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2006-01-09 - 7:21 p.m. I know its cool not to like Calgary, but its not that bad a city. There are some neat parts, like Kensington and 17th, good restaurants all along 8th, a few wonderful theatres, gorgeous mountains less than an hour away, and a world class ballet. And I personally like having seasons. I like getting too hot, too much rain, too much snow. Much better than being mild and bland all the time. And the springs and autumns are beautiful. But I know that's a personal preferene. I know we have all these "conservative hicks", as it were, but just as many of us aren't: look at this group alone. If you are the editor of a newspaper, and you get two letters bashing gay marraige, one from Toronto, and one from Calgary, which would you pick? I don't know I'll live here all my life, because I went insane not even being on a plane last year, but my parents are both liberal Vancouverites, and they've lived here for over 20 years now. Certainly, there are some aspects of the city that aren't so nice, like the big industrial wastelands, like the big oil companies, and the fact that its so spread out you can't walk anywhere comfortably. But its also one of the cleaner cities, and there are some gorgeously vegetated neighbourhoods. Basically, its like anything in life. If you set out with a bias, the thing will become that bias. Like going into a class or a job and deciding to hate it, as opposed to going in hopefully and hating it because of your boss or workload. I don't deny the fact that sometimes the atmosphere of a place just rubs you the wrong way, or you've had a bad experience there. It just sometimes seems, though, that when it comes to Calgary, we don't always give it a fair chance. But maybe I'm just being too much of an optomist. |
