Arriving in Calgary

  Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Wednesday, July 2, 2008

After the tiring 8 hour long flight, (thankfully not 9, due to good flying conditions) our fiddle orchestra arrived in Calgary International Airport. As someone who has never travelled outside of Europe before, it was a strange feeling stepping into North America. I suppose that travel between continents must be a normal thing for most people, but being new to long haul journeys, it really felt great! It seemed to take forever to get through the airport (even though it wasn't half as long as the time spent in Glasgow!), and as if to brighten our spirits we were met by a exceedingly energetic Canadian woman after customs, who 'branded' us with a "Welcome to Canada" stamp, as we entered the country. This was accompanied by a cowboy folk band with a large pretend donkey. It was wierd, and great!
We were seperated into pairs, and I joined my friend Takuji before meeting the family who would be hosting us for the next 4 nights in Calgary City. We were handed over to the Newson family, the son Owen who was our age and played fiddle. They told us that our accents weren't as strong as they had anticipated, they had expected not to be able to understand the Scots tongue! :) And all we could think as they drove us down the highway to their home was how big everything was! Roads, cars, buildings, people... (ok, there weren't that many fat people :) ). There were some amazing views of downtown Calgary from the highway, and after arriving at the house we went walking to find more views-

Calgary

The sunset was being reflected in the glass of the buildings and it was really spectacular.

sunset

We went to bed as late as possible, trying to get into Canadian time as easily as we could. That didnt stop almost the entire orchestra waking up at 1 a.m. however! Our timings were so messed up at the beginning, :)