The first day was a lazy day... I just slept and then I decided to go to the city centre and walk to see how it was. Well... I didn't find anything really interesting except maybe the aerial pathways between almost all of the buildings. I discovered, after, that it's to fight the snow and the cold in winter, you can go almost everywhere in the city centre without having to put one foot outside. This is amazing... and terribly useful!
Then, the architecture, nature and urban landscapes in Calgary are not great at all. I can understand that after a huge fire they decided to build everything using sandstone but honestly... it's ugly. It looks like a kind of urban desert in the middle of nowhere.
I walked for a while and it was very hard to find something to do; the streets are just empty and what is supposed to be a park is so dry that you can't even see some fresh grass whereas the snow is not completely melted and the river is still frozen locally. In comparison to Vancouver... well... no... you can't even compare them!
The second day, I've decided to go to Calgary Tower and the Glenbow Museum. Finally I ended spending the day with Davies, a guy met at the hostel. We went to Chinook Shopping Centre (huge but nothing special) before going back to Downtown to see the tower and the museum. The observation desk at the top of the tower offers a great view on the city which confirmed my first idea of "urban desert in the middle of nowhere".
Fortunately, the Glenbow Museum was quite interesting and if I remember it's the biggest museum in this part of the country. I liked the exhibition of portraits taken by Karsh, a famous photographer, and all the historical stuff was well done.
In short, Calgary is not the kind of place I like but for a few days it's bearable.
The hostel where I'm staying, Wicked Hostels, is fortunately a good place and the staff is very nice. I talked with some people from different countries and this is good at least.
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