I went on an adventure tonight.

I won't describe it in great detail, because it was one of those things that are really only interesting to those who take part, you know? Anyways, we went to the north side to look at a car, and got off the bus too early because someone pulled the cord before they had to and we're the kind of people who don't like to admit to our mistakes or whatever. So we ended up walking for about fifteen minutes through this slightly sketch neighbourhood, and it was like walking on the goddamn moon, because it was fucking cold and windy (which, as an aside, I can haz sunshine?), and there were windrows and ice craters, which are just hazards to balance-challenged people like me.

I felt like a tourist and/or an astronaut, s'what I'm getting at. I hardly go over there, and -- I told this story a couple of times in discussions today -- the first time I really did, they dropped me at the Clareview LRT station only to discover that my friend's friend had had the bumper stolen from his truck; it was so stereotypically north end that I couldn't help but laugh, shitty thing though it was. Today I was meant to serve as "protection" or some such, which...lulz, no. The point here is that I have the same stereotypes that so many others do. And walking through that neighbourhood made me realise again exactly how little of the city I really know outside of my bubble. I feel like a tourist on the north side, the south side, in the satellite towns. When I try to conceptualize them, I end up just filling them in with the places I do know, and (except in the case of the Safeway/TD banks thing everywhere, which is true), it's all wrong. And this is a strange city to be a tourist in (do we even get that many real tourists? Or is Daryl Katz going to give us a new boost in that way, too?), because...really? People want to visit? How odd.

In all seriousness, I think it's good to be a tourist in your own city sometimes, really. Getting out of your comfort zone, seeing things that happen elsewhere, well, isn't that the point of touristing?  I don't know that you can have a full understanding of a place if you haven't seen or experienced as much of it as possible. Degrees and kinds of understanding exist, obviously, but to get the most out of it you need to explore as much as possible. Do what you're interested in. You're a tourist, after all.

It also just occurred to me that Edmonton is two or three cities: what it actually, objectively is -- a city with a million people, thousands of trucks, and a lot of ugly buildings; the way you see it personally; and the way everyone else sees it. All of these combine on some level to create what the city is, overall -- maybe there's no uniformly "Edmonton" thing (and I don't think there is), and how we see it in our own minds and which...oh god, that just cycles back on itself, doesn't it? That'll teach me to try and blog at 1:30 in the morning. I promise it makes sense when you think about it, though. I'd almost say that how we perceive it is the most important thing, really, since perception does shape so much of our understanding.

After all that we ended up in Dairy Queen, having a Blizzard because that's what you do when it's cold and windy, obviously. And that was my fabulous adventure, with all the cute bits left out so you wouldn't vomit, guys.