A day at tiny land

  "Paul, what are we doing waiting here?" "Myra says she has something fun planned Hans."

 It's a train ride! Our host got us tickets to ride the Northern Alberta Railway.

 Northern Alberta Railway and Canadian Pacific Railway used to be vital in moving people and goods across Western Canada. Here we are traveling with very important goods for Myra's work.

 After the train ride, we explored the local scenery.

 Grain elevators like this used to be a common sight across the Canadian Prairies. Farmers would sell their grain to the wheat pool for storage and distribution. Modern grain elevators are made of steel and concrete.

 We wanted to skate with our new friends, but we forgot our skates back home in Germany!

So we watched the skaters and took care of their very friendly dogs.

We climbed up the hill and tobogganed back down a few times.

 Hans found a Volkswagon Beetle that he wanted to drive.

 Paul preferred the convertible even though it is -24.0°C right now!

 We even found an old gas station to fill up our cars.

 A couple of nice strangers showed us where to find the general store, so we bought supplies for hot chocolate. It is so cold outside!

And we spent the afternoon with the nice skaters that we met. We drank hot chocolate at their home and shared stories about Canada and Germany.

On the way to Edmonton

Today we drove from Calgary to Edmonton, where our host lives. We enjoyed seeing how flat the Canadian Prairies are. And so much snow!

After 3 1/2 hours, we made it to Myra's house. She made some hot tea to warm us up before we headed to bed.

Boxing Day

It turns out that Boxing Day is all about shopping! The day after Christmas, Canadians go out really early to shop and the stores have huge discounts to bring people into their stores.

We were amazed with all the crowds of people who were out just a day after receiving Christmas presents!

And the line ups to get into some store were crazy long! Luckily Myra didn't want to go in those stores.

We thought about buying this board game to help us learn more about Canada.

We watched people making these interesting candy apples. We don't think we could tackle the double candy apple snowman!

These boots are styled like the Inuit kamiks or mukluks. They look like they would be very warm for the cold Canadian winters.

We got tired of walking around such a big shopping mall so we hitched a ride on this horse.

All the shopping made us hungry so Myra got us a Canadian snack called poutine. Originally from the province of Quebec, it has French fries, cheese curds, and gravy.

The three of us got bored with the shopping so Myra introduced us to some Canadian wildlife that happened to be in the mall. This brown bear was awfully mean.

This deer was much friendlier than the bear.

We found a hunting store with lots of animals to play with!

These moose were huge! We'll make sure we don't get them riled up.

We met a very tall polar bear.

We found that this black bear was much nicer than the brown bear.

Ummm, Hans? Are wolves friendly?

Paul told Myra that he caught a huge fish like this once! Hans just laughed!

We couldn't decide if we wanted to hang out with this bison or take a ride on the ATV behind him.

This bull must get awfully cold waiting out here to greet shoppers.

Well, that was enough shopping for us! We are ready for nap time. See you all later.

Christmas dinner

 Wow! There was so much food for Christmas dinner. This is lechon kawali, fried pork belly. It's a popular dish at Filipino potluck dinners.

 This is lumpia shanghai, fried spring rolls. It's one of Myra's favourite foods so we tried it, and we agree it's quite yummy.

 There is always a fish entrée at a Filipino potluck dinner. "Look how huge those fish are, Paul!" "I don't think I can eat all of that, Hans!"

 This dish is called Bicol Express. It's a stew with pork, coconut milk, shrimp paste, garlic, and long chilies. We thought it was very spicy, but Myra said this was a very mild version. We can't imagine what the spicy version would taste like!

 One of the desserts was called bibingka. It's a rice cake with cheese and a piece of salted duck egg on top. The cake was tasty, but the salted egg was a little odd.

Oh, we are so full! That was a great dinner. It is amazing that we are in Canada, but we got to learn a bit about Filipino culture. Myra says that's the great thing about living in Canada. Everyone can share their cultures and traditions. We are off to bed. We are going to experience something called "Boxing Day" tomorrow, and we have to wake up very early for this. Merry Christmas, or as it is said in Tagalog "Maligayang Pasko"!

Christmas in Calgary

 We made it to Calgary in time for Christmas with Myra! Everyone is getting ready for a big Filipino dinner so we are looking forward to seeing all the delicious food! Merry Christmas to everyone!!

St. Raphaels ruins

We traveled to Glengarry, Ontario to see St. Raphaels ruins!

Built in 1821, the church of St. Raphael's was one of the earliest Roman Catholic churches in Canada. Consumed by a fire in 1970, the church was completely gutted. However, the walls remained standing. Since 1999, this site has been declared a National Historic site.
 

Here we are inside the St. Raphael's Ruins! To the left you can see the bell that survived the 1970 fire, although half melted, it now sits on display. It was very cool to see these beautiful ruins; a wonderful part of Canada's history!

Canada's Smallest Jail

We traveled all the way to Coboconk, Ontario and were able to see "Canada's Smallest Jail."
 

This jail house was vacant for 50 years before it was purchased by the Coboconk New Horizons Club in 1974. Since the construction of the jail in 1899, the limestone walls that were mined from a local quarry and the iron bars remain unchanged. It is now a designated heritage site and museum.
 

With only 2 cells and a single wardens office, this is truly a very small jail!