You can also go to my Guide to Canada for Americans.
I didn't see all that much....maybe there isn't much of interest to see in Winnipeg to see anyway. But the main reason of my trip was to meet Cute, and I'm glad that I did. The weather was quite warm when I was up there, with the highs close to 30, and high humidity. It rained everynight, I think, that I was there, but at least it did that at night when it didn't bother me.
I went up on Friday July 10....and it took me almost all day to get up there. I had a travel plan complete with travel time, but I made some "creative adjustments" to that travel plan, so it took me an extra hour to get up to Winnipeg than I would've liked. Plus I didn't realize that the road up there would be a small rural highway. My estimated speed was about 110 km/h....but the last 3 hours in the US, the speed limit was only 88 km/h, so that slowed me down quite a bit. But I finally got up to the Canadian border, and they made sure that I wasn't gonna conquer Manitoba with a thing of pepper spray or anything. LOL.
Now, I figured that the States and Canada were about the same, but I did suffer from culture shock making the transition between the two. It was a noticable difference almost right away. All of my comparisons will be between what I know....the Rochester/Twin Cities area of MN and that of Winnipeg. I could see some minor differences in the street signs along the road once I got into Canada, and the small communities I passed through also had a different feel to them, but I don't know exactly what was really different about them. I don't mean to belittle Canada in any way with my next comment, but the feeling I got was that Canada had a simpler life than that in the States.
I got to Winnipeg, and I was surprised to see that it didn't have any suburbs to it. I figured that like an American city that size, it would have a ton of suburbs, and I was dreading having to drive in a large metropolitan area. All I know was that from the info I had read, Winnipeg was bigger than Minneapolis (the biggest city in Minnesota) and even Chicago. While I don't know what the total population of the Chicago area is, the Twin Cities metropolitan area is approximately 3 million, so in reality, the Twin Cities are bigger than Winnipeg.
And Winnipeg has a small American town feel to it. What I mean by this is that there aren't alot of confusing highways and bi-ways and interchanges and stuff like that. My hometown of Rochester has approximately 70,000 people in it, so it is considered a small city in terms of other cities (such as the Twin Cities and Winnipeg), but Rochester and Winnipeg are laid out similarly, and it is easy to get around in both cities. I hope that this makes sense to you.
And there were other things that I found that were different in Winnipeg than they were in Minnesota. When I told these things to Cute, she just said that it was normal to her, and that she thought that it was the same way other places too. It's amazing how wrong assumptions can be. We just assume that things are gonna be one way and they turn out to be different. Sometimes a lot different, and sometimes they are only subtlely different. But I'm glad that I had the opportunity to go to Winnipeg and see how different things are there. Otherwise, I would have gone on thinking that everything was the same other places as it is in my little corner of the world. I think more people should do more traveling outside of their own small communities and see more of the world. I know my world will never be the same again. I think Cute was getting a little annoyed by my always making fun of a lot of differences between our two cities.
Well, anyway, I got there Friday night and thought that I did a really good job of finding my motel almost immediately. In fact, I was rather proud of myself, until I later found out that I had in fact could have found my motel even easier if I hadn't insisted on getting on the Perimeter Highwway around Winnipeg. And I even had a map of Winnipeg that the Cute One had sent me, and I still took the more indirect route. I guess I should have more closely matched up the directions I got and the map of Winnipeg and everything, cuz I had all the information I needed to find the most direct route to my motel and it did me no good.
Since I told Cute that I would call her Saturday morning, I went out to Boogie Nights Cabaret, a niteclub that she had told me about to have a couple of beers. And I was able to find it thanks to that map that I had neglected to use to find my motel.
On Saturday, I was apprehensive to call Cute because I am really shy and really don't like calling people on the phone. And I had no idea what I was gonna say. But I had told her that I would, besides, I couldn't go all that way just to not call her. So I called her, and we met Saturday around noon. I was expecting Rast to be there too, but he wasn't. We went to the Forks (a market area),and then we went out to the Mennonite Village (which was an hour outside of Winnipeg). And then we went back to Winnipeg and drove around again. We tried finding the zoo....well, we did find the zoo, but it appeared to be closed by the time we got there...we did a lot of driving during my trip there cuz Cute wouldn't tell me that I needed to turn until the last minute and I was in the wrong lane or until the street I needed to turn on was already passed. Cute probably thought I was getting annoyed by it, but I really thought that it was hillarious. I wonder if Cute really lives in Winnipeg or if she just decided to stay there for the weekend cuz I was gonna be there....LOL And then that night we went on the riverboat tours, which was fun. There were other people on the riverboat from close to Rochester too, but I didn't talk to any until after we got off the boat. Then later that night, as I was driving through a residential area, I was driving on the left side of the road. I asked Cutie if it was a two way road, and she said that it was, and that she was gonna say something, but that it appeared that I was having fun, so she didn't....just what I needed, to become a criminal in Canada and to not be able to return to the States.
I was abit annoyed on Sunday, because nothing opened up until noon. Since I was used to stores opening at 10:00, or maybe 11:00 at the latest on Sundays, it was frustrating, and it just made me think that Winnipeg had even more of a small town feel to it. And then I later found out that the entire town shut down at 17:00 on Sundays too, and that no bars were open on Sundays...so there wasn't much to do on Sunday night. I would've thought that a city of over 600,000 would always have stuff going on, but I suppose that Canadians are different that way. So, what did we do Sunday night? Well, we went bowling, but I am used to 10-pin bowling, but I didn't realize that because Canadians have a problem counting to 10, they play 5-pin bowling. So, to make a short story even shorter, I did terrible. And then we followed a couple cars for a while....which is soon to be an Olympic event I'm sure, or at least an event in the Pan-Am games next summer. And then we went back to Cute's place and played--cards, I mean...but now I know where she lives, so it's easier to stalk her...LOL
We got together on Monday too, but we didn't really do much then...we did some shopping, and drove around a lot more. And then that night, we went out to a bar, so that I could drink. It was a perfect excuse for me to start hitting on her....LOL...it didn't work though....darn. But I suppose that's a good thing cuz I don't want Rast to come after me and kill me or anything...and then we wrapped up the night by going back to her place and playing cards again.
And that was it for my stay in Winnipeg. I left Tuesday morning, and again made some creative adjustments to my directions. Unfortunately, I reached the Twin Cities during Rush hour, so the traffic was terrible, and instead of getting on a busy highway, I chose to take an alternative route,and I got lost. Fortunately, I have a friend who has a brother and sister-in-law in the city I got lost in, so I called them up and they helped me to get through the Cities without having to use the busy highways. It did take me two hours to get through, but it probably would've taken me that long if I was on the highway too. And my cats missed me when I was gone.
Overall, I loved my stay in Winnipeg, and it seemed a little short. I think that whoever reads this should make plans to get to Winnipeg and see the Cute One...she's a really great guide...and how would I rank Winnipeg to Rochester? I think that Winnipeg would have to win, even though Winnipeg doesn't exist on Sundays...Winnipeg has some big city aspects while maintaining the small town feel.