I took a trip downtown for the afternoon of New Year’s Eve, wanting to hang out with Evan and see what he thought of some of the cooler things downtown. We hit the Glenbow Museum, Calgary Tower, and Banker’s Hall. Photos and more after the jump…
First up was lunch, of course, and then we headed to the Glenbow Museum to check it out. I was totally expecting it to be a running tour, trying to keep him interested. But, he totally surprised me – he loved the whole museum! He kept wanting to see more. We went through the Petra exhibit – the first North American stop on the tour of artifacts from the Jordanian lost city of Petra. That was pretty cool. I was snapping photos the whole way, not realizing that exhibit has a photo ban. Oops. They were pretty cool about it though, which was nice. There was also a craft station, where we got to make all kinds of things, like a mosaic (inspired by the stone/tile mosaics of Petra), and a copper wire figure (also inspired by the exhibit). What a great way to pull kids into the exhibit.
Then, we went though the Niitsitapiisinni Blackfoot exhibit. Evan loved the tipi, and kept referring to the manniquins inside it as “the girls” (he was confused by the long hair, I assume). He also was very interested in the stuffed/mounted buffalo (which was pretty impressive).
Next up was the West African “Symbols” exhibit, which was very well done. We watched the traditional dance (via very old video) for a couple of minutes – as long as attention span would allow 🙂 then moved through to the Glenbow Museum School. That’s a nice touch. A classroom set up for kids and families to do interactive stuff like make crafts. We made a mockup of a celebratory hat for New Year’s Eve, using stamps and stencils.
A few more exhibits, and we made our way back downstairs, heading to the Calgary Tower. 600+ feet up the elevator, and Evan makes a beeline to the glass-floor observation platform. Yikes. But… he doesn’t even pause. Doesn’t even test to see if there’s an invisible floor there. He sees other people standing on it, and that’s good enough for him. He’s pointing out cars and buildings and trains through the floor. Then, I think it sunk in that he was floating over 600 feet above the ground, and he’d had enough of that 🙂
Quick spin through Banker’s Hall for a Jugo Juice (it was too cold out to hike to Atomic, we wanted to wuss out and stay within the +15 system), and onto the train home. Great day. We’ll be doing that again real soon.