Rainy Days

It has been raining most days here for the last week or so. It is kind of a bummer. I was sick of being in the house though. So I insisted we do something on Saturday. Well what is there to do on a rainy Calgary afternoon. I happened upon some blog that talks about events happening and found that there was a Ukrainian festival happening. Well we don't really know about Ukraine or honestly have must interest in it generally, but we decided to go. You know I am all about food and trying new foods.
Here are some photos from the festival.

I have never seen an instrument like this before. It was really cool and this woman was rockin it.

This guy was rockin this accordian too. He was playing with a band that was a upright bass, drum and guitar. They were fun.

A traditional outfit. There were lots of people walking around in clothes like this.

Another interesting instrument. The woman told Jeff that it actually plays like a piano with different strings being the black and white keys.

And of course, the food. Kavbasa (sausage), Holubtsi (cabbage rolls filled with rice, the yellow things) and the other are pyrohy or perogies. All were pretty delicious. We also got a dessert which ended up being a poppy seed cake. Boring. I thought it would be something unique and cool but whatever.

Me and Jane. There is a stage behind us and there were people doing a whole bunch of different traditional dances with costumes and such. It was pretty neat. Interestingly, there is a pretty large Ukrainian population here in Calgary and Alberta as a whole.
We also ended up going to dinner at one of Jeff's bosses house. It was in the far south part of town. They had an incredible view of a valley that has the river running through it. They are actually from the states too and have been here for 4 years. You know the one thing that keep hearing people from the states say that they miss is Amazon.com. It is funny because there is an Amazon.ca but I guess that it doesn't have very much stuff. Amazon.com doesn't ship up here. I guess that I didn't do that much online shopping but it is really convenient and things are often cheaper there. Anyway, just thought that was interesting. I have realized, being up here, that you don't realize what you have till you don't have it anymore. I need to be more grateful.