Sept. 2nd, West Edmonton Shopping Mall and waiting for the Train

We spent most of the morning and early afternoon in the West Edmonton Shopping mall. What to say: The mall is gigantic and features plenty of unique stuff that you normally do not find in other high-end shopping malls. In hindsight we maybe should have tried to be there first thing in the morning and buy a ticket for the swimming area. They had a gigantic standing wave (1.5 to 2m high) you could surf down endlessly. It looked cool. Next time I make it to Edmonton I want to surf this thing (and I am adult, the kids were even more excited). To accommodate the different interests of everyone we agreed to meet every 90 minutes at certain points and pretty much explored things on our own.

After visiting the mall and having lunch there we walked through a park in the Saskatchewan river valley near downtown. Then it was time to head for the train station. The train was scheduled for around 21:00. However I had to return the car at 17:00 before the car rental company closed. We arrived around 4pm at the train station. Interestingly the station was totally locked up and nobody was there. It also was in the middle of nowhere (no Tim Hortons or similar nearby ...). We unloaded our (substantial) luggage and used a wooden table bench which was outside the train station underneath its open roof for us. Then I left the kids at the station and drove to the rental car company to return the car. The return of the car went smooth. I got even a discount because of a marginal rear tire that had to be re-inflated several times during the drive and one of their employees gave me a ride back to the train station.

Afterwards we played Skat (a German card game) for a long while and used the ViaRail Wifi barely receivable outside the station. Also the weather became worse as a massive thunder storm started to develop. Just as the rain (and lightning and storm) started a ViaRail employee showed up and opened the train station one hour before the scheduled train departure. As soon as we had the luggage inside it started to pour. Also it turned out the train was running late and its departure time was closer to midnight (at that time it was running late by about 2 to 3 hours). To be truthful we were just lucky avoiding the weather. I had assumed that the train station was open much earlier or even all day. But I was totally off with that assumption. The Edmonton ViaRail station is not like the usual train stations in Eastern Canada (lets say Toronto or Ottawa or Montreal area). It is just a tiny building suburban Edmonton in the middle of nowhere that is opened shortly before a train arrives and closed soon after.

WEM: Ice Rink in the West Edmonton Mall

WEM: Dino's are popular with the younger generation

WEM: And Tobi is a car fan! Lamborghini even belongs to Volkswagen/Audi

WEM: And little kids are taken care off as well.

WEM: And older kids have their opportunities too!

And yet another vista in the WEM

Waiting for the train. Anna is happy. There is wifi and even an electrical outlet.

Our "skat" table. By the end of our trip Anna and Tobi had learned playing very well.

Very close to the thunder storm rolling in. The train station was still closed.

Savely in the Edmonton ViaRail train station. It just opened in time for us before the rain poured down and the lightning started. We were the first customers. Later the room was overcrowded with people waiting to enter the train.