Via Byway, My Way.

Time for your daily math lesson. Here we go.

1 liter of gas in Canada averages about $1.13

(Update 07/19/07: The gas up here in Dawson City is $1.39 per litre!)

1 liter = .26 gallons

1 gallon = 3.79 liters

You with me so far? Okay, now for some money conversions.

I remember the days when 1 Canadian dollar would equal $.65 U.S. You could travel relatively cheaply back in those days. Today, 1 Canadian dollar equals $.95, if you’re lucky. Because when I went to the currency exchange and traded $100 US, I received $103 Canadian. That’s just $3. If you go to any store or business, the exchange is at par. Thus, $1 Canadian = $1 U.S. And that really hurts. Especially considering the fact that prices are higher here in Canada than in the U.S.

Like fast food. And clothes. And accommodation rates. And groceries. And especially gas.

Are you ready for the math? Here we go then.

1 liter of gas just about 4 gallons. So 4 gallons x $1.13 = $4.52.

$4.52 Canadian x $.95 US = $4.30.

Therefore, I am paying the equivalent of $4.30 per gallon of gas up here in Alberta. And to think, I passed up filling my tank for an outrageous $3.51 just before crossing the border. I thought that was too much to pay for gas. I was foolish to think that the gas would be cheaper up here. Especially when we were in Edmonton, which is considered oil country. They even named the NHL Hockey team the Oilers. Go figure.

The Pontiac is doing relatively well. I’m driving the speed limit to save on gas consumption. The check engine light is on and bright as ever. It only rained one day so far, so I haven’t had to deal with the flooded carpet. It would have been nice to have air conditioning, cause the heat wave of the Northwest US had found its way all the way up to Northern Alberta.

EDMONTON

More flat, straight driving into Canada’s northernmost largest city. Of course we had to check out the West Edmonton Mall, one of the world’s largest. Were we impressed? Would you be if you came across this monster?

– Over 800 stores/services

– 21 screens of movie theaters (including an IMAX, where we saw Harry Potter in 3-D)
– Miniature golf course

– A glow in the dark miniature golf course

– Bowling alley

– Indoor waterpark

– Indoor amusement park with 2 rollercoasters

– Mystery dinner theater

– Over 100 restaurants/eateries

– Ice skating rink

– Over 20,000 parking spaces

– Gun shooting range

– Santa Maria replica ship in middle of the mall (well, one of the middles)

So yeah, it was quite overwhelming walking through this beheamoth. Aside from the mall, we also checked out Fort Edmonton Historical Park, the old Strathemore district, and had a fun evening in the city center at the Internationl Street Performers Festival (no, I was not allowed to busk because I left my Casio keyboard at home, otherwise I would have been rolling in the dough). We stayed with some fellow members of the Bootsnall community, Neil and Kathy, who we requested accomodations via Couchsurfers. Which will be an entirely different blog entry in itself. But that’s all I have for now, so when I find more internet, I’ll write up another post.

Inside the mall, one of the many non-shopping or eating attractions.

I didn’t get inside the waterpark’s rides, so I had to settle for this shot.

At the Edmonton International Street Performers Festival.  Good stuff!  I’m thinking Portland should have their own festival showcase, this was definitely alot of fun because the central square had 5-6 different performers going on at one time and you could just rove around–if one act sucked, a few feet away was another act and for just a donation, this entertainment was top notch.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 20th, 2007 at 6:11 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.