5 things

If I were to make an archive of significant Edmonton materials, I would include things that are either useful to me while I'm in Edmonton, or things that will remind me of Edmonton when the day comes that I can finally move out of here.

So, here we go:

1) It may be finally warming up in the city, but I'm perpetually bitter about Edmonton winters. So, the first item that I think is significant to Edmonton, is a snow shovel. If you have a driveway, you own a shovel. You might even own a shovel if you don't have a driveway, because those things come in handy when you need to dig your car out from under a heap of snow. If that's not a significant Edmonton material, I don't know what is.

2) A GPS. I mentioned in an earlier blog that I've had my difficulties using GPSes, but don't get me wrong: I LOVE THEM. I had to drive downtown today, and I don't know how I would have made it without my GPS. A St.Albert girl driving around downtown Edmonton is a disaster waiting to happen, so thank goodness for my GPS to get me where I need to go, without me having to take detour after detour. This item is becoming essential to me as I explore Edmonton more and more.

3) An oilers jersey. I have a ton of them in my closet. If a friend needs a jersey to go to a game, they come to me to browse through my selection. Nothing reminds me of Edmonton more than the Oilers.

4) A deep fried Mars bar. Ok, I know this doesn't really scream "Edmonton", but I connect it to Taste of Edmonton, a summer festival that I just love. This festival offers all kinds of foods, among other things, and deep fried mars bars are one of the tastiest treats there.

5) Something from this class. I'm not sure what just yet, but this class has opened my eyes to so many things that Edmonton has to offer, whether that be through writers like Darrin Hagen, or other artists, film-makers, etc. I don't think anything is more significant to Edmonton than it's people. But I don't really consider people to be materials, so maybe I would include one of the reading materials we tackled this term, like Edmonton On Location. In my opinion, stories about this city are definitely significant, but seem to be under-appreciated here. I had read maybe one novel set in Edmonton before coming to this class. Yup, the more I think of it, the more I would definitely include one of the books we read this term.

taste of edmonton

Looking at Edmonton from a tourist's point of view is pretty interesting. I can see some of the attractions that Edmonton has to offer, which I will mention in just a second, but first I have to say that Edmonton is not a city I would ever want to be a tourist in. Where are the BEACHES? :)

I always wonder why so many tourists come to Edmonton. When I'm deciding where I want to travel, I base it on hot weather, beaches, palm trees, ocean.... definitely not things I associate with Etown. Yet this city draws quite a few tourists every year, so obviously not everybody has the same tourism criteria as I do! I also know a lot of people have family in Edmonton that they visit, come here for work, etc. So, what do I think they should check out? Well there are actually some pretty cool things in this city!! Besides visiting West Edmonton Mall, which is a pretty famous attraction, I would definitely suggest our summer festivals to any tourists in town. This also ties into the other part of the prompt, which mentions kids. Some of our summer festivals, such as Taste of Edmonton, are perfect for tourists, or Edmonton families.

My first time experiencing Taste of Edmonton was only two summers ago, but I know I would have LOVED it as a child (if it was even around back then!). Taste of Edmonton might actually be my favourite part of Edmonton in the summer. It's cultural, and fun for the entire family, not to mention delicious. You can try food from cultures around the world, or try crazy dishes like deep-fried Mars bars (they're to die for). I don't know if other cities do anything like this, but I think it's a great event. It gives Edmonton a cozier, home-style type feeling, as people walk around the Taste of Edmonton streets eating and laughing. As someone who doesn't especially love Edmonton, this cozy feeling and good family-fun makes me feel just a little bit more attached to this city. I definitely would want tourists to see this side of Edmonton.

nature ???

Okay, so as this class goes along, I'm realizing I don't know much about Edmonton at all. I don't even know what nature is like in Edmonton! By that I mean, that I've never really EXPERIENCED nature in Edmonton. I've never walked down a path to a ravine in Edmonton, or had a picnic by a pond, or whatever. My weak excuse is that I live in St.Albert, so all I ever see of Edmonton's nature is the trees on the side of the road that I'm driving on. Obviously I see the river valley every week day on my way to school, and it is absolutely beautiful, but that's about as close to "nature" in Edmonton as I get.

