Weather: 21C, sunny but very VERY windy (enough to blow you off your feet nearly)
My first job of the day was to head back to the airport to locate the bus station and buy my bus ticket to Calgary tonight. I decided to do this first as, if there wasn't a coach going to Calgary tonight then I didn't need to check out early here in Winnipeg.
When I got to the bus station I went into the ticket office and, instead of asking for a one way ticket to Calgary, I asked about a 15 day Greyhound pass. After this trip to Calgary I was then planning to head to Edmonton, Jasper and Banff which (in Canadian terms) were all close together and I would probably travel buy coach. The person behind the counter was great and he worked out all of my 'potential' coach trips to come to around $400.00. This pass was $250.00 with a hosteling International card ... bonus.
However the only problem is my UK hosteling card; during the limited time I've been in Canada and Europe, the writing has practically vanished. The guy at the bus station wouldn't accept the card as he couldn't read the number or the expiry date and so I've had to become a member of hosteling International again for $35.00. I'm not angry with him, he was quite right to not accept the card, however I am annoyed with HI UK and have sent them an email (with photo) to see if I can get my money back.
After I got my ticket I headed back to the hostel, checked out ($30.00 back ... thank you) and booked my hostel in Calgary. I then decided to head out into Winnipeg.
Now my comments so far on Winnipeg have been a little negative ... oh before I go on, I found a poster today advertising a free province initiative called 'safewalk'. The poster states that 'if you don't feel safe downtown, call us and we will meet up and walk you to your destination'. I've seen the guys and they are armed with pepper sprays and other stuff ... just another example of how bad Winnipeg seems to be. However there are nice parts of the city and today I would be exploring them. Firstly I started with the civic area; the buildings and parkland are beautiful (some photos on my Flickr account). After this I headed to Winnipeg's art gallery.
Within my guidebook it stated that Winnipeg had one of the biggest collections of Inuit art. I checked with the lady on reception and she said most of it wasn't on display apart from one galleries worth (my guidebook had warned me about this); however the price was only $6.00 (£4.00) and so, for a couple of hours entertainment, I didn't think it was too bad.
Within the art gallery there were many different exhibitions; I liked some of the sculptures and the Inuit art was really cool. I also saw some work from the 'Group of Seven'; a very famous set of painters from Canada and this was my favourite style of painting without the whole gallery. However there was some art work that a 3 year old could have produced better. Once piece was called 'rain' which was flicked paint onto a white canvas. Also there was one painting that had a naked woman feeding one of her children ... I failed to see the 'artistic vision' within this piece and if any painter today, produced pieces with naked women in it then it would probably be classed under the 'porn' gallery.
Going around the art museum reminded me of 'Mr Bean - The Ultimate Disaster Movie' and I may not have seen Whistlers Mother, but I did see allot of nice frames. The art gallery also reminded me of 'The Detectives' when they moved to the art squad ... I kept thinking to myself 'it's very nice ... but is it art?..."
Anyway after this I headed out into the posh bit (over the Red river) of Winnipeg; there was a very impressive old Cathedral and a monument to Louis Riel; a guy who caused much divided opinion within Winnipeg.
Finally I'm now back in the hostel awaiting my coach to Calgary. Another week has passed and so I've been looking at my spending; without this '15 day pass' I am now averaging £51.00 per day which I need to bring back down ... hopefully with this transport pass I should be able to bring my daily cost to a lower level. Oh and the word awesome is still getting on my nerves along with taxes not being included in prices.
Toodle Pip
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