Crid's 1999 Grand Tour of Canada

3 weeks travelling by train from Toronto to Vancouver

Toronto - Winnipeg - Edmonton - Jasper - Kamloops - Vancouver

Day 11 (Tuesday) - Edmonton

Halfway through the holiday now.  I was worried the time would race by, but it's not going too quickly, thankfully.

Today was a bit of a slow day.  Vance was at school until 4pm, so he lent my his bicycle.  After I had bought a new water bottle (the old one was split) and pumped up the tyres, I headed off towards the river.  There is a marked cycle trail there and I rode around for a while, tiring myself out.  Nice views, and there is a bridge across the river which you can cycle across.  The river is surprisingly wide.

Edmonton has so many trees, it's amazing.  Edmonton is an industrial city, yet there are parks and trees everywhere.  The cycle path beside the river is not far from houses and roads, yet you could almost think you were in the countryside - the trees help block out the sounds as well as hiding the houses.  Fort Edmonton Park was the same - very near the city, yet it felt like it was in the countryside.

Had a shower when I returned, and Vance then arrived early (having managed to get out of school early).  We then headed down to the river near downtown and took an hour-long river cruise on the Edmonton Queen.  The river is quite a long way below the city (and the downtown area is on high ground too).  A very pleasant trip - nicely relaxing.

After that, we tried to visit the Space and Science Centre, but it was closed for a private function, so instead we headed for the WEM again.  Did some more window shopping, looked at some parts of the WEM we didn't get to see yesterday.  We spent a fair amount of time in a hologram shop, and then grabbed a Fajita from the Taco Time takeaway.  (Why can't we have Mexican takeaways in England?)

Next we stopped off at Compusmart, which is a large computer store.  It is a bit like PC World, only cheaper (although not by as much as I had expected).  Not much DVD software there, unfortunately.

We then went to Vance's apartment (so I finally got to see where my emails end up).  Also had the chance to see an Amiga in action (it's been a few years since I last used one).  Unfortunately I didn't get the chance to meet Vance's wife - she was still at work.  I did meet her mum, who is currently visiting from Poland.  She scurried away very quickly though.  Perhaps she's shy.

No Northern Lights to speak of tonight.  That's a shame, but I did at least see them last night.

 
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