A couple weeks ago, Alex and I made a slight (okay, quite large) detour from our European travels and returned to North America. We had a wedding to attend in LA and figured that 1) we didn’t want to do a 9-hour time change and three days later subject ourselves to an 8-hour time change to return and 2) that we may as well take advantage of being back in North America and do something we both really wanted to do. We contemplated going to the Canadian Rockies, the western US national parks (Zion, Bryce Canyon, etc.), or Yellowstone and Grand Teton. Partly due to our interests and partly due to surprisingly good flight options (LA to Calgary direct and Calgary to Dublin direct), we opted for the Canadian Rockies.
While Alex has been to Canada a few times, I haven’t spent a lot of time there. The only other time I’ve been was a few years ago when we drove from DC to Niagara Falls and then spent a few days in a small town just over the border called Niagara-on-the-Lake. The closest I’ve been to one of Canada’s large cities was seeing the Toronto skyline from the other side of Lake Ontario.
I can now say I quite enjoyed my first experience in a big Canadian city. (Calgary is Canada’s third largest city—fifth largest if you’re going by metropolitan areas.) While we didn’t do much, we had a pleasant experience. I walked away with much warmer feelings than I have for a few American cities where I’ve spent a small amount of time in the downtown areas, like Charlotte (where basically everything downtown was closed on weekends!) and Salt Lake City (which was only fine).
Our first encounter was the airport, which was reasonably nice as far as airports go. There was a waterfall inside the airport near baggage claim, as well as wall hangings of a moose and flock of Canadian geese.
Our hotel was also surprisingly nice. We’ve been using as many airline miles, hotel points, and credit card points as possible on this trip, so we had somewhat randomly picked out this hotel since we were only staying one night and could cover it with Hilton points. (This leads me to share a tip for anyone wanting to visit Banff and Jasper: It’s much cheaper to rent a car downtown than from the Calgary airport. We stayed downtown for one night because we were picking up our rental car at a downtown car rental agency the next day.)
The friendly front desk clerk let us know that the hotel was just hitting its one-year anniversary and that it was built in a former office building. It didn’t look like much from the outside, but they did a great job with the renovations. It was one of the nicest hotels we’ve stayed in thus far. The hotel clerk also let us know that the upcoming HBO series The Last of Us was being filmed across the street. They were expecting road closures in another day or two.
We also enjoyed three delicious meals in Calgary. There were dozens of different Asian cuisines—Vietnamese, Nepalese, Korean, and more—to pick from all around us. This felt appropriately Canadian, as about 22% of the population was born outside of Canada. We opted instead for Yemeni Village, which is, obviously, a Yemeni restaurant. Neither of us had eaten Yemeni cuisine before, and it was delicious! It’s influenced by both north African and Indian cuisine, although we hadn’t eaten anything with exactly its flavor profile before.
Our server helped us figure out what to order and how to use the dips he set out (one basically a cilantro chutney, the other almost like a spicy tomato salsa). I ordered the salta, a mix of potatoes, carrots, and other vegetables cooked in a hot stone pot. Alex got the charred AAA beef, which was thinly sliced beef with peppers, onions, tomatoes, and potatoes cooked in a flatter stone bowl. Both dishes came out super quickly—likely because they were cooked rapidly in a tandoori-style oven—with the hot stone pots atop pieces of wood. They also came with gigantic flatbreads that were reminiscent of naan.
Another interesting feature of Yemeni Village was the clientele, which was very diverse and not only Yemeni. We observed a table of east Asians, a table of men from another part of Africa speaking an unknown language (they had to ask for clarification about the food, so we are pretty sure they weren’t Yemeni), and some young women of vaguely Middle Eastern origin wearing head scarves.
The next morning, we enjoyed breakfast at Alforno Bakery & Café. Another friendly server—this time, clearly of Irish origin—helped us. Alex ordered a large breakfast platter, and I had a savory, Japanese-style scone, although I am not really sure what a Japanese-style scone is. We sat down amid the mix of other tourists and locals having business meetings, enjoying the airy interior and skylights.
We returned to Calgary earlier today for our flight to Dublin, Ireland. We drove back into the city on the Trans-Canada Highway, which mysteriously turned into a regular city street at one point. I randomly selected a sushi restaurant in a neighborhood just over the river from downtown that I believe is called either Kensington or Kensington Village. The fish was high-quality, and all the dishes were really elegant—near-black stone plates and bowls and dark wooden chopstick that seemed to be reversable (both ends were pointed). We drove back over the river along the main street of this neighborhood, which was lined with fun and trendy looking shops.
We’re now sitting in the lounge of the international terminal of YYC awaiting our return to the Europe trip. We’ll have a few more updates for you about our time in Canada, and then we’ll be back to the as-regularly-as-we-can-manage Europe updates.