Canada Vacation - Edmonton, Nelson and Calgary

During the last week of August Tim and I ventured back to Canada for what felt like a well earned week long vacation. The project that I was on at work since coming to Chicago had just finished and I was definitely in need of a break. In classic Anne and Tim vacation style, it involved lots of flying, good friends and hanging out with family. But this time it was Tim's!

We spent the first weekend in Edmonton, attending one of Tim's university friend's weddings. Theres a pretty large group of them that have been friends since collage and still meet up at each others weddings. They're a nice crowd and have been pretty friendly to me as the newcomer to the bunch. Some of them I've met a few times now and so that made it easier :-S. It was a lovely wedding and it was nice wandering round Edmonton seeing all the places that Tim used to hang out and work in during University and for a year or two afterwards. It was also blissfully cold in comparison to the boiling Chicago summer that we had been having.

Next stop was Nelson, which is in British Colombia where Tim's sister and parents are now living. To get there we had to fly Edmonton to Vancouver (which looks lovely must actually go there one time...), and then take a little plane to Castlegar which is in the heart of the southern BC Canadian Rockies. Tim's parents picked us up and then took us back to his sister Kim's gorgeous house. Kim and her Yorkshire husband Wes moved to Nelson from Alberta and picked an amazing spot. They have done their house up themselves (helps that Wes is an electrician) from what sounded like a dump initially, and now have a 3 story house with a wrap around deck, and a self contained basement that Tim's folks now live in. Tim's mum has done an amazing job on the garden which has a massive veg patch and loads of fruit trees, which, as this is serious bear country, get ravaged every night, much to their annoyance.

The house is located just up and across the road from the West Arm of the Kootenay Lake, a huge freshwater lake that runs down the middle of this part of the Rockies. They have an enviously slow paced, outdoorsy life. You can't help but be relaxed the minute that you get there. I could of quite happily stayed. Tim and I spent most of the week lying in the hammock on the deck, enjoying the sun and reading books. Fantastically self indulgent. We also ventured into Nelson itself to see the Farmer's Market, which turned into marvelling at how Nelson seems to have an awful lot of Hippies per square inch, possibly only challenged by Glastonbury Festival. As there have been lots of bears this summer Tim and I were too chicken to go out hiking, which would of been fun, but actually relaxing, and admittedly napping for an hour or two every day, seemed like a pretty good alternative. We also managed to go Kayaking one morning too. It was super hot while we were there so we dragged ourselves out of bed early enough that it was still cool. It was pretty windy and the lake was pretty choppy, I loved it, made me think I was at sea, Tim, not so much!

Tim's Mum also mothered us well, it was lovely to have some "mum cooking". It was really great getting to see Tim's family. He hasn't seen them much for a few years so it was good to just hang out. Wes and I had a lovely time bantering over the north/south English divide, and Kim and I are frighteningly similar despite the 12 or so years between us. It was just what we both needed.

Next stop was Calgary for the final weekend. I desperately wanted to catch up with old friends there on our way home. We had a pub night in my honour (hurrah!), organised by the awesome Miss Patricia, and a great turnout, it was amazing to see you all, I miss you all very much. It felt like a long long time ago that I lived there, despite the fact that it's only been 9 months. Lot's of life changes in that time I guess! Talking of which we had a great time catching up with the newly Canadianified JJ and his gorgeous fiancee Sara, seeing their new pad, eating at the Farm and catching up with Sara's little critters. Also the soon to be parents Jason and Andree (they had their gorgeous little boy just a few days after we left).

A lovely week away and great to see so many friends.

Punk Rock Bingo - The BEST night out in Calgary.

Tuesday nights at the Ship & Anchor, 17th Ave, Calgary from 8pm

Punk Rock Bingo - the best night out in Calgary for sure and something that I feel the rest of the world should start adopting. Perhaps I will bring the sensation to Chicago....

What is Punk Rock Bingo I hear you say?

Well, it used to take place on a Tuesday night at Broken City run by a guy called Steve.... Steve then left and took Punk Rock Bingo with him the the Ship & Anchor on 17th Ave. Punk Rock Bingo (or PRB) still continues at Broken City but it isn't as good without Steve. (sorry new guy but it's true)

It's kind of like normal bingo but instead of Grannies and the retired, it's mostly a young, "alternative" crowd. Instead of silence and ultimate concentration, it's yelling, boisterous and the odd swear word. Instead of winning $10 at the bingo hall, there is a random selection of prizes ranging from ice skates, to board games, to tattoo sessions, to wrestling masks, that Steve runs around town blagging from local stores and the odd flea market. Instead of tea, it's beer and wings. What's not to love?

