Deadmonton-what's up with that?

Arriving on the train, the skyline of Edmonton seems to jump out of nowhere. Why it's called Deadmonton, I don't know, cause we all loved the city, especially Strathcona.

It was in Edmonton that Alan and Jenni were served pints with bits of lemon... What's up with that too??? We loved the Provincial Museum of Alberta-lots of dioramas about wildlife and native Canadians. The women that charged us to go in turned out to be studying to play the bagpipes, bit random, but that is the kind of stuff you find out when travelling with Scots apparently. We attempted to go and have our tea leaves read at a Russian tea house, but it was closed for Remembrance Day. Even the buses were flashing "lest we forget" instead of route names. They take Remembrance Day much more seriously in Alberta than in Ontario, which is rather nice.



The Edmonton MEC has outdoors gear and a coffee shop-Jenni was ready to stay and to heck with Vancouver ;) Alan came up with an interesting question for Canadians to ponder-if you had to nuke one province, which would it be? He seems to think my answer would be Manitoba, but I refuse to play that game!

We had dinner with Margaret (formerly of Edinburgh, but Canadian), with a very loud Oilers game in the background. The next day we headed to the mall-not just any mall, but the West Edmonton Mall, biggest in the world. And frankly, folks, we weren't impressed. it's got no more shops than the Eaton's Centre, really, it's only big cause it has a water park, a roller coaster, a dolphin tank (very evil, a single social creature in a tiny tank, made Canadians look very not cool). Went to Roots once again-that store is addictive.



What else to say about Edmonton? Alan and Jenni taught me what gurning was (when old men take out their teeth and suck their lips into their mouths, apparently this is a competitive sport in England...). They gave us free donuts because the train was late... And just generally, we like Edmonton very much. I have since found out it's my dad's favourite city in the west, and I totally see why.