Night Out at LVL Three Bar & Lounge, Calgary

When we arrived in Calgary and moved into our first apartment — it was located just across the street from 17th Avenue. 17th Avenue was a strange place… a long, straight avenue with two roadways and a small park running down the middle… On both sides of the street, one after another, mixed in among the shops, were restaurants / little eateries / pizzerias / coffee shops… I had never seen so many restaurants gathered in one place in my entire life…

From Friday evening until Sunday night, 17th Avenue transformed into a true colorful parade… countless women and girls, all dressed up in completely different styles — from hot, sexy nightclub looks to long evening gowns — wearing heels of every height, boots, sneakers… of different nationalities, ages, and body types… all of them moving from one restaurant / nightclub to another, talking loudly and laughing…

All of this was accompanied by the constant hum of passing cars, flashy cars of every make and model… here you could see some truly impressive vehicles, driven by people hoping to “catch the attention” of all those brightly dressed girls…

Couples / groups of people drifted from restaurant to restaurant, talking loudly and laughing, while everything was occasionally punctuated by the roar of engines from fashionable convertibles, sporty Lamborghinis, and other exotic cars…

Having just arrived here and watching it all unfold, looking at those nightclubs and the lines outside the restaurants, it seemed unbelievable to me that one day we ourselves might become some of those elegantly dressed people, sitting back and relaxing in one of those restaurants or heading out to those nightclubs…

At that time, our minds were occupied with only one thing — how to find any job at all so that, having arrived in a new country without really knowing English, we could simply survive and have the opportunity to stay here for at least some amount of time…

And now, two years and a couple of months later, we have finally become part of that very “scene” on 17th Avenue :)

And, of course, a little bit of me posing!

♫ Listening while writing: Boyfriend by Dove Cameron