🇨🇦 Calgary — A Living Museum 😉😉😉

Some places here have more NPCs than visitors — they seem so bored that when they meet a chatty tourist, they just won’t stop talking! There’s a loop train where instructions are clipped onto a bamboo pole for the driver to receive. 🚂 An elderly lady taught us how to tap Morse code. While waiting for the train, I just wanted to ask if I could try the typewriter, but an 80-year-old grandma launched into a full lecture — explaining traffic lights, signal flags, and then eagerly brought us to the station for a demo. I checked — the train was still 10 minutes away, so I had to keep the small talk going 😅. Then another NPC grandma joined in, talking about how the grass at her place was too tall to see the road, and asked if this train could go to 1910… like, what?? When I looked confused, she thought I didn’t understand and asked me in 4 languages: Italian, French, Spanish, or German? I thought — okay, you’re prepared — so hit me with some Russian! (This Duolingo player issued a challenge 😏). And wow, she started explaining the difference between Ukrainian and Russian. Then there’s the tractor bus — actually called a “wagon.” It suddenly reminded me of the word “bandwagon” — turns out it’s literally a wagon with a band. Now I get it! 🎶🚜 The auto museum was eye-opening. Development back home happened so fast it felt like everything appeared overnight. This place really filled in my imagination of how technology evolved. There’s a windmill that was hand-built by a guy last century trying to settle here as an immigrant. The park moved the whole thing here, intact. An early oil rig — the NPC here looked just like Feynman 😂. He said they originally just wanted three retired workers to fake it for show, but they ended up building a real one! Though it didn’t pump oil — only water. Snow plough train… of course, it’s Canada ❄️🇨🇦. Inside the passenger car — the sleeper cabin even had a double bed and a kitchen! Is this even a train?? Though given the population here is smaller than Beijing/Shanghai, maybe capacity isn’t the top priority. My favorite was the grain barn. It’s built so high because there’s an elevator inside! The guy the machine tried to start it 12 times — it just wouldn’t fire up. We felt too awkward to leave 😬. He was embarrassed but didn’t want to give up. I found standard barn blueprints — the mechanization is impressive. Different sizes for different grains, gears to switch discharge bins, direct unloading into trains… and mostly wooden structure. So advanced! How Indigenous people used to play “badminton” (actually snowshoes 🏸❄️). #Calgary #HeritagePark #Museum #Travel #LivingHistory 🧭✨