Started by JJ, there's a crowd of us that would go regularly. A nice early week break in the evening. I and some of my fellow ladies, seem to get possessed and turn from quiet, well behaved young ladies, into screaming, yelling hooligans (in a good way), for a couple of hours. It's brilliant.

You have 3 rounds per Bingo, ending in Blackout Bingo (getting the whole card), there is also the Kite Round, and the X round, all with associated hand signals that will earn you a beer if you are the first to do it. The bingo is also interspersed with random rounds of Rock, Paper, Scissors, head banging competitions, and the odd trivia round. This is where I finally won a prize. The question was "Where were the last winter Olympics held?", pretty sure that I knocked a table over and maybe elbowed someone in the face in my haste to get to the stage with my answer. My reward? A guy in the crowd had donated a AssOlympic calendar that he had created for charity, consisting of him doing various Olympic sports, ass naked. WIN.

Brilliant night out and well worth going to. Below are some other blog entries from my fellow PRB goers.

Andree Lau's Blog - http://ugonnaeatthat.com/2009/04/17/calgary-wing-night-punk-rock-bingo/

John Johnston's Blog - http://ateabutnoe.com/?p=227

Suzi Edward's Blog - http://binkysilhouette.blogspot.com/2009/05/punk-rock-bingo.html

JJ's Last Week in Canada

My good friend JJ headed back to the UK last week. So lot's of what I got up to in October were leaving events!

We headed out to the mountains with another couple of ThoughtWorkers and went out past Lake Lousie to the Bow Valley Lookout. Another of those 'awesome views for no effort' places. Quick walk up from the car park and you get to a ledge that looks out over this gorgeous view:

Even though it was a rainy miserable day it somehow made the mountains all mystical and awesome.

We then went a bit further on up the road towards Jasper to Mistaya Canyon. A really cool little place, where the river has cut down deep into the rock and left a sliver of a canyon. We hung out there for quite a while, just nice watch the water roaring through the rocks.

Another brilliant thing we did was go skiing at Canada Olympic Park after work one day. The season hasn't quite started yet but COP is open. It's a outdoor little slope on the outskirts of Calgary. They have mostly man made snow but its still snow, and they do night skiing too. It was brilliant to get back on skis for the first time this year. JJ had packed his ski stuff already so was skiing in jeans. HA.

It's pretty surreal skiing on the only peice of snow that you can see and practically in a housing estate.But it's brilliant having somewhere to ski so close. Might keep trying to head up there before the slopes open this weekend.

Last up was the Last Night of the Poms. JJ had a house cooling party for us all, a brilliant night and this is us at the end.

ThoughtWorks Canada Away Day 2009

So bear with me while I post lots of things that I got up to in October...

A lot of October revolved around giving my friend JJ a good send off as he heads back to the UK with ThoughtWorks. Sorely missed.

First up...... ThoughtWorks Canada Away Day 2009

My first Away Day. Was brilliant fun!

The idea of an away day is that, as a company we are all pretty disparate. All on different client sites its often hard to "regroup", catch up with everyone and share ideas. So there is a day when we all go off site, give presentations to each other, get company updates, and generally catch up :-)

We went out to a ranch in Kananaskis Country out towards Banff. As predicted when we started planning the away day back in July, the first snow of the winter arrived just in time for the away day. It was actually really good fun to be surrounded in the snow, for a lot of people traveling this was the first time they had really seen that much snow, and it's always fun to watch their reactions. It wouldn't be the Canada away day if there wasn't ten tonne of snow!

We all had a great day, with all sorts of interesting topics for the presentations from sales skills, to cucumber testing to social responsibility and of course not without a hour long Roy Rant from our fearless leader Roy.

We also got some great TW swagger, in the shape of nice hoodies seen below.

On the move again...

I have a whole heap of blogging to do but firstly I thought I would officially announce...

....That I'm moving to Chicago in December!

32,000 miles of long distance relationship later, it's about time that Tim and I are in the same country at least, so I'm leaving the lovely Canada and heading to join Tim in Chicago.

I'm staying with ThoughtWorks (yay!), which is great, will hopefully make this leap of faith a bit easier. I've met a bunch of people from the Chicago office in different parts of the world, so that will be good. Work wise I'm looking forward to some new challenges, no idea where the next project will take me, I've been told that I should be prepared for traveling so who knows! I've been on my current (and first ever) gig since February, it's been a crazy journey since I started there and I can only thank everyone for their positive encouragement and patience! I can honestly say that I'm petrified about starting on a new project, but must be brave!

