CMT Crossroads - Taylor Swift & Def Leopard

Awesome - I love Taylor Swift and Shannon loves Def Leopard

Frozen Bow River

Today we went to Chinook shopping centre - the biggest in Calgary (but not as big as Marion) to go see My Bloody Valentine in 3D. We didn't really know what the movie was about.... it was a horror remake, with the guy from supernatural... but I just wanted to go because it was in 3D! On the way home, I had a craving (pardon the pun) for crave cupcakes and by the time we got to Kensington the place has run out and was shut. So we walked home over the bridge over Bow River, which is where these photos were taken. The river is pretty much frozen.... and is covered in snow .

-2 degrees today. That temp is really warm for Calgary.

View from our apartment

So it was - 25 degrees today

This is Shannon outside our apartment getting the paper. It was so cold as you can see from Shannon's expression. He needed to take his gloves off to put all the coins in the newspaper machine and I think he lost a pinky.

Maurya

We ventured to Maurya an Indian restaurant in Kensington. I love sharing food! We got chilli chicken and beef vindaloo (mmmm... curry). The curry was served in a hot dish which was served over a lit candle. It didn't do much to keep the food warm - but it was a nice touch!

Boston Pizza

We went to Boston Pizza for the $10 deal on 17th avenue. This meant a caesar salad with a number of main meals to choose form. I got the szechuan pizza, while Shannon got the lasagne. The caesar salad was lettuce, mayo & parmesan cheese (which was the same as the spahetti factory). The lasagne is a little different to home - no bechamel sauce.

Denny's in Vegas

So Shannon decided to give Dennys a 2nd chance. And we did the first night in Vegas. When our sore legs sore the Dennys sign on the strip, we knew in our hearts that it needed another go. Shannon got chicken, while I got the monster nachos. We then waddled home.

Tony Romas

Shannon's face really says it all. We had Tony Romas for the first time in Banff. Well it was the first time we had ribs too. It was messy. It was filling. It pushed us over the edge food wise the first night in Banff. We didn't recover.

Oh Canada

We went to Oh Canada which is on 7th avenue. We were the only ones eating there! Shannon ordered meatloaf and I ordered the steak. In the back of my mind, I thought - Shan is not going to eat meatloaf. I was right. We swapped foods straight away hahaha

Spaghetti Factory

Spaghetti factory was at Eau Claire. The building was quite nice and had a real homely feel - it was especially nice with the Christmas lights. The deal here is, that you get a salad, pasta dish and desert for under $13, depending on the pasta dish. The meal was ok - nothing too exciting. The highlight was walking home along the bow river and seeing bunny rabbits!

Dennys

We returned to Denny's for the first time since we were in Hawaii on our honeymoon. We found Denny's near Chinook shopping centre, as there isn't one close to us (which is a good thing). Shan was disappointed when he got vegetables, instead of pilaf rice. He was also sad when his steak was smaller that he remembered. I on the otherhand enjoyed having eggs benedict for lunch. Shannon has yet to go back to this Dennys since....

Moxies

Shannon and I have been taking photos of when we eat out - I have no idea why. But perhaps we are thinking that we can conjure up the taste if we see piccies! This is us at Moxies on 7th avenue on our anniversary. We are still trying to get the hang of tipping here.

One of my favourite pictures of Shannon

This is Shannon to a tee. No matter what the temperature - Shannon will walk through rain, hail AND SNOW to get to somewhere. This is Shannon walking from Banff to a ghost town we had read about. But again, the town was further away then we had initially thought and we decided to walk back to Banff, so we didn't get run over by a car! (There is a road there somewhere). This was during our Chrissie holiday.

Robin Hood

We went to the Martha Cohen Theatre to watch Robin Hood back in December 08. The theatre was small - but was decked out to reflect the robin hood theme. We managed to grab front row tickets - which meant we had to look out for actors running onto the stage and in the aisles. It was entertaining - very funny - it was all about the balls (crystal balls that is). Most likely we will go an see another theatre production again.

http://www.atplive.com/OnStage/2008_2009/robinhood.html

Pauls steak....hmmm....

We have found our favourite diner - only 5 minutes walk from our house. And proximity is important when we don't have a car and have to walk in -25 degree temperature - like today! Pauls Steak & Pizza House is awesome. We have had the same meal there (so adventurous aren't we) the last few times in a row - 8 ounce steak sandwich (a whopping $12.95 haha). Its weird that most steak sandwiches we have had in calgary are missing the top slice of bread - so it isn't quite a sandwhich.

The Calgary Zoo in daytime!

So we ventured to the Calgary zoo on 18th Jan, as the weather was surprisingly pleasant by Calgary standards. We managed to see black bears (two are in the pic attached) , grizzly bears, moose and some other Canadian animals

There was even an Australian part of the zoo - the kangaroo wasn't there, which is to be expected, as I am not too sure how they would cope in the snow! But there was bats, lizards etc.

The South American part of the zoo was indoors and humid and Shannon loved it! He wished he was in shorts and thongs :( In there, was a couple of apes which was amusing to watch and a little baby ape which was too cute.

