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!!