Being Back in the Big City

Standing outside the new Epcor building on 97th Street

Edmonton, Canada is a city of roughly a million people and big city life is always a bit of a shock when I'm back in town for a visit.  Living in the 100,000 resident city of Rochester, Minnesota, I have become accustomed to the mere 20 minutes it takes me to drive clear across town, the lack of traffic on the freeway, and the simplicity that comes with being in a smaller metro area.

What I do love in Edmonton, hands down, is the variety of restaurants...even at the mall yesterday the food court had Ukranian, Korean, Thai, Sushi, Indian and Greek places all side by side. Some of my Edmonton restaurant favs are: Boston Pizza, the Garden Bakery (Chinese), Lazia, Tim Hortons, and even the Costco fast food counter.  They have great smoked meat and poutine!

Having grown up here and moved away, my sister (visiting from her home in Melbourne, Australia) and I have been trying to put our fingers on just what Edmonton culture is and here's some of our observations:

* People are uber nice, but can be impatient when it comes to traffic
* Pedestrians are too confident that they have the right of way! (they DO, but will just step out without looking...scary)
* Style is generally function over form (a plethora of ski jackets and snow boots/running shoes)
* There is such a thing as a Canadian accent: words are pronounced very clear and tonally flat sounding
* A lot of the buildings were built in the 60s and 70s and have never been updated, so are showing their age
* There is a shortage of people to the amount of work needing to be done so customer service tends to be lacking
*  People are overly apologetic: if you bump in to them, they will say "Sohh-rry" to you
* There is an overall chilled out sense to people...low key, not easily excitable, an almost cool "professionalism"

People are so interesting, places fascinating, cultures intriguing.  I love being able to experience them!

old warehouse downtown converted to apartments