Edmonton skyline, University of Alberta, and Whyte Avenue

After a good night's rest, I decided to go out exploring. Offering her services as companion and tour guide was my friend Brittany, the same friend who had picked me up at the airport and has been great to not complain about the luggage sitting in her living room, haha.

Brittany's apartment is just south of Edmonton's downtown core, which you can see in the picture below.

Hello city!

For anyone familiar with The Two Towers movie, I draw the comparison between this skyline and that of Edoras, the capital city of the kingdom of Rohan, as seen below. The city on a hill, surrounded by lush greenery, with a river running around it was what gave me the idea.

Home of the Horselords

Here are some more photos, taken on the high level bridge which you can walk, bike, or drive on.

One without the bridge

A little to the right...

I like this bridge!

I like this photo, even with my finger getting in the way.

A little to the left...

More to the left...

Redundant caption is redundant

The next stop on our trip was the University of Alberta.

The motto, Quaecumque vera, roughly translates as whatsoever is true, and seems to make just as much sense, if not more, than Tendania Via, meaning the way must be tried.

As we made our way across campus, the beautiful weather really exerted itself. It was a warm, sunny day, with a little bit of wind which helped keep the air fresh, and bring the smell of flowers to our attention. Flowers such as these:

The architecture is quite nice to look at, featuring a combination of older, more elegant looking buildings, with newer, streamlined buildings here and there. I'm no architect, but as I said, it was nice to look at, and gave off the impression of a professional place to pursue...studies. Couldn't hold the alliteration there, haha.

Outside of the University of Alberta's Law building, where Brittany spends most of her academic time, was this thing:

Maybe it's a gavel?

I don't know what it is as there was no plaque, but whatever, I thought it weird enough to show you. Behind this, was the law building!

The inside was quite nice but my skills of photography would only give the impression of a building with conference rooms. It seems they have their own cafe and games area, and everyone in that building was wearing a suit, so that's cool, but not photo-worthy, really.

Outside of that, we found these!

I don't know who manages U of A's custodial staff, but really, they can't let construction workers just leave their spare materials lying around. It's not safe!

I call this Desk Disaster

An unfinished kiln?

But seriously though, it was an interesting arrangement of sculpture and while I'm not quite artistic enough to really understand what it all meant, it's always nice to see the support of the arts.

I'm hoping my phone updates soon so I can get the panoramic feature on my camera, but for now, several photos will have to do. Yes, I know I could find an app or something, but it's that important, really.

These photos were taken nearing the centre, I presume, of campus, and I liked the look of them.

Right behind, and above, where I took those last photos was the Hub, not the place the kids used to get food from That '70s Show, but close. No, the Hub is a nearly kilometre long area combining food, commerce, and a student residence. For anyone familiar with York University campus in Toronto, it's like combining Pond Road Residence with York Lanes.

Standing out by its sheer contrast was the Faculty of Education building, with its painted mural on the side. It was nice, but it stood out in a way not quite complementary to the rest of campus.

This next photo marks the site of a future adventure. Referred to as, "the science, medical area or something" (poor paraphrasing, I'm sure), this side of campus will be explored in the future as I'm interested in checking out U of A's engineering and physics department. I will have to go to grad school at some point, and I might as well check this place out while I'm here. Also, the one building looks like it's made out of Legos, I'll let you know if it is when I check it out later.

Coming to the end of a well-manicured walkway, I found this!

Fortunately, this time there was a plaque, as seen below:

Next, a bunny!

He was chowing down in the courtyard and I got as close as I could without scaring him.

Of course, the look he has definitely seems one of fear, but after I got the shot, I left him alone. It was nice seeing him around though, made me happy!
 

Once again, the lack of panoramic camera app photos, this time of the courtyard. Brittany and I had talked of it once a while ago, and it was pretty close to how I imagined it, minus the horse, (long story), but plus a bunny! So there you go.

Looks like York campus, doesn't it?

Also, this school has a rock garden, with waterfalls....

...and a pond. That's pretty cool, and I thought it added to the natural feeling of the campus.

Speaking of nature, they have magpies in Alberta! I actually exclaimed in delight when I saw one, having never seen one before in real life. Brittany tells me they are as common and as annoying as pigeons, but still, I thought it was cool. At least they have prettier colours than most pigeons.

After this, we took a walk down toward Whyte Avenue, or 82nd street, as every street has a number here, it seems. Before we got there, it seems that this was not the bench I was looking for:

Nothing to see here, move along.

Whyte Avenue seems kind of like Toronto's Queen street, home of food, clothing, music shops and more. Stopping at the Tin Box, a neat place with a bunch of odds and ends, I saw things which reminded me of some friends back home.

The picture above reminded me of Michelle.
 
These reminded me of Marco, Dom, Mike, and Whitney, and even though they're not clearly dinosaurs, I still think they are some of the coolest backpacks I've seen and my younger self is upset that I didn't have one.

This one reminded me of Mike and Marco, lots of cool trivia in there.

And one to remind me of Meredith, with her strigidaphilia.

And that was it for our tour of the immediate area. Edmonton is looking to be a beautiful city and I look forward to my adventures to come! I'm still settling in, but at least, so far, things have been accommodating and exciting!

Brittany was also nice enough to drive me to my new apartment so I could meet with my landlady, and see my new place, but that's a story for next time!