I've loved loved my time in Canada, yay for the skiing, yay for the hiking, yay for the lovely people. I didn't think that my ThoughtWorks career would start in Canada but I'm glad that it did, and I'm forever grateful for the opportunity that I had to come over here. The Canada TW office is an awesome place, friendly and cosy, everytime I walk in, I am greeted with hugs, that's my kind of office! I'm sure the experience will be different in the big bad world of the TW headquarters in Chicago...

And finally.... can't believe that I'm all growd up and going to be living with a boyyyy! I'm really looking forward to it, there's now two people to worry about in all my country hoping, but I reckon Chicago for a year or so will be wicked fun. Everyone's welcome to come and visit us!

The plan so far is to roll off my current project in mid December, fly from Calgary to Chicago to move all my things and then had straight off back to the UK for Christmas and a catch up with the faaaaamimly. Tim's coming too god help him ;-) Then back to Chicago on Jan 1st.

The Photo was taken by the Lovely Suzi Edwards at the TW Canada Away Day 2009

Cupcake Challenge - Crave vs. Buttercream

I love a good cupcake as much as the next girl.
So when I moved to Calgary I was overjoyed to discover Crave , the ultimate cupcake shop on 17th Ave SW. (They also have a shop in Kensington)
They sell normal sized cupcakes, mini cupcakes (my fave!) and also cookies too. You have a choice of a chocolate or vanilla base and then a multitude of toppings, my favorites being Va Va Vanilla and The Princess on vanilla cake. I prefer the mini ones, the large ones seem just too indulgent, but the mini ones seem to have just the rate ratio of topping to cake, in a handy two bites. The mini ones also handily fit into my cupcake holder that Crave also sell.
Recently a rival cupcake shop has opened on 17th Ave, Buttercream. I thought I would take it upon myself to find out which was better and would I be converted.

On Saturday I hit up Crave first, getting my two favorite minis, they had been freshly baked not long before, and they put them in a box for me (which irritatingly was too big for them so they fell over in my bag and go squished, hence the less than elegant photos below!). I then went on down to Buttercream, They had lots of the big ones left but not many minis. When I asked the lady for just one vanilla one she went hunting out the back and found me one.

I must of looked like a lunatic carrying my precious cupcakes in my hands down 17th Ave, but I found a park to sit down in to conduct my experiment. First I had to put my squashed ones back together. I tried the Buttercream one first, the sponge was nice and light, the topping was also quite light, still tasty though. The crave one again had a light sponge, slightly crisp too, the topping is pretty rich and you can definitely taste the butter cream. Both pretty damn nice.

In conclusion, although the Buttercream cupcake was a bit lighter, if like me, you treat yourself to a single cupcake every now and again, if you're gonna do it, do it properly, and go for the most indulgent taste of the two and that would my old friend Crave! Yay!

So Crave still holds me for now, and next time I must remember not to try my cupcake challenge for breakfast....

Weddings, Banff and a night out at a "microclub"

Last weekend I had the pleasure of Tim in Calgary for a whole 5 days. Yay!

On Friday we went to I think my favourite sushi place in Calgary, Zen 8 - more pricey that the other sushi places but way nicer in my opinion. Had a nice bottle of sake too. nom nom.

Saturday saw us going to Milt and Judy's wedding. Tim used to go to university with Milt and so it was a pretty good reunion with a lot of his university friends. They got married in a church in Kensington, they are both Chinese and Milt's family is pretty large so they got an impressive turnout.

All glamed up Tim, I, Abe and Carol headed off for a bite to eat and stopped by Mountain Equipment Co-Op for them to get a backpack to put their son Bryce in. We certainly looked out of place in a camping shop dolled up in our wedding gear!
We were blessed with a beautiful sunny day, not to hot but warm enough. The evening 'do was in the stampede grounds. Huge reception of 300-400 people, beautiful set up and for that many people must of been run with military precision.

