Winnipeg

So I have spent the past week in Winnipeg, taking an interesting course for work.

Things I found out about Winnipeg:

• The course participants from the smaller centres outside Winnipeg told me that they never go downtown. When I mentioned my plan to walk downtown Friday afternoon and go to the museum and possibly the symphony, universal horror was expressed.
  
• Downtown Winnipeg is not as dire as predicted. There were drunks in the library, true, but the museum was amazing and nobody tried to mug me/sell me drugs/solicit me on my walk back and forth.
  
• The fog is like a second skin.
  
• Everyone talks about the traffic. The main topic of conversation (other than asking me questions about the north) was how long it took to drive certain places, and what the traffic was like. And there is a lot of traffic, and it tries to run you over. There was a hit and run Friday night.
  
• The Winnipeg Symphony performs regularly – except for this weekend – and I can't even remember why I thought it did. Calendrical dyslexia of some kind.
  
• The Red Lobster on Portage doesn't serve vegetables. And when they ask you if you want them to Lobster-size your margarita, they don't mention they're going to serve it in a fishbowl. Two or three fish could have had pretty decent lives in there. I mean, if it wasn't full of tequila. I should add that I wasn't drinking alone, four others from the course invited me there to celebrate, when the course was over and we all passed.
  
• When I inquired about the possibility of seeing interesting sights, nobody had any suggestions. I'm not sure why that was. Also I could not get an answer about Winnipeg's population.
  

I think that when I was twelve years old we passed through Winnipeg on our way to Quebec. I seem to remember seeing the Legislature before. It looks pretty much like Edmonton's. From where I was standing today.

Nowhere that I walked was like the Lower East Side in Vancouver, and I was kind of expecting it based on the horrified comments previous. Everyone on the streets was retaining consciousness, I didn't see any homeless citizens lying on benches in sleeping bags or pushing shopping carts full of cherished belongings. I was not once asked for change or a light or a smoke. I don't know if I maybe didn't go into the bad places or if I was there and it just wasn't that scary. Ok, no, I lie – I was asked for change – by a teenager who got off a school bus, right outside Headquarters.

I stayed in barracks at HQ and that was a bit strange. Especially sleeping in an office building where people are working – there are bedrooms but no motel-ish amenities like a coffee maker and I do count on a coffee maker for late night hot drinks - I ended up using a paper cup and heating tea water in it in the microwave in the coffee room on the second floor. At 10pm, in my Evil Bunny pyjamas. Had to drink it fast, though, because the heat melted some of the glue from the cup's seams and the tea started to drip out the bottom pretty quickly. Breakfast and lunch were provided, and they were cafeteria style. The soup was not bad, except for the cream of mushroom on Wednesday which I think was wallpaper paste with some mushrooms. Breakfast, of course, was eggs every day – but there was yogurt and cereal. So I did ok for food. Some of the other ladies who ate the 'pork on a bun' and such for lunches were a bit disparaging. I had soup and carrot sticks every day so as not to fall asleep in class.

We were invited upstairs to the central Manitoba dispatch for an hour on Wednesday afternoon, and one of the dispatchers let me plug in a head set and listen to calls – fascinating.

The sun came out for a while late Friday afternoon, but other than that there was a pervasive, sticky fog for the whole week. It was a bit like being misted by one of those bottles used for tropical houseplants. Can't really call it wet, but you know there's water in the air. The snow that's left here is lying around in dirty piles and melting into gritty puddles. But it was lovely to walk around outside without a hat and gloves – I'd forgotten about them until I saw them in the bottom of my empty suitcase when I started packing to go back to Edmonton. I walked back and forth to Chapters at Polo Park a couple of times, the first time I went I bought three books but then read them by Thursday night so I went back again after Red Lobster. I also took myself to the movies. There was a little internal arguing over the film choice – When in Rome or The Crazies - but I settled that with a big bag of mini eggs to make up for picking the silly movie. I had some trouble relating to the movie – the heroine (whose name escapes me) looked about twelve, and I thought to myself, "Yeah, right, honey, you're not old enough to be in love".

When I woke up Saturday morning, to get ready to go to the airport, I was lying in bed thinking about how lucky I am. I have the best job in the world, for an organization that, despite what you see on the news, has a corporate culture of valuing hard work and listening to new ideas, and my family is getting more and more self-sufficient, freeing me to participate in all the aspects of my work.

On Monday the 22^nd I'm leaving again. Going to Edmonton to prepare for my trip to Nepal.