Actually, the first thing I thought of when I read this week's blog prompt, is whatever random dog park in Edmonton that I took my dog to once when he was a puppy, but I witnessed a pretty scary dog fight between what looked like a german shepherd mix and a rottweiler, so we stuck to smaller, "safer" dog parks in St. Albert from then on... haha, what a disaster that was. I can't think of any other parks or fields I've ever been to in Edmonton. Hmm. Possibly another thing to add to my to-do list.

catch up

To summarize all that I've learned so far in 380, I can say that I've learned how to appreciate this city. I'm one of the ones who had nothing positive to say about Edmonton on the first day of class. I still don't want to live here for the rest of my life, but at least now I can see some positives. Something that surprised me was how the movie about the High Level Bridge really opened my eyes to the city. Here was a filmmaker, using sarcasm and humor, pointing out how friggen dreary and awful Edmonton is for most of the year. I'm not the only one who noticed!!!

I always feel like I'm the only one who can't get out of bed when it's -25, or who actually gets a little depressed when the leaves fall because I know I'm headed for at least 7 months of cold. Edmonton has it's negatives, and I definitely pick up on a lot of them, but I have learned about quite a few positives as well. And after watching that film in class, I feel like at least we're all in it together. Edmonton feels like home in a way that whatever city I move to in the future might never quite equal.

rexall place

I know this week's blog post is more open than other weeks, but I really like the optional prompt, so I'm going to go with that. The prompt is "if you had to choose a single Edmonton location to write about, what would it be and why?". I immediately thought of Groat Road, because my perception of it has changed since being in this class, but I already briefly mentioned it in another post, so I want to switch things up. I then thought of Hawrelak Park, but I feel like saving that for another post maybe, and I feel like a lot of people might write about a place in Edmonton because of it's beauty, etc... I want to be different. So, I'm going to write about Rexall Place. Hopefully that is unexpected to some of you.... but it shouldn't be THAT unexpected, since we live in one of the biggest hockey cities in North America. I want to wite about Rexall Place for that reason mostly. It is such an important part of Edmonton culture, because our hockey team, the Oilers, have such an effect on many of our citizens. You may not be an Oilers fan yourself, but you can't argue the massive popularity of the team, or it's effect on our city's culture. Anybody can see the popularity of the Oilers if you walk a street, mall or university campus on game day and witness all of the Oilers jerseys, or  log onto Facebook during a game and read all of the emotional statuses about the game.

Over many hockey-crazed years, Rexall Place has become an iconic building in Edmonton, in my opinion. Recently, however, there have been talks and plans regarding getting rid of it, mostly because it's old. I can see pros(players want new ice, fans want more seats, a new building will make our city look more modern, etc) and cons(it will cost a lot to build a new arena district). to this idea. I'm actually for the building of a new arena district, but I'll definitely miss Rexall Place when it's gone. I think it's important to our city. I also think the new arena will become just as iconic.

moving though edmonton

If I'm moving through Edmonton, I'm either driving somewhere (probably to the mall), taking the city bus to school, or using the LRT to get to the bar (which I recommend you try if you think cabs are as big of a rip off as I do). That's a few different ways of moving, but the most obvious one - walking through the city - is not something I really do at all.

Firstly, I'm too scared to walk the streets in half of the places of Edmonton if I'm alone, and I don't even really like it when I'm with someone. Secondly, I'm a creature of the sun. If the weather gets anywhere near -20 I seriously have trouble functioning. It's so hard for me to even get out of bed! It's way too cold for me to want to walk anywhere here for seven to eight months of the year.

Maybe I'll make it a goal of mine to walk Whyte Ave on a warmer day and check out all the cool places that I've been reading about in some of the blogs here. If it's warm out I don't really have an excuse not to.

what i've learned so far...

