Day 1 - We're here, eh?

Tony picked us up as promised at 7am sharp - cheers, Toe - and we were checked in for our flight by 8:30. Then we tooled away the next two hours, and boarded on time... only to be told that there would be a slight delay while an engineer "fixed a problem with one of the engines". Now why don't they lie about stuff like that? The last thing I want to be thinking of, as we hurtle down the runway, is that half an hour before some grease monkey was doing a codge job on one of the engines. Could they just say he was fixing the windscreen wipers or something?

So we were an hour and a half late setting off. The flight was okay. 2.5 hours of looking down at cloud, then we hit the edge of Greenland (not literally)... mile after mile of jagged mountains sticking up through the snow like broken teeth; an awful yet fascinating land. This then petered out into flat plains of snow, then hour after hour of ice-packed sea. Then finally mainland Canada; the captain said we were flying in over Churchill, Manitoba (where the Polar Bears are), then over Saskatoon, then down to Calgary. The first hour or so of Canada - the Manitoba/Saskatchewan part - was just lake/swamp/lake/swamp (check it out on Google maps), and then we came in over the boreal forests of Alberta. You could almost see a line drawn on the ground where the forests became the prairies; suddenly this patchwork of square (or mostly square) fields appeared... mile after mile of them, as far as the eye could see, a seemingly unending carpet of flatness. And finally, after over 7 hours of flying, a road. Then another road. Then more nothing. Then a few more roads. Then, as we neared the centres of civilisation, you could see the roads criss-crossing like a massive noughts and crosses board. But it wasn't until we were on the last stages of our descent into Calgary that you actually saw any vehicles on those roads. It really brought home how awesomely empty the majority of this vast country is.

So we landed at 2pm local time, 9pm body time. The "White Hatters" at the airport welcomed Sandra with, "she's smiling, she must be a Spain fan" (Spain having just beaten Germany 1-0 in Euro 2008). We got our luggage, caught a taxi to the hotel, and were unpacked for 3:30.

Then we went for a bit of a wander around. Two things struck us straight away: (1) it's very clean and new-looking, and (2) it's very, very quiet. Yes, it's Sunday, and yes places are closed for the Canada Day weekend, but good grief, this is the biggest city in Alberta! We eventually came upon the Bow River, which separates downtown Calgary from... erm... the other part of Calgary, and walked along that a ways in the 30C heat (it's gorgeous weather today). Then we found an authentic Canadian Mexican restaurant (cough), ate half of the biggest plate of nachos I've ever seen, realised our body clocks thought it was now 1am, and decided to return to the room.

So far I've been walking around with a big goofy smile on my face. When we were driving in from the airport and I saw Calgary from a distance, I stupidly thought, "my gosh, it's just like on the internet!". To see something for real that I've only seen pictures of for 12 months is an awesome experience.

Everyone has been telling us that Canadians are a friendly bunch of people, and my experience so far hasn't contradicted that. The White Hatters at the airport, the guy on passport control, the taxi driver, the hotel staff, the girl who served us in the restaurant (I asked her what the city's plans were for Canada Day celebrations, she said, "oh mostly we just party")... they've all been really friendly.

My body is now telling me that it's 2am. I'm trying to stay awake as long as I can to counteract the jet lag, as it's only 6pm here (Sandra just gave up and went to bed... the bed is huge, the room is huge, I love this hotel).

I'm just gonna update the Flickr website with some pics I took today as we were walking around. Click on the link at the bottom of this blog to view them.