Last day in Edmonton

We are on our way home! Myra was worried about how cold we might be on our trip so she made us warm sleeping bags. We will be back in Stendal very soon.

A walk in Edmonton

Today we visited Churchill Square in downtown Edmonton.

 Yes, it is named after Sir Winston Churchill, the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

 At the north end of the square is Edmonton City Hall with the 200 foot clock tower. We liked the sound of the carillon bells that rang at every hour.

 The water fountain in front of city hall is turned into a skating rink during the winter. It looked like so much fun!

This statue honours the pioneer women of Alberta.

 

 There is a war memorial in front of city hall, so we took a moment to honour those lost at war.

  

Myra says it's more common to see French and English street signs in Eastern Canada, but we found one here too.

We passed by the offices of the Edmonton Sport Museum and Hall of Fame.

 We were impressed by the architecture of the Art Gallery of Alberta.

 

Then we met this nice gentleman who was on his lunch break.

 The south end of Churchill Square is used for various festivals and fairs. It is usually full of people in the summertime.

 We have had a great time staying in Edmonton! As our time in Canada draws to a close, we wonder where our next adventure will be...

A day at West Edmonton Mall

Tonight, we explored West Edmonton Mall, the largest shopping mall in North America and the tenth largest in the world!

There are over 800 stores and services here!  It is incredible to see how differently each area of the mall is decorated.

There is an ice rink right in the middle of the mall!  We enjoyed watching the kids learning how to skate.

Galaxyland is an indoor amusement park with 24 rides.  How strange!  We thought shopping malls were for shopping.

We got hungry while we were at the Mall, but it was so hard to choose from all the restaurants available.

 We found an old-style payphone, so we tried to call home to Germany.  Unfortunately it was 3:00 AM over there!

Finally, dinner!  Some bread to start, and one of Myra's friends had a Heineken beer at our suggestion.

There was an antique scale at the entrance to the restaurant.  It's a good thing it didn't work because we ate way too much for dinner!

We helped Myra get some money from the back machine so we could buy something from her favourite store.

On our way to the store, we saw a really long line up of families.  We wondered what was going on.

They were all lined up for the evening swim at the World Waterpark, the world's second largest indoor waterpark!

Myra's favourite store is a tea store called David's Tea.  They have a wonderful tea called "Oh Canada!" that we may have to buy and bring home with us.  There were also tea greeting cards in both official languages in Canada, English and French.

We missed the show at Sea Lions' Rock, but we saw the spectators having their photos taken with a resident penguin.

There is a replica of the Santa Mar�a, one of the ships sailed by Christopher Columbus, in the mall! It was built in 1986.

We had to go down and take a closer look.

We had fun driving a little remote control boat around for a while.

Then we saw the miniature golf course and had fun there for a bit longer.

Ooof! That was a lot of walking around the mall.  We took a break at this statue of some Alberta oil workers.  Oil and gas is a major industry in this province.

After getting some souvenirs to bring home, we headed back to Myra's place.  You will have to wait until we get home to see what we got!

Ice carving Festival

 There is an ice carving festival going on in Edmonton this week. We were very excited to see all the sculptures!

 Oh no! The weather has been warm the last few days, and many of the sculptures have melted and fallen apart.

 We found a few pieces still standing.

 Or partially standing. This one was made by a team from New Zealand.

 Ha ha! It's true. The sculptures have gone back to nature.

 A pirate skull and crossbones

 This was a very cold bench! Maybe we should have grabbed one of the scarves off that tree!

 There were 6 ice slides for both kids and adults. We would have needed snow pants to keep warm while sliding.

 

 It was +2�C today. Even though that's warm for this time of year, we were happy to rest by the fire for a bit.

 There were other ways for the adults to keep warm, but the Grog Stop was closed during the daytime.

 An ice tractor

 An ice cannon

 This dancer was from the novice category. We think it would be fun for us to try making an ice sculpture.

 Hey, that's not an ice igloo! During the evening there are events held in here for kids.

 In the igloo, kids can learn how to carve ice into figures like this owl.

 We love our adventures in Canada so far. But we are starting to get homesick for Germany. It will be time to go home soon.