Skip to main content

Green-House!

So, BIG news: I moved into what is quite possible the house of my dreams. The story of how I ended up here began when I first came back to Calgary this time, trying to find a place to stay. I ended up moving in with Sara and Taryn, student friends of mine from last year, who live up in Banff Trail (Calgary identifies all its 'neighbourhoods', no matter how sub-urban and unidentifieable - They include about 5-10,000 residences each, I think). I say 'up in Banff Trail', but it really isn't far from downtown, its at the the fourth LRT Station out of downtown. Anyway, their old roommte went AWOL, and I got the room for the rest of the school year. So that immediately left me wondering where I'd live come summer.

After a few weeks of thinking of my options I decided on Kensington, AKA Sunnyside. Sunnyside is Calgary's official name for the neighbourhood, but Kensington is the name of the Avenue that goes through it. Calgary is made up of numbered Streets (North -South) and Avenues (East - West) layed out vaguely in a grid, and Kensington happens to be the Avenue between 1st Ave N and 1st Ave S. To give you a sense of scale, my old place was by 26th Ave N, and they go up to over 100 both North and South. Sunnyside is also where Kensington Avenue begins. And maybe people call it Kensington in reference to the hip and interesting street in Toronto.

There are several reasons I chose Kensington. Its on the north shore of the Bow River - the river that is the reason Calgary is here - right across from downtown (on the sunny side...). Its strung along the river pretty much the same length of the downtown core, 5 or 6 avenues deep, sandwiched between the river and a natural escarpment on its north side (which is by where I eventually found my place). So its got a lot of nature: the river is lined with trails and parks, and the escarpment area itself is an urban nature reserve. Its an old neighbourhood - nearly all buildings in Calgary are relatively new, so much so the city sometimes seems downright avers to renovating and improving the old as an alternative to tearing down and expanding. So the age of the neighbourhood give it an interesting and grounded feel, not to mention all the big old trees! Its one of the hippest places in town - between Kensington Ave and 10 St NW that intersects it - Kensington has shops ranging from down-right chique/boutique to dollar stores, used book shops, an awesome bike shop, dozens of restaurants and cafes, a few bars, specialty shops, etc... While many consider the area between 10th and 17th ave SW (of downtown) the most happening in Calgary (that's where the good clubs are), Kensignton is sort of like a separate town, cool and at the same time chill, kind of the place good people go to pre-drink, after-party, and nurse your hang-over in the shade all morning and play frisbee when you feel better. Other perks - an LRT Station in the middle of it, a walk on a foot bridge over The Bow then through a park to get downtown, and I joined an Ultimate Frisbee team (which I'll talk about another time) which practices three blocks from my house.

So that's the appeal of Kensington. The downside, being so cool and close to downtown, is of course price and availability.

After getting in touch with a few vacancies, I came to the conclusion that I'd have to settle a couple hundred over my original price range, which was a couple hundred more than I was used to paying... that and fierce completion. I talked to a whole bunch of prospects, checked out places with interesting, and sometimes down right strange people. I ended up lucking out an getting a place (which was the cheapest of all of them) with an Aussie (Andrew) and a musician (Mitch).

The house is sweeeeeeet. It's old, but not at all decrepit. Its on a very quite and little street literally seconds (yes, seconds) from the train station, with little green houses on one side, and a small playground and the aforementioned escarpment on the other. The walls of our house even have pieces of green glass plastered right into them! The front yard reminds me of the homestead I grew up in, with two big spruce trees (one bigger than the other) and two lilac bushes. The back needs quite a lot of work, though half of it is taken up a greenhouse used by the landlord. Inside is nice - the main floor is an open concept with big windows and sky-lights, and the standard kitchen (one section overflowing with empty beer bottles), bathroom and living areas. Its pretty well kept - lets see how long that lasts! Andrew's and Mitch's rooms are downstairs. I got the upstairs... An expanded attic, the stairs go up the middle towards the east wall with a skylight on the top. On the right is the living area with a big south facing window. Keep going right and you get to the sleeping area, where I can barely even stand up in the middle, but there are shelves everywhere build into the walls. Keep going right and you get into a sort of cave which leads to more built-in shelves, a coat-hanger rod. By now you're pretty much forced to crawl. Keep on going and you get back to top of the stairs! It seems like it was designed by a 7 year old with 2 years of couch fort and a season of tree house experience. Perfect for me!

