which is good.

So after some much needed catching up time, it was party night! I got prepared by dressing up as a WWII Jew. Which is horribly offensive and such I understand, but it was a good costume and I don’t think I did anything to disgraceful, which was good. The party was great, combining my friends and my brothers friends in a few games of socialbles. Which is quite a feat considering I have never actually finished an entire game of socialbles ever. I was impressed that everyone got dressed up and glad that quite a few people came! I had a really good time and hope to catch up with a lot more people later.

So, here we are again. That glorious time of night that seems to reek havoc on my soul, oh 3:30 am, woe is me. My mother blames it on the coffee. I don’t know what it is that makes this time of night so odd to my system, but here I am again. I was up @ 3:30 my first night here and moments after I woke up, my girlfriend sent me a text asking if I was up, maybe subconciously we both wake up at that time to be with each other?

Anywho it is most definitely time for bed, I hope this entry suffices those who check this often. I may not get another chance to post until I’m up til 3:30 again. I don’t really like blogging around my family, in fear that they might see it and want to read it, and then find other blogs I have…

Later days,

- J

2009/08/29 | Categories: Her, Love, My Life, Parents | Tags: Animals, Bass, Burgers, Calgary, Cross Iron Mills, Edmonton, England, Fat, Friends, Home, Hunting, Jew, Love, Postcards, Subway, Texas, Victoria, WWII | 4 Comments »