from Winnipeg to Edmonton

I've relocated. I now live in a city with as many people as the province of Manitoba, a city with bike paths and an LRT, a city with an NHL franchise, a city whose streets are actually based on a numbered grid. It's hard to resist comparing Edmonton with Winnipeg, and I've been doing it constantly since arriving here a few days ago. And as a Mennonite from southern Manitoba, I admit I feel a bit uncomfortable with the amount of money that gets thrown around here. Then again, I don't miss Winnipeg's potholes.

In last weekend's Calgary Herald, there was a rather unfortunate article that assigned several of Canada's major cities with a corresponding superhero. It provided me with a helpful introduction to Calgarian arrogance. I'm not going to pretend that I've always dreamed about living in Edmonton, but if you've read "Civil War," you know better than to trust Iron Man. Judging from these descriptions I've ended up in the right place:

Calgary (Iron Man). Amoral economic heavyweight by day, party animal by night who happens to possess the power of flight and a reasonably good sense of humour. Also a slight crack problem.

Edmonton (Whiplash). Intellectual, Eastern European, sensitive, emotionally damaged northern city whose primary obsession is getting revenge on Iron Man for all of it by hogging all the available federal money to help pay for its contemporary art museum.

We visited the museum last week. It was a bit of a letdown. Winnipeg also gets a mention on this list, and its description shows that this writer clearly doesn't know anything about superheroes or recycling.

Winnipeg (Optimus Prime). Good-guy Transformer whose best days lay behind him. Started out a hero, but these days, lumbers around like a big old broken robot short of WD-40. (This is the toy you keep begging your kid to toss).