05.-31.07.2007: Calgary We drove to Calgary to see Anna who used to live in Hamburg but has now moved to Calgary. We arrived at 5-30pm and Anna had left us a message to phone her at work so she could tell us how to get into her house. But we don't have a phone. So we asked a lady walking along the street where the nearest public phone was and she let us use her cell phone! Anna was having a really bad day at work and she phoned us later to ask whether we really wanted to go to the "Sneek a Peek" evening at the Stampede. Calgary is famous for its Stampede which is held once a year for 10 days and the whole city comes to a virtual standstill. The Stampede is basically one big rodeo where competitors can win lots of money in various events. Every night there is a big musical, cabaret style show, and the Stampede grounds are extensive with lots of different side shows and concerts taking place. There are also fairground rides galore. Anna would have been quite happy to just come home and fall onto her sofa. But she made the mistake of telling us that there was a concert by an "Unknown Canadian Artist" tonight. Kirsten asked if it was Alanis Morissette as a joke and Anna said that it was someone named "Jan Arnold or something similar." Both of us shouted "Jann Arden? We have to go!!!" So poor old Anna had no choice and gave up on the idea of a peaceful night at home. We left just after 8-30pm along with Brenda, Anna's cousin and drove into town. The entrance fee was only $3 Canadian each and the concert was included. The concert was due to start at 9pm but Anna insisted on trying out some wooden spoons to music beforehand. They are very popular in Quebec! We got to the concert just as Jann Arden came on stage. We have never seen her before and we only know of her because we were given a CD of her music during our world trip back in 1997. So we were really excited to be able to see her live in concert and for only $3!!!! It was a superb concert. Jann is really very funny and made the large crowd laugh during the breaks between songs. Helen was used as a human tripod because Kirsten was trying to video the concert by holding the camera up above everyone's heads and her arms were getting tired! So she used Helen's shoulders to support her arms and keep the camera steady. The concert lasted for 1.5 hours and then we wandered around the grounds and had doner kebabs. Everyone is in jeans and pink cowboy hats (pink is the colour that is used to raise money for cancer research, so everyone has something pink on - except for us!!) Brenda was amazed that neither of us have a pair of jeans! So she asked we had jean skirts!!! Not our style! We went to the horse stalls to see the horses that would be used for the parade tomorrow. There were some really beautiful horses and some were really huge! We wandered around lots of cowboy hat stalls and tried on various hats and then watched the fireworks. It was a great night and we had a lot of fun. We didn't get to bed until after 2am! After only 5 hours sleep we got up, had a cup of tea with Anna and then we caught the bus downtown to go and see the parade. We arrived only 5 minutes before the parade started moving past where we were standing. There were lots of floats, marching bands, Scottish pipe bands, clowns, cowboys and girls, Chinese dragons, Indians in traditional dress and lots of horses. Every now and then, road sweeping vehicles decorated to look like horses or bulls came along the parade route to sweep up after the horses! It was very entertaining. Then we walked along the downtown streets watching various street performers and we had German sausages for lunch! We managed to find the bus to get back - all the routes and bus stops had been changed for the duration of the parade. Kirsten started downloading some of the photos whilst Anna and Helen went shopping, picked up a DVD rental which didn't turn out to be very good, and got a really yummy (East) Indian take-away. On Saturday, Kirsten started looking at Anna's computer to try and set up the new modem she had just received which should give her internet access. She had to give up in the end and we watched one of our DVDs that we hadn't seen yet. We spent most of Sunday shopping around for a new bed for Anna, a new external hard drive for our computer which doesn't have enough space on it any more, and some new insulation for our fridge. We lost Anna in Ikea and had her paged!!! The shopping trip took over 5 hours!! We made barbecued chicken wings and had a salad and corn on the cob to go with it. We were absolutely stuffed. Then Kirsten tried to set up Anna's modem again and rang up the help desk. But there is obviously something wrong with Anna's computer. So we gave