Calgary

Three nights at the Fairmont Banff Springs while Karen attended a conference — rain on the way in, sun on the way out, and a castle worth getting lost in.

A French bar in Calgary's Chinatown, two seats at the kitchen counter, and the best way I know to find out what a room actually orders.

The room reads as an English pub and the menu is French, which turns out not to be a contradiction but the definition of a New York tavern.