Calgary Trip '09

This past weekend, I made a trip down to Calgary. I haven't had such a fun weekend in quite a long time. So I felt it was only fair to share with you my exciting weekend.

Saturday morning, around 8:00, Jason and I left for Calgary. The trip was fairly uneventful. The only thing to note was that, having someone in the car to talk to made the trip go by incredibly fast. This is in contrast to my trip down there last year, which was incredibly boring.

Our hosts, Katie's parents, were incredibly hospitable. In addition to the bombardment of food we received, we were treated to an hour and a half of Katie's Childhood 101. I cannot count the number of pictures I saw and the recitals videos we watched. To her embarrassment, Katie's parents love her ... a lot and are incredibly proud of her, which I found very endearing.

At 2:00, we met with Scott and his brother-in-law, Nathan. We played 9 holes of Par 3 golf at McCall Lake. The course was incredibly cheap. Green fees, club and push cart rental came to $21. I don't think you can find anything like that in Edmonton. I scored 22 over par, which I am more than happy with.

After a short excursion to Tom's House of Pizza to break my day long fast, we headed over to Calgary Olympic Park for Virgin Festival. We arrived as Wintersleep were ending their set, so we got into position for Pearl Jam.

It was a pretty amazing concert. Pearl Jam had a great stage presence and the fans were really into the music. Every time a Ten track was played, every one was screaming the lyrics at the top of their lungs. It was quite a joy to watch and be apart of.

Aside from the band, Virgin Festival '09 will forever be remembered by the crazy crowd surfers. There was one girl wearing a tube top who leaned too far back and flashed the thousands of people in attendance. There was the one guy who ran back to the crowd and started to crowd surf after being pulled out by security. I saw him crowd surfing four or five times. (Geez, guy. Give someone else a chance.) And, of course, there was the one 230lb guy who crowd surfed all the way to the back and then back to the front. Scott mentioned that just holding up his leg was an effort on its own.

On Sunday, we finally got to spend time with Katie, as she had been out all of Saturday. We went to Sunday service, where I got to listen to some old school campfire hymns. Jason left immediately after service. I stayed with Katie to treat her parents to lunch for their generosity.

We made it back to Edmonton by 5:00. I watched my friends play volleyball, played pool and got bubble tea to end my weekend. And that, my friends, is a recipe for a good weekend.