I know now that moving to Calgary in the midst of Stampede is a somewhat illogical thing to attempt. Not "The Stampede," I notice, just "Stampede," as if the extra little word detracts from the weary madness of the main event. I never knew cowgirl couture could involve both Stetson and Chanel. I didn't know a Clydesdale is the size of a small dinosaur.

On my second day in Cowtown I delivered a friend's paintings to a gallery downtown and at least five people offered to help me carry the canvases across the street. I've yet to get caught up in a traffic snarl, and I haven't had to wait in a line-up that took more than three minutes to digest itself.

Compared to other cities, Calgary feels like a country town in metastasis. It's spacious and clean. To my eyes, people look healthy here, like they've been spending a lot of time in the sun and fresh air. Not yoga, not bicep curls--less having a lifestyle and more having a life. I note the absence of air-brush tans and garbage cans brimming with Starbucks cups. But Calgary is not what I would call a flaneur-friendly city. I have to cross a six-lane highway just to buy milk.

And where to get vegetables? In Vancouver there is an open-air mom 'n pop produce stand in every neighbourhood. Here, at first glance, there are only waxed apples from Safeway. On the weekend my landlord and new friend Carolyn took me by bicycle to the farmers' market. We bought peas and cherries from Hutterite men with suspenders and severely carved beards. I'd never tasted golden beets before yesterday.

And extra-virgin canola oil, hard to find in Vancouver, is so ubiquitous here I think you can probably get it at 7-11. It's nothing like Crisco. With a sweet grassy taste like the smell of grain elevator dust, it pours from the bottle the shade of dandelion pollen.

Since I arrived I've seen at least three fantastic electrical storms and one crazy bout of hail. Back on the coast you can see the clouds creeping in days beforehand and know it's going to rain all week. Weather races across the sky here, unloading precipitation drastically and without warning. I've discovered it's possible to get sunburned and rain-soaked in the same walk.

And how to curry up a kitchen without a Patel's or a Roopak's? I found the local Indian grocery in an unremarkable plaza next to merchants selling Korean produce and halal meats. I picked up my Hanif's mango pickle and dhania jeera and stood at the till behind a middle-aged Indian woman with hair dyed brassy under a straw cowboy hat. Somehow I knew I'd never see that in Vancouver.