We also saw giraffes, hippopotamuses, eagles etc. and there was also dinosaur land (which was pretty dead)

Vegas Baby!!!!!!!

We went to Vegas 1st Jan - 4th Jan; so yes we missed the new years celebrations. But the town was still buzzing none the less. We stayed at the excalibur hotel - it is set up as a castle, which was pretty awesome!

The first night were there we walked down the strip and managed to find dennys (shan's favourite) and that was probably the only main meal we had. We grazed for the rest of the trip as being inside in the casinos - we lost track of time a lot! Shan managed to win $60 bucks at the excalibur (photo attached) - so we thought we were on a good thing! But we managed to lose it quite easily and a bit more over the next couple of days.

On our first full day we went to Premium Outlets and spent SIX hours shopping. We hadn't intended to spend so much time there - but there was sooooo many stores! The best store was the tommy hilfieger store which we loaded up on. I wanted my burberry scarfe - but even at a reduced $100 bucks, Shannon wouldn't budge!

The next day, we saw:
- the lions at the MGM grand, which apparently are descendants of the lion in the MGM logo
- the pussycat doll lounge at Caesers Palace
- the gondolas at the Venetian
- New York New York, set up like highrise apartments and the cool rollercoaster
- the waterworks at the Bellagio to the tune of Andrea Bocelli
- Got lost in the Bellagio and swore until we found our way out
- saw the pirate show at treasure island, but lost interest

On our last day, we decided to go for a shannon walk. What that means is, Shannon finds a place on the map which doesn't look far away and then we walk. But usually the map isn't to scale and this usually means disaster. We walked for over an hour to find another factory outlet, along the main highway. Luckily for us, this was the highway which had the famous Las Vegas sign! Once the factory outlets were in sight, we went straight for the petrol station for red bull and was surprised to see poker machines in there as well!

That night we did more walking - walking the length of the strip and spending time in the Fashion Show Mall.

Basically it was a lot of gambling and shopping - what more could we ask for?

Calgary at dusk

Taken from our apartment window by Shannon (20th January 09) - these photos were taken within a couple minutes of each other.

Christmas in Banff

We spent the 24th - 29th in Banff. We caught the bus there and the Calgary bus station was nuts on Christmas Eve. I thought Shannon was going to thump the obnoxious security guard. After the cavity search we boarded.

Christmas eve we had dinner at Tony Roma's located in the Mount Royal Hotel. Ribs was the choice and what a messy experience it was. We found ourselves sticky, full and bloated. Once was enough.

We had Christmas dinner at the Wildfire Grill, it was a buffet and as usual we ate too much. Boxing day we attempted skiing for the first time. Took us an hour to get all our gear ready and then we were into it. Pizza don't forget to pizza. Shannon was a flexible as a piece of wood and was lucky not to split in half. We spent 4hours learning some basics, we found that Shannon could go really fast but not all that good at stopping. Anne fell over only once which was a surprise. In the end, we were the only ones left in our group - so it was almost like having personal lessons. It was a great time especially the pain in our calves for the next 3days. Look forward to hitting the slopes again in the near future. Although that day - Shannon wasn't too sure, whether he would attempt it again!

We found ourselves wandering quite a lot as the weather was very good for us. Headed to the Cave and Basin where there are some stinky hot springs, which we stumbled upon by accident.

We were lucky to come across some deer and elk on our adventures as well. The deer were near the main part of town and were being scared off by the tourists with high pitched voices.

We attemped to walk to a nearby ghosttown, but the snowstorm eventually stopped us in our tracks.

Shannon also walked across water! The Bow River had frozen and we quickly walked over. Further up, people were ice-skating on the river - and one person was skating with their pram.

Aussie accents were everywhere - at the hotel, at the snow fields, in stores as wait staff....
it sort of took away from being overseas!!

Telus World of Science

The weather was almost -30 degrees with the windchill. Our nosehairs had actually frozen in our nose. We didn't want to venture far, due to the fear of getting frostbite - so we went to the Telus World of Science which is behind where we live. Although it was mostly aimed at kids, we had a lot of fun. We lay on a bed of nails, saw our body temperature on the big screen, found out on the stress test that I was more stressed than Shannon (surprise there!).

Calgary Zoolights - We wish you a merry christmas

We hadn't yet made it to the Calgary Zoo - it had been just too cold. But we decided to venture out one night to see the famous Calgary Zoolights. At the zoo there is 1.5 MILLION christmas lights. But besides the lights the other attractions included:

- talking to Santa direct from the North Pole on Santavision
- Choirs
- Snowball alley, snow balling, candy cane lane and the tunnel of love
- Video postcards (which I conned Shannon into doing, after much persuasion - even though we really didn't know the words!)

Glenbow Museum

We ventured to the Glenbow Museum to get a bit more cultured. We were lucky enough that there was also a Marilyn Monroe exhibition. It showcased some print/photos/paintings of Ms Monroe, including some of Andy Warhols' prints. There was also the original dresses she wore in some of her famous movies - How to marry a millionaire, Lets make love, The seven year itch and Some like it hot, to name a few. We were also around to watch a presentation of her life - which Shannon was excited about (insert sarcasm here).

www.glenbow.org