up! Originally, we had only planned to stay in Calgary for a few days or a week. But we ended up staying for a lot longer. The first thing we needed to do was to sort out Anna's computer on her new modem. But it didn't work so Kirsten set it up on her laptop to make sure that the problem wasn't the modem. Kirsten ended up spending 2 hours on the phone to the helpline in the Phillipines!! Then she had to talk to someone in Montreal. She finally got the laptop online just before Anna got home from work. That evening we made the mistake of showing Anna that she could download free music from the internet and the evening ended up as an impromptu Karaoke evening! We spent 3 hours singing the Bee Gees, Barbara Streisand and Neil Diamond etc. (By the way, this was Anna's choice of music - she doesn't have a radio or CD player so she hasn't been able to listen to music for a long time!) The next day we had a look at the internet and managed to see lots of video clips of the highlights of the Stampede. We're not really rodeo fans and the cost of the tickets was prohibitive. The cheapest would cost around $40 Canadian each but we would have to stand in a queue for 90 minutes to get them for the rodeo and then queue up again later for the evening show tickets! So we watched everything on the internet and decided we didn't need to go and watch it live! It took 10 days to finally get all the problems sorted out with Anna's computer and get her online! This modem was advertised as "Plug and Play" but you have to know what you are doing to be able to get it set up! Fortunately, the helpline was very good! Then Kirsten offered to do a website for Anna so that she could use it to apply for jobs. That took 8 days!!! So our short stay in Calgary kept getting extended. Have a look at www.annagarleff.com. Our website hadn't been updated since the end of May so we were 3 months behind. In between sorting out Anna's computer and doing a website for her, we spent a lot of time writing our website, sorting out all the photos and trying to do an update. But it wasn't all work - we had a lot of fun too. Helen did a lot of the cooking so we had yummy English food including rhubarb crumble using fresh rhubarb from Anna's garden! We used Skype to phone lots of people including travelling friends. Of course, Harry Potter was high on our "To Do" list. We went to see the film about book 5 when it came out and went into downtown Calgary the evening before the last book came out. Anna drove us into town and we went to get vouchers for the book which were on sale from 10pm - the book would be distributed one minute after midnight. Downtown was full of Harry Potter fans and a lot of them had dressed up. There was a huge queue for the vouchers but Anna managed to push her way in! Then we sat around and watched the crowd whilst we waited for midnight. Anna managed to get us almost at the front of the queue but unfortunately, behind a man who didn't smell very nice. Helen suggested that Anna get her perfume out and give him a surreptitious spray under his arms!!! The poor guy probably got home and had a hell of a time explaining why he stunk of perfume to his girlfriend!! So for the next few days we were all in Harry Potter fever, trying to read the book and not find out anything from the internet before we'd read it! Whilst we were here we met up with John and Brigitte. We met them at Christmas 2005 in Mazatlan and they just happened to be visiting friends here in Calgary. So we drove to meet them and spent over 7 hours catching up. We had coffee and cakes and then a great barbecue with Frikadellen and fresh salmon, with baked potatoes and potato salad. They are both heading up to the Yukon so we may well see them en route - that is if we ever leave Calgary!! Anna sent us out for a beauty day as a present for the website. Kirsten got a wonderful new hair cut. She had been wanting to do something about her hair which she had let grow. But it was really getting on her nerves and she needed a professional hair cut. The hairdresser was originally from Lebanon and she was surprised to find out that Helen had been there! She was really nice and Kirsten ended up with a super hair cut and looked completely different. Kirsten spent most of the day in front of the mirror trying to get used to her new look! Later that day we both went for a one hour massage. Kirsten doesn't normally like massages but she really enjoyed it. Helen loves massages so there was no problem for her! The last few days in Calgary were spent trying to get ready to leave. We worked on the website, cleaned the bikes and Winnie and Helen was busy trying to download violin music as she had a free subscription to a music website when she bought her violin.