Checkin' out the Neighborhood

Richard and I spent a lot of yesterday exploring our neighborhood. Neither one of us had spent much time hanging around downtown before we moved here, so everything's new. We poked around for out-of-the-way cafes and good cheap restaurants to try later, and found several: There's Hole in the Wall, a 6-stool diner specializing in soups, and the Blue Plate, a cool little place that has awesome coffee and a half-vegetarian menu. We decided to eat there tonight, actually. We also checked out the downtown branch of my favourite used bookstore, The Wee Book Inn, and met a super-friendly cashier who's into bizarre movies (we discussed the tragedy of Steven Soderbergh, king of the sellouts).
In the evening we wandered over to Churchill Square where the Taste of Edmonton booths are set up and a (horrible) band was playing Fats Domino and other geriatric rock (the World Masters Games are in town, so downtown is overrun with 45+ amateur athletes). On the way home we decided to stop off for a glass of wine and chose a tiny Italian place that just reopened. We nursed a glass each and were close to leaving when we started chatting with the waiter, who's going to be competing in hockey at the Games with his neighborhood team. Pretty soon we were yakking with the owner, an older Italian fellow. After closing at 11:00 the rest of the staff wandered over to yak, too, and by 1:00 we were still sipping wine (courtesy of the owner) and talking about everything from hockey to fish oil.
We are both a wee bit hungover. Now I have to brave the aisles of Wal-Mart to get the month's hamster supplies. I don't understand why the store with the largest shoppers has to have the teeniest aisles and the biggest carts!