That being said, I got myself so worked up and stressed out over this whole visa predicament that I ended up making myself ill and spent the next two days in bed. In the end it turned out that I only had strep throat, but at the time the fevers I was getting and the insane sleepiness was awful. It's pretty much all cleared up now but boy did I have an unhappy weekend, and it only got worse. My boss and one of our good friend's Sarah had issues with her visa too and had to leave Banff this week which was so horrible. She was one of the first people I met when I came to Banff and has always been so lovely to me and a great person to work with so it is so so sad that she has had to leave, it is certainly very strange at work without her. Very strange.
Neil who used to work in the kitchen at Saltlik also left us this week. We went to the park in town and had a few drinks with him on Monday night which was nice. Had a good catch up and spoke about future plans and travelling and the like and then Danny and I headed to the Block for dinner. The food there is so bloody good and different to anything else you can get in Banff, plus they have a nice little outdoor area which was lovely to sit in as the weather was just starting to cool down. We got a few dishes to share between us, and for once did not completely over order. We shared some naan bread with pesto dip, houmous, and baba ganoush; spicy calamari, duck spring rolls and a butter chicken curry - everything was incredible as expected and we went home nice and full and fell asleep watching a movie which is good because the next day was going to be busy!
And that is because we were going to Calgary Stampede with Will and Georgie! None of us had any idea what to expect. All we had been told is that everything was overpriced and there is a lot going on, and they weren't wrong. For the first hour I really was not enjoying myself, it was pretty much like wandering around a HUGE parking lot which was full of food trucks, I couldn't really get my head around what we were supposed to be doing but I went along with it. We went and watched some country music in a little barn which was a pretty strange experience to say the least, and then we went and bought tickets for the rodeo - the real reason we had gone to Stampede.
I'm a bit funny with things like this though because I find it really uncomfortable to watch animals being hurt. I don't watch the Grand National back home, I'm just not into that kind of thing but I gave it a go and it wasn't half as bad as I thought. The bull riding and the horse riding were pretty good to watch and we got quite into it, so much so that Danny placed a bet with a few people we met in the area - AND ended up coming second! Not bad for our first rodeo! It was kinda like watching a real life game of buckaroo, but with people instead of cowboy hats and suitcases. There was one "sport" that I really didn't like where basically a calf was released, someone chased after it on a horse, lassoed the calf around the neck, picked it up, threw it on the ground and tied it's legs up as quickly as physically possible. The calf got up afterwards and ran off and seemed fine, but to me it just seemed unnecessary and I did not enjoy watching it. I'll be sticking to just watching the rodeo I think if we ever go to a similar event in the future.
After the rodeo we went to see a bike show. It was called the evolution of the bike. So they started off in a very cute manner by showing us a toddler and a small child riding around on their bikes, followed by three people doing tricks on BMX, then motorbikes, then quad bikes and then a ski mobile. They then one by one showed us how, despite the fact it was thought to be impossible, all of those bikes can infact do back flips off a jump - it was so bloody cool!!!! After that we grabbed a bite to eat and headed back to Banff all pretty tired after a busy day. It's so nice to hang out with Will and George, especially now we don't live with them, we really did have a great day. But for today, it is our Monday and with five long days of work to get through we better get back to it. So I shall leave you with the photos, and videos (it took me a long time to figure out how to get videos on here so I hope you all appreciate it)...
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