I have lived in Calgary for the past 10 years and it is not the funnest place to live in Canada. You have to have a car. Night life ends at midnight. It's a sprawling suburban city. It's conservative (by Canadian standards), family-oriented and quiet. SAIT itself is a pretty decent school and located in a good spot, but if you are a city slicker, this is not the place for you. On the other hand, if you love the mountains and outdoors (kayaking, skiing, that sort of thing), then you would love it.

Oh and I should mention the weather drops to -40 C (so very opposite of the Qatar) a few weeks during the winter. It's hard to explain just how cold that is, but I can tell you -- stay outside for more than 10 minutes without a proper jacket, scarf, mitts and tuque, ear-covering and you will freeze -- literally. Also, it starts to get cold around the end of September (Zero to 10 C) and you will not get to see summer till mid July. My birthday is in May and almost every year it snows that week. Hell, you can even experience hail (falling ice the size of golf balls)in JULY!

The warmest it gets is around 25 to 27 C and that only happens maybe two weeks of the year. A warm day in Calgary is around 15 C.

The city also promotes cowboy and country culture, which is not my thing. Everywhere you go, there are silly people wearing cowboy hats, pretending to be western. And for 10 days of the year, all you see is "YAHOO!" signs on stores, people dressed as cowboys/cowgirls, and country music blasting everywhere... URGH.