Reason #23 of '101 Reasons Why I Heart Edmonton'
Heritage Festival (The Melting Pot) By Emil Tiedemann Standing in the line-up outside of On the Rocks in downtown Edmonton one winter night, my buddy and I started up a conversation with the guy in front of us. He seemed to be shivering slightly more than the rest of us in line, and as it turns out, it was because he was new to Edmonton from the tiny African island nation of Mauritius, which does not get to see winters quite like ours. I had never met anyone from Mauritius before, or at least that I knew of. Later that night, my buddy and I cabbed it home, as the driver told us about his old life in his home country of India, far different from the life he leads now, he said. When we got back to my buddy’s place, he told me about this girl Kristy, from Slovenia, who was coming to stay with him as a “couch surfer.” All night, we were exposed to the glaring diversity that our hometown has embraced with open arms. At our workplaces, inside our classrooms, and on th...
