Killing time in Edmonton

It is interesting to see how things can change over the course of six weeks or so.  Siobhan and I both were early morning people.  We’d be up at 6am and often out of the house by 7am.  These days if we are out of bed by 9am we’re doing well.  As a consequence, we’re staying up later too.  It used to be that if I hadn’t gone to bed by 10pm, I’d be asleep on the sofa by 10.05pm anyway.  Now, my body clock seems happy to stay up until midnight and later.  As a result, our last day in Edmonton got off to another late start.  By the time we had sorted ourselves out, repacked our bags as we did some laundry and had clean clothes again and checked out of the hotel it was 11am.  The nice people at the hotel stored our bags for us too.

Outside it was a refreshing 5°C.  We decided that we’d like to go and explore Strathcona, the oldest part of Edmonton where they have their heritage buildings.  The helpful person at the visitor centre had given us advice of which bus to catch, but as it was another non-rainy day, we decided to walk anyway.  The Strathcona area was an interesting mix of well-maintained heritage buildings, quaint shops, pubs, tattoo & piercing parlours, and run-down dingy shops seemingly awaiting demolition.  After coffee that tasted better than it looked, we started exploring the shops.  We managed to get Jared a Beaver Canoe for his birthday (oops, shouldn’t have mentioned that) and some other bits and pieces including some pants for Siobhan.  As Kate would say, “pants are good”. 

Having reconnoitred the place by now, all that was left to do was to try a couple of local beers.  We went into Hudson’s Canadian Tap House and had a Big Rock Traditional Ale.  While we were there, we got to see Drogba score for Chelsea in the Champions League against Barcelona.  Don’t know what the final score was as we left and went to the Pourhouse.  They had a number of interesting sounding beers on tap, and I got a taster of Amber’s Wytemud Vanilla Whysky Stout.  I’m not a big whiskey fan and lucky I got a taster as it was too strong for me.  I then had a Cannery Brewing’s Blackberry Porter.  This was a lot nicer.  We had the pulled pork sliders as well, and then headed back out into the cold. 

We walked back to downtown Edmonton with the goal of making the Alberta Legislature building by 4pm as we’d been told that would be the last tour of the building for the day.  When we got there, the last tour had been at 3pm because they start to tourist season proper in May.  Seriously, it seems that half of the things to do in Edmonton don’t open for the season until May.  Anyway, the building was very proper as you’d expect for such a building, and we got to have a look around the Grand Foyer.  They wouldn’t let us go any further than that.  We hopefully got some good shots of the inside and outside of the building.

Those plans dashed, we wandered back to the main shopping mall downtown and wandered around again.  It is hard work keeping occupied when you are waiting for a train at 11.30pm.  We grabbed something to eat and then went to the movies.  We saw ‘Salmon Fishing in the Yemen’.  Before you make any judgement about this, here were our other options:

• The Hunger Games
• The Cabin in the Woods
• The Wrath of the Titans
• Titanic (3D)
• The Three Stooges
• American Reunion

At least ‘Salmon Fishing’ had a good cast – Ewan McGregor, Emily Blunt and Kristen Scott Thomas.  It actually turned out to be a sweet little uplifting drama.  Ewan McGregor got to play someone Scottish for the first time in years; what a lovely voice.  Sadly, although the stupid digital display at the ticket office told us the movie was 2 hours and 6 minutes, it in fact turned out to be only about 1 hour 45 minutes or so, so we still had a bit of time to kill after the show.  In the end we were out of ideas.  We walked back to our hotel and on the way saw a jack rabbit bounding across the road.  Talk about seeing wildlife everywhere - this was a four lane road.  We got our bags and caught a taxi to the train station.  Our first train had arrived at Edmonton over half an hour early, so tonight's might do the same and we could get on and go to sleep.

Our luck was not in this time.  We arrived at about 9.30 to find the train was now not expected to arrive until 11.30pm – usually its scheduled departure time.  Ah well.  There was nothing to be done but get as comfy as we could and wait; the station was miles from anywhere and it was dark and cold outside.  We got spoken to at some length by a garrulous ex-pastor who clearly needed a congregation, watched as 70-odd junior high school band students checked in and generally tried to kill time.  It actually wasn’t too bad (or we have got used to waiting in transport hubs). 

The train finally arrived at about midnight and they did a quick job of loading us all on board.  We were very very pleased to finally get to bed, even if it was bunk beds on a moving train.