So far in 380, I've learned a few random things... like how different maps can be (something that, as I blogged about before, I'd never even considered). I'm really interested in sound maps, in particular, which is something I didn't know existed until this class. I've also re-affirmed that I don't like sci-fi or fantasy books. I already knew that, but after reading and disliking Faust's book(I acually liked the start, before all the weird cream and war stuff started), and skipping ahead to read and enjoy the more realistic book A Tourist's Guide to Glengarry, I can only confirm this more strongly.

In class in particular, one really simple thing has stood out as something I've learned. A guy (sorry I can't remember who!) mentioned that he's proud of Groat Road. Groat Road of all things! I hate that road, it makes me car sick half of the time. Except - after thinking about why he likes it (the beauty, etc), I realized that I take pride in it too. Like he said: it's like a little road in the mountains, right in the city. I never thought of it that way, and now I do. How cool is that road?! :)

about darrin

Today's class was my favourite so far, by a long shot. For this blog entry, I really just want to write about Darrin. More specifically, what about him really impressed me/ what I liked about him.

First of all, I think he's incredibly brave for doing what he did, particularly in a time period when being gay wasn't look upon very favorably(and that's probably putting it mildly). I also think he's incredibly brave for coming into classrooms to talk about his life, not knowing if every student is open-mined and accepting, but probably honestly not caring. That ability to be himself so completely is rare, I think, and just fabulous (as he would probably say). Also, I loved how he dropped f-bombs left and right. Good for him for not feeling the need to change how he speaks for anybody. Maybe I'm a little crude, but anybody who can drop an f-bomb in public, and not care, gets a little bit of weird respect from me. He was just so outgoing and vivacious, totally diva, and fabulous.

I liked his book, and loved him.

maps

Before taking this class, I'd never really thought about maps. I guess I just thought they were boring lines on a page or a computer screen. Not very interesting. Back in the day before GPS's became the new thing, everybody had a massive city road map folded up and stowed away in a compartment in their car for when they got lost. In social class I studied topographical maps of the planet. And that's about as "into maps" as I got. I guess if I had ever taken the time to think about it, I would have realized there are so many more ways to map a city than roads, but I just never bothered to think about it. The sound maps were SO interesting to me, because it's such a different way of mapping from anything else I've ever seen. It's like getting an actual glimpse into life in other cities. Another thing that I thought was pretty eye-opening was seeing how inaccurate maps can be. I guess I already knew this, because I've followed instructions from my GPS perfectly, and ended up in a field in the middle of nowhere... not exactly where I was trying to get to. Anyways, these last couple of classes have given me something to think about. Turns out maps are pretty interesting after all.

My Edmonton

Having lived in St. Albert for my entire life, my sense of Edmonton is slightly limited. St. Albert is a decently sized city, but after having lived there for nineteen years, I can only really describe it as small and stifling. As a decently sized city, I know it has no real “small town Alberta” feel, but I honestly feel like I have met every single person near my age that lives in my city. As soon as I leave the St. Albert city limits and enter Edmonton, where there are so many people and so much is unknown to me, I feel like I can breathe. Since I’m not from there, it’s unlikely among the crowds of Edmontonians that I will run into the mother of the boy I dated in grade nine, or the girl who I accidentally got fired from our job in grade ten. It’s just a bunch of curiously unfamiliar faces among the crowds of people that I see on street corners downtown.

On the other hand, in St. Albert, our official “downtown” area basically consists of a government building attached to a library, with a few coffee shops and a tanning salon that I probably frequent far too often. Unfortunately, the only time I really venture into the big city, besides when I go to school, to my boyfriend’s place, or the rare visit to the dentist’s office, is when I go to the bars with my friends.  I love the busy nightlife in Edmonton, which far outstrips the same old crowd that goes to any of St. Albert’s few pubs. This nightlife often takes me to Jasper Ave, which is an area of Edmonton that I have the greatest familiarity and the strongest attachment to. I adore it for its obvious draw to youth: it is full of exciting clubs, bars, and even a small donair shop that has become one of my biggest guilty pleasures. So I might not be able to really say “My Edmonton” but I definitely feel attached to “My Jasper Ave” ;)