The next day we headed out to Banff for the day. Tim's sister Kim and her husband were randomly in Calgary picking up a friend from the UK from the airport. They live down in Nelson which is in inner British Columbia, in the Rockies. Tim and Kim haven't seen each other for a couple of years so it was pretty good luck that they both were passing through Calgary on the same weekend. We drove up to Banff town and met them at the Bison Restaurant & Lounge for brunch. The food there is divine..... definitely must go back. Banff is quite different in the summer, nice but almost like a different place. They were right when people told me it was busier in the summer than in the winter though. Feels weird going to the mountains when they're not covered in snow! Wrong somehow.
It was great to meet some more of Tim's family. Have to confess I was pretty nervous. Turns out there was no need to be though. Felt like we all got on immediately, Kim and Wes are lovely people, seem very kind and very in love. Look forward to getting to spend some more time with them at some stage.
After hanging out in Banff for a few hours we headed back to Calgary and went to Farm for dinner. I love that place. We consumed a bottle of champagne in celebration of Tim selling his condo here and ate a large pile of cheeses and local meats. Good weekend on the food front!

This week I have working away as usual. Our dev team on the project I'm working on has shrunk recently and I was quite worried about the dynamics. But actually it's turned out to be working quite well. Which is nice. I am having a super lazy weekend this weekend, which is awesome. Long lie in's, PJ's.... Got all my hair chopped off yesterday, now its just above my shoulders. Then JJ, Sarah, Amit and Michelle and I all headed out for a few drinks last night. We went to Meet, and then the Milk Tiger Lounge. Nice place, lots of petites Bouches, (small food on a stick to you and me). Again, YUM. Then we ventured to Habitat which is a wee Micro Club. It was pretty small.... Although we all showed our age and gave up a 1.20am. Nice night though.

Hiking, Stampede, Harry Potter and the Calgary Folk Fest

Stanley Glacier Hike - 11th July 2009

The ThoughtWorks Hike Club headed out on another expedition. This time thankfully in much hotter and sunnier weather than the previous hike to Nihahi Ridge. A pretty decent sized group of us (8 in total) headed out to the Stanley Glacier, which is just in British Columbia, past Banff and towards the Radium Hot Springs.
For a reasonably moderate effort we were awarded with spectacular scenery. We parked the car down on the road and walked up the valley towards the toe(???) of the actual ice flow. The first part of the hike was through a forest that had suffered from a big forest fire a while back, you could still see signs of it today. We crossed the creek and carried on marching up the valley into the more rocky residue of the glacier itself.We didn't make it right up into the ice flow, but we got pretty far up. There were some big waterfalls, many cheeky chipmunks and even a Pika, which is the kind of animal that Pikachu is. Weird looking thing, looks like a cross between a chinchilla and a guinea pig. If thats possible!

It was a really nice day out. Always good to get out into the fresh air and enjoy the beautiful mountains that we are so lucky to have just on our doorstep.

The Calgary Stampede - 12th July 2009

Stampede is a crazy time in Calgary. It seems that for the majority of people living in and around Calgary this is what they look forward for the whole year. Stampede is mostly about the Rodeo competition, but there's also Agricultural displays, dog shows, Chuck wagon racing and a big funfair, all in the heart of downtown Calgary.
Not only do people go to this week long event but all over the city people go Stampede mad. Most workplaces have a mandate of Cowboy attire for the week. Jeans, checked shirts and large belt buckles are mandatory if you don't want to look a muppet. Loads of buildings cover the front of their carefully architectured buildings in hay bales and wooden fences in the Rodeo spirit. There are free breakfasts every day around the city and tonnes of other goings on. To be honest I found the whole thing rather surreal.The food is also pretty bizarre at the Stampede grounds. Deep fried is the order of the day, and deep fried Oreos are considered a Stampede delicacy.

I was pretty excited though at attending my first rodeo competition. The Rodeo heats go on all week and I had managed to get tickets for the final day. They run a very slick operation, having constant entertainment and riders for nearly 3 or 4 hours. There was the steer wrestling, where the rider jumps of his horse and brings the steer to the ground. There was the event where the rider has to lasso the steer, jump of his horse and then tie up the steers feet. Bareback horse Rodeo, Saddle horse Rodeo, bull Rodeo where the riders had to stay on for at least 8 seconds, and were given points based on their style and the craziness of the animal they were riding, and then the Barrel Racing, which I really liked. This was the only women's events and boy could these ladies ride. They had to get round the three barrels and back over the finish line in the shortest amount of time. These cowboys and cowgirls are seriously hardcore. The injuries that they must of obtained over the years must be pretty awful. There's not much that would over get me on one of those bulls let me tell you.Really good day out though and definitely something worth seeing one day of you ever get the chance.


