Calgary ... not even a rant!!!

I always say that I do not like Calgary and it is true. The worse things about Calgary as far as I am concerned is that it is very unfriendly and that ultimately what people always quote as its best feature "It is near the Rockies" is partially untrue, it is really nearly 2 hours drive from the Rockies. I can really rant about why I do not like Calgary but I'll spare you .. and myself.

But for a change here is what I like about Calgary:
- It has a river with a pathway all along it. In fact last Sunday I was able to walk 15kms on the pathway starting right from my house and it was a very pleasant walk.
- It has a great library system. You can borrow books (obviously), books on CDs, books as MP3, DVDs, music CDs etc. And it has a great collection.

Here is the kind of stuff I was able to borrow from the library last week:
- "Taste of Nepal" a cook book by Jyoti Pathak. Honestly, how often do you see Nepalese cookbooks?
- "50 great curries of India" by Camellia Panjabi. My all time favourite curry cookbook. I found it originally in Heathrow but right now my copy is in storage in South Africa. Every single recipe in this book always works beautifully and every recipe I've tried (and I have done quite a few, though admittedly I take liberties with recipes) taste fabulous
- "660 curries" by Raghavan Iyer another book I have in storage in South Africa.
- Two versions of Latin American Spanish courses (for Chile and Argentina where I am going next)
- "Wolf totem" by Jiang Rong a near autobiography (but a novel) depicting the dying culture of the Mongols and which came highly recommended on a blog I follow.
- "Frost Nixon" a movie which I have seen several times but which I really like
- 2 versions of "King Lear" which I have to admit I had never seen before and turns out to be a bit of a disappointment. Honestly the three daughters, the youngest being the nicest but unrecognized etc etc this was NOT an Shakespeare idea there are dozens of legends on this theme which obviously predate Shakespeare and do it better. What is it about three daughters / three sons, the youngest always being the nicest anyway ... OK don't say it, I know
- "Half Nelson" a GREAT movie. I highly recommend it.
etc etc etc. I am not going to list everything I borrowed.

Things have changed quite a bit in Calgary since I was last here:
- Storefronts for rent are not that unusual
- houses for rent or sale are everywhere
- every second store does NOT have a sign looking for staff
- It seems to me that there is more ethnic diversity (Hurray!) (I found a great little halal butcher shop and was able to buy excellent goat and lamb - excellent lamb in Calgary had seemed impossible especially after Tasmania where the lamb is beautiful)
- food has become much more expensive. I noticed that now grocery store display the price of fruits and vegetable in pounds as opposed to kilograms (which they used to do since we are a metric country!!!) to make the prices seem more reasonable.