Jen, Henry, Braaiing in Calgary :o)

Well after my Edmonton trip I headed down to Calgary. What a welcome relief. I hadn't been to Calgary since April when I went skiing in Banff! I was greeted at the airport by an excited and enthused Jen and Henry - and damn was it good to see some friends. The whole weekend was kind of planned and I was really looking forward to the break. That night (Friday) we went for dinner together and then picked up Adam, Jen's other half and we went down 17th Ave, which is the "happening" street. I guess we took the places to go out in Zim for granted coz although there were _plenty_ of bars etc on 17th, none had a decent vibe. We had a couple of drinks out and about and got home at a reasonable hour.

The next day we woke up reasonably early and headed down to a shop called SA Meat Shops. They import a lot of South African goods and make their own boerewors, dry wors, and biltong. We grabbed a whole bunch of provisions for that evening, including boerewors, lamb, sadza, rusks, biltong, dry wors, koeksusters and got some castle lager at a local liquor store. That evening Jen had her friend and her other half over for a braai. It was really really great to be eating like a zimbo and be surrounded by friends from back home. Just what a home-sick man needed!

On Sunday we pretty much just hung out, went to Church and I tried roller blading down by the river. It was rather scary at first, as it is a completely un-natural feelign to have wheels strapped to your feet. I had Henry and Adam supporting me for a lot of the time, and everyone had a good laugh at some of my first attempts, as it looked as though I was russian dancing, with my skates shooting back and forward as I tried to steady myself. By the end of the session I was basically able to steady myself without falling too much. Definitely want to give that a go again!

On Monday we headed up to Banff, which is just as beautiful in the summer as it was during the winter. We went to a lake and just had a picnic with a few people, took some pictures and waded around in the lake. Really good fun, got some great photos which I will try post here soon.

Leaving for my flight on Monday night was rather sad, becuase I had such a good weekend, it was a bit of a let down to know I was going back to my lonely little apartment back in Winnipeg. The consolation was that I was going to Calgary again in a couple of weeks (this coming weekend)!!