Hippos in the river...and other Calgary lessons I've learned so far

I made it to the zoo on the weekend!!  Planned to go Saturday, but the day got away from me - headed out on Sunday to go to the Devonian Gardens downtown and decided when I got in the car to head to the zoo instead... ahh the life of a single girl - I have the right to change my mind...and nobody cares but the penguins!  I had a nice time at the zoo and am looking forward to going back to see what I missed.  I discovered I could get a Calgary Zoo day pass with my Airmiles, so I have it on order and will go back when the warm weather returns.

So two things I learned about Calgary in recent weeks:

When you drive on the "big roads" (Deerfoot, Glenmore, Crowchild, etc.) drive in the MIDDLE lane... you just never know when the right lane will disappear...or become an exit only lane.  If you drive in the far left lane, you'll get run over.  I've kept this "middle lane" suggestion in mind since I got here and it has served me well.

When the flood happened here, there was fear that the hippos would get out and into the Bow River!  Apparently it was quite the thing here in Calgary.  Now when things are going wrong, they say "next thing you know, we'll have hippos in the river".  That cracks me up every time I think about it!!  Of course if one was ACTUALLY in the Bow River, I may not find it so funny.. those things are MASSIVE...and dangerous!  But nice to look at from behind the glass of their tanks at the zoo :)

I experienced my first Calgary snowfall last night/this morning.  It began yesterday as eensy, teensy little flake and my first thought was "little snow, big snow", but that must be another maritime expression that doesn't transfer out to western parts of the country.  Woke up this morning to maybe 2 cm on the ground (sorry, Eastern Canada!) and people off the road, one lady ran into a light pole... oh my.  By the time I left work tonight it was pretty much all gone.  Yep, so far Calgary weather is beating Atlantic weather hands down!