Winnipeg is cold. Like, -30 cold. Well, okay at the moment it's only about -20, but apparently with wind chill the other day it was close to -50. AWESOME!!
When I told people I was going to Winnipeg, the general response was 'Why?'. This frightened the crap out of me. Was I headed towards the gruesome vortex of the Canadian Swan Hill? Please, no. So I got here, and found it to be delightful! It's only small (about 650 000), but everybody is super friendly and the city has character. The bus driver told me a million and one wonderful things that she loves about her city, and I met the most wonderful, helpful person in the information centre, Yvonne. She was just delightful. Yes, it was her job to help me find stuff, but she was genuinely friendly and my vocabulary's gone out the window. She rocked, okay? She even asked me to pop in after I get back from Churchill to tell her how it went.
I haven't really done much - I walked around the city as much as I could without my toes going numb. When you get to cold you can walk up and down all of downtown through the skywalks/underground, because most people aren't stupid enough to be outside for longer than 30 seconds. However, I am much more stupid than most people. I walked down the Assibone river, across to The Forks, an historical site, though it escapes me why. It's essentially a park. Pretty, but just a park, though it had a cosy little market and winter park (ice-skating etc).
Up to the Exchange District, Chinatown and the French Quarter - all nice little sightseeing areas, but nothing that stood out. The hostel I was in was pretty good though - the rooms were massive! I think that it must have been an old hotel, because my room had two double beds, lots of space, a TV, and bathroom. All for a cosy $55 a night, including change of towels and linen. You don't find that in every hostel, that's for sure.
Snuffy Pig joined me Friday night (around 2am). I tried desperately to stay awake - I popped down to the opening night of the Voyageur Festival and moseyed around, but unfortunately I feel asleep. He thought it was funny, at least.
The next day we changed to the Radisson Hotel, because I thought that "I don't want anything for my birthday" was crap, so he got a night in a nice hotel. Complete with chocolates, champagne (which we didn't touch), robes and a late checkout of 2pm. Fellow travellers will know how especially awesome a late checkout is.
I took him to the winter festival which we looked at for a couple of hours, but wasn't anything special. It's based on the fur-trading that occurred in the early 1800s, kind of like a snow-based Pioneer Settlement. So, we ended up getting a little bored and left. I took the Pig out to dinner at a steakhouse and cocktail bar. I've decided one of the things I love about Canada is how cheap cocktails are here. The most (and almost ridiculously so) expensive cocktail I've had was a whopping $8.00. Yup. Average betwen $6 and $7. Yeah, I have a shit life.
So we had AWESOME steaks and WAY too many cocktails, and went back to the hotel for some truffles.
So anyway, the next morning, we dawdled, got dressed in our robes and watched T.V. We had a shower, and got back into our robes. We were robe-y.
We had lunch at the restaurant here at the Radisson (which was awesome), then had an icecream in Portage Place (the mall linked to the skywalks). Went and saw Jumper, had dinner and then off SP went to the airport. So I'm currently sitting at the Radisson, procrastinating because I don't really want to walk to the train station. It is freaking cold out there, man!
I've had a great, relaxing time here in Winnipeg. And I'm about to take a 30-something hour train ride up to Churchill where it's even colder! Currently it's -30 in Churchill; -44 including wind chill. Awesome. On average it is 5 - 10 degrees colder in Churchill. What am I doing?? **in mock Cartman voice** 'Oh, I want to see the northern lights'. I am an EEdiot.
Winnipeg photos