Here's a tour from the outside of the house to the top of the escarpment outside. Though the day was cloudy and the leaves have come late this year, you'll get an idea of Kensington. I'll have pics from nicer days later on, but for now, enjoy!


Here's the Green-House! Note the spruce on the right...



Backing up a bit, into the playground, see some of the other Green-Houses and my car. Notice the two spruch trees on the right side, one bigger than the other - they're on our front lawn...



Starting up the escarpment, see downtown...


Keep going up...


And up.. See some of Kensington...


And up.. near the top, can all of the West side of Downtown Calgary...


Turn left, see the East side of Downtown Calgary.


This is a little ways along the escarpment, you get a good view of it and of another corner of Kensington.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Best place to live in Calgary, for sure... also close to 2 awesome Ethiopian restaurants... those pics make me miss Calgary in somesort of a creepy way.

Popular posts from this blog

MySpace Blog Archives for Dummies!

Cheers! So, guess what guys, this is the last blog im gonna write on MySpace. It not that I don't like MySpace, its just that if someone wants to read it, they have to subscribe. If you're reading this on my Blogger blog, then you already know... Anywho, life continues here in Calgary. Craig, Meg (aka Sir Moog) and I went to Fernie yesterday. That was sweet as honey baby! Snow was a bit heavy because of the warm weather, but still awsome to the extent that sometimes I thought I was in a dream. I got a bit recless but didnt get hurt... barely. Went to baznica (church) today, to meet latvians. Met up with Jancis, Niks and Erika Muizniece. Jancis works as a window cleaner, and i want to see if I can do that too. Work at the warehouse has been pretty dull, and hopefully I can do the window cleaning. Anyway, that you all you loyal readers (ie - Wilkie), see you in Blogger at http://matisslife.blogspot.com/ Cheers! 10:36 PM - 0 Comments - 0

Ski-Bum Theory

Being a ski-bum in Revelstoke is for many here is a right of passage. Today we posit that often a first-year ski-bum is tempted to repeat his experiences in another ski-season. We observe and draw conclusions of one first-year ski-bum's experiences in Revy. The Revy ski-bum is amused in many ways. The ubiquitous 6 - 25 foot tall snow banks along all roads that make driving exciting (playing in said snow banks is also fun, especially for a certain sister of subject ski-bum, especially after friends' birthday parties). Its good to have all wheel drive. Also amusing is the skiing. To people who have not done big mountain skiing at Revelstoke Mountain Resort (RMR) and want to do it, it is a lesson first in humility. If you consider yourself an intermediate skier, perhaps even expert in Ontario (if you go by ski-run difficulty ratings out east), consider that no longer in Revy. You are a beginner. Forget what you know. This mountain has many and much more vertical, powd

Java time

So Im applying to get into a GIS course. GIS courses demand mucho computer programming, so I'm trying to learn some. HTML's one computer programming language, its not too bad at all actually. I think I'll convert my blog to HTML if im up for it (technically it already is, and now I basically understand how it works). Then there's Java. It seems like a whole new world. I feel like I am delving into the deeper, darker subconscious that is a programmer's mind - there are countless versions and the download/file folder/path variable/MS-DOS promt stuff blows the mind (and thats even before the actual progaming). It dawns on you: even though you just downloaded, un-zipped and installed a 76 mega-byte program you can't actually open anything in the Java folder in Windows - at least I don't THINK you can. Never mind actually programming. I'm sounding like a nerd already. But before I learned of these challenges, I thought "hey HTML's a breeze! I did Tur