Harry Potter and the Calgary Folk Fest - 26th July 2009
Tim came up to Calgary to visit for the weekend. Wicked as always... We had a lovely weekend of weather so got up to lots of nice things. He arrived nice and early on the Friday, which gave us time to finally go and see the new Harry Potter movie. I quite liked it actually, kind of different to the previous movies, and a little bit too much teenage lovin for my liking but other than that definite thumbs up. We then went to the River Cafe which is a lovely restaurant on Princes Island, where the food is all organic and locally grown and raised and you can eat alfresco in the park. I love the place! The added bonus was that the Calgary Folk fest was going on, in the park so we also had the main stage music to entertain us while we dined.
The Folk Fest - Yes there was very hippy moments but in general the music covered loads of Genres from Jazz to Hip Hop, from Big Band to Gospel and everything in between. It was fun atmosphere and it was a seriously hot and sunny day. There were a bunch of little stages with various people playing and then in the evening there was the Main Stage as well. The main stage has a brilliant concept called the 'Tarp'. First thing in the morning the more dedicated of the festival goers charge to the Main Stage and lay down tarps. Everyone 'respects the tarps' doesn't steal your spot, you can leave your things there all day and they'll still be there when you come back in the evening. Brilliantly one of my work colleagues was great enough to do this and let us all come and share her tarp in the evening. There was a great chilled out atmosphere, and it was just a nice way to spend the evening with a bunch of good friends.
I'm actually currently on a plane on the way to Chicago. Via Minneapolis as the flights were so expensive to go direct. There's some nasty turbulence so as I'm typing this my laptop is moving from side to side!

Good times!!

Week 3 in Calgary

So, 3 weeks in eh (see the Canadian lingo coming in already!)

I'm still in my Corporate Apartment, I have actually found and signed the lease for another apartment, on the other side of Downtown Calgary, but don't move in until the 1st Dec. Looking forward to moving into my own place a lot. The final stages of settling in.

At the moment I'm up by the river, but the new place is 12 block further Downtown, closer to the supermarket and pubs and shops and stuff, so that will be good, and hopefully I'll be able to survive without a car. Its obviously smaller than the place I'm in now, but I'm confident that I will work out well, the furnishing are all pretty nice, as it used to be let as a corporate apartment. I will report back and send pics when I move in in a couple of weeks.

After struggling a bit over the first week, I'm settling in a lot better now. finding the apartment helped, so did setting myself a time to make decisions about my future here. I've set aside a year to settle in with both the country and with the work, and try not to worry about making any long term decisions until then. Also, whats been brilliant, is that there are quite a few 'travelers' at ThoughtWorks at the moment, be it over for a few months or a year, so they are normally up for going out and doing things at the weekend and in the evenings. There are also a few new starts so we're forming a bit of a crowd, which is really nice! Very ThoughtWorky spending all our days and nights together in a heap, but it makes it much easier to settle in.

As for work, things are still quite quiet, theres not as much work as they thought there might be (seems the story of my life at the moment!), so there are quite a lot of us on 'the beach' waiting for work. We have a little project going on, which I was struggling to find my 'place' on, but we've just kicked off some more analysis work on it, and feel much more comfortable now. Keeps us out of trouble at least.

We had a gathering of "Girl Geeks" last week. Its something that ThoughtWorks have started in Calgary to get together female IT workers from around the city, to share ideas, thoughts and experiences. We went for Indian food, and it was actually quite fun. I thought it would be scary and too Oestragen fuelled but infact it wasn't, there were a bunch of really interesting IT women of all ages.

Its chilly here, about zero or under most of the time, had snow over the weekend, but not got to the really cold stuff yet! In general the weather is pretty good, mostly sunny and cold, but today there was really low cloud, so you couldn't see the top of the downtown Skyscrapers which I found a bit odd!
Skiing wise, the mountains opened last weekend, with a reasonable snow coverage. Didn't manage to get up there this weekend, but hopefully next weekend. I'm also vaguely looking into re-instating my Candian Ski Instructing qualifications and doing some training sessions, in an attempt to keep it up but also to meet some like minded snow people hopefully!

This week I hope to go and see Bond again, it's only just got to this side of the pond so the others havn't seen it yet. We have a monthly staff meeting on Wednesday which I'm told ends in the pub, and a few other bits a pieces, lots to keep me busy!

I will be back in the UK over Xmas, from the 19th to the 28th December, which will be really nice, looking forward to it, only a month away!

I've included some pics, of our trip to Elbow Falls, of the park by my apartment and of our attempt to bring Friday pub to Calgary!

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