the Calgary Tower

the glass floor is a little nerve wracking

the saddledome. appropriately living up to its name

Ah, finally. The last bit of our vacation. The Calgary Tower. We really wanted to have dinner at their 360 cafe. It rotates as you dine, and I thought it would make for a unique experience. But we got there exactly one hour before it opened for dinner and quite honestly, there's really not much to do up in the tower for an entire hour. I'm just going to go ahead and say it. This is a complete cash grab. If you don't go for the restaurant, other than getting some great city pictures, that's all there is (if you're lucky to have nice clear skies -- I've been there when it's been foggy and that's not cool). So we tried extremely hard to stick it out but we just couldn't, and we thought it would make more sense to at least get back to the car before we added another hour on to our parking ticket price. It was kind of a bummer.

We also got chewed out by a cop on our way there. It was one of those weird situations where no one knew what he wanted us to do. We were at a light and waiting to go at a safe time and he put his siren on as a warning or something. And so we were like, he must want us to go. Does he want us to get out of his way? And the pedestrians were like, should we walk? Does he want to get around the corner? So we just went because we thought there was an emergency. Then he stopped us and chewed us out for going before the pedestrians (who we waited for as long as we felt we could but they just weren't walking and I think it was because of him and his siren). So after asking us over and over again what our "deal" was (how on earth do you answer that question to anyone let alone a cop?), he decided he had "more pressing matters to attend to" so he didn't give us the $500+ ticket he really seemed to want to give us. Whew.

After the tower, we headed up to Crate and Barrel. It's a lovely store, but more like an upscale IKEA than Anthropologie. They did have some really lovely pieces of furniture and just about any gadget for your kitchen you could ever imagine. (Gadgets like a tomato corer that cost so much, you could never justify the purchase because of how little you'd use it.) And while they had their furniture arranged, they hadn't done anything particularly inspiring with it, so I couldn't even get any ideas from just looking around. I'm still really glad we went, though. Mostly because I got the one thing I wanted to get from that store, and I put to rest all my thoughts about how awesome it was. Because it's not that awesome. Honestly, if we had one here, I wouldn't really care so much about it.

we both liked this sofa -- all right. they had nice stuff, but nothing I'm still thinking and dreaming about.

the Calgary Zoo

The whole point of our little vacation was to get to the Calgary Zoo to see -- what else? Dinosaurs, of course. They have an exhibit called Dinosaurs Alive which is only available until the end of October. So naturally, I've been panting about it since -- gosh. When did I first hear about it? Back in January, maybe? I dunno. It feels like I've been thinking about it forever.

We managed to get to the zoo relatively pain free (driving in Calgary makes me seize up. Like, even the thought of maybe having to go to Calgary -- even when I'm not the driver -- gives me nightmares); and the first thing we did when we got in the gates? Prehistoric Park. Oh yeah.

I like to shake it

They moved, they roared, they just looked a little stupid while doing it, like their hands had no bones in them. It was actually really humorous. Especially the T-Rex. We had to giggle at that one cuz he was so big and overwhelming, and then he started moving his head and shaking his arms. He kinda looked like he was doing the hokey pokey. "Oh! Let me finish this dance and then I'm gonna eat you!" Good times.

There's obviously more to see at the zoo, and see it we did. We were there for most of the day, actually (and we still didn't see everything). Like most zoos, all the animals were asleep or moving too much to get a picture of them or just behind the most hideous fence which kinda made trying to take a pretty picture pretty pointless. And the ones that were awake and close to the fence in good camera view were surrounded by a crowd of moms and kids gawking and pointing so you couldn't get close enough anyway.

Therefore, Prehistoric Park was my absolute favourite part (I'm so glad we did it first before we were tired, sun-stroked, and cranky), and I loved the butterfly garden and the other greenhouse areas. Aside from the butterfly garden, plants generally bore kids so it was relatively nice to hang around in the greenhouses -- and I say relatively because it was so. hot. So hot, my legs were sweating, I kid you not. At the time, I thought my jeans were going to shrink wrap to my body and I'd never be able to remove them again.

zoom kinda disappointed me on this one

who wouldn't want a little elephant chair for their yard? Why aren't they manufacturing these?

these two are great but nothing compared to the blue one that would not stop flapping its wings. Blast!

what is this and can I have one?

here's the best tiger shot I got. Unless you like headless tiger or tiger butt pictures.

zoom success!

Royal Tyrrell tidbits

ahh juicy new fossils

I wish they had chairs in front of this

argh the mammal section is so uninteresting

There were lots of new things to see at the museum this year, but I have to say it -- the highlight of this particular trip was scoring the honeymoon suite at a reduced rate. I mean, come on! The honeymoon suite! We jacuzzed like no one's business!

Drumheller's for dinosaur lovers

Accordingly, Drumheller has a dinosaur around every corner and built into every building. I've always wanted to drive around and find all the dinosaur sculptures in town (some of them looked freshly painted this year), but it seems like such a daunting task. There's no map of where they all are (that I'm aware of) -- we could literally be driving around the town for hours. It might be worth it, though. When I stayed there for a month, the locals said there was a giant pterodactyl somewhere in town that flapped its wings and had glowing eyes.

I should have taken more towny pictures, but it didn't occur to me until now. I guess I've just been there so many times, everything becomes less touristy and more, oh yeah. I know about the dinosaur coming out of the wall of the IGA. Whatever. So sorry about that.

You must leave town with some sort of geode. I mean, you have to. It's part of the rules.

fig jam

I love figs, but I rarely see fresh ones for sale. Through complete luck (aka I spotted a tray of them in someone's cart), we stumbled on some at Superstore last weekend.

After eating about six of them, we were already on fig overload and we still had almost a full flat left. I didn't want these to go to waste since they were very ripe, so I made fig jam.

This jam is the best jam ever. Hands down. I'm really sad it barely made a whole jar because that jar is already almost empty.

Step 1: peel and place in a pot with sugar, lemon juice, and salt

let sit at room temperature and stir periodically for half an hour

this is how they'll look after

Step 2: Bring to a boil stirring constantly. Continue stirring for about 25 minutes (or until it becomes noticeably thicker and jammy). This is how mine looked after 20 minutes. Isn't the colour beautiful?

Step 3: Gently mash any remaining chunks of fruit.

Step 4: Jar it.

Step 5: Spread it.

Step 6: Enjoy it.

Homemade Fig Jam

adapted from Kiss My Spatula

1 pound fresh figs

155 ml sugar (or 1/2 cup + 1/8 cup)

1 tsp lemon juice

pinch of salt

Peel figs and place in a medium pot. Add sugar, lemon juice, and salt. Mix and let sit at room temperature for 30 minutes, mixing occasionally. After 30 minutes, heat the figs until boiling. Keep at a nice steady, rolling boil (not sputtering), and stir constantly for 20-25 minutes or until the figs have deepened in colour and thickened considerably (jam consistency). Gently mash any larger chunks of fruit. Pour into a jar and store in the fridge.