Goodbye America. Oh wait, no, I will still be in America.

Update: Arrived safe and sound! I am in my hotel room now soaking up the silence (a precious and rare commodity in a door-less room in the Shire).

Initial impressions of Calgary: it's flippin' COLD, everyone is actually really nice and polite, and French accents are bangin'.

This is random: I finished The Sun Also Rises on the way here. You know how sometimes you find out about things that you probably should have known about a long, LONG time ago but for some reason or another that information just slipped through the cracks of your education/upbringing? And then when you realize the truth you're like OHMYGODMYWHOLELIFEISALIE. That is what happened to me when I read about bullfighting in this book. Prior to today, I'd always thought bullfighting involved a man dressed in silly clothing waving around a cape and angering a bull that would run through the cape many times. And then that would be it! Ta-da! Clap clap clap, great show, encore!

...Yeah. I had no idea that matadors would actually KILL the bulls. That there were swords and steeds and trophies in the form of severed bull ears. Seriously, what the fuck? This is not a sport, this is a disgrace to mankind (and animalkind!) It's fucking ridiculous, pitting men and animals against an beast that has been bred to be aggressive, armed, and uh, HUGE. And for what! Just for a few claps and shouts from a fickle audience? There is no pride to be had in killing an innocent animal. I liked my PG version of bullfighting much better.

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15 minutes before I set out on my Calgarian adventures! I am 50% nervous, 33.2% excited, and 17.8% sure that I will get lost and | or die before I ever set foot in the office.

I do not know how much time there will be to blog once the 10-11 hour workdays kick in. But I do have a small set of goals and regimens that I plan on keeping whilst traveling, and maintaining some semblance of blog posts is one of them. It does take a surprisingly large amount of planning, thinking and editing to make some of my "bigger" entries, so I may have to sacrifice quality/size for regularity...but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

I am determined to make the very most of my traveling experience. Calgary might not be the most glamorous place in the world, but it is still a new city in a country I have never been to before. There are people to be met, beers to be drank, memories to be made!

But first, I must tackle getting on the Red Line with my stupid luggage.