Winnipeg or bust!!

Day 1-Righty O, we left for Winnipeg early and made good time, thank goodness for GameBoy and in car DVD for the kids, not much to see on the way up there, plus the fact that I hate stopping when I'm driving anywhere.  No trouble getting through the border, maybe a 15 minute wait.  Stopped at the Canadian visitor center, lots of great information there, too bad it seemed like we were either too late or too early for some of the special events going on.  That being said, MAKE SURE YOU TAKE CANADIAN MONEY!!!!  I didn't, and when we stopped at McDonald's and I paid American cash, I got Canadian change with no exchange rate.....I know, it was my bad, I should have got exchange rate $$ before I left.  We stayed at the Radisson downtown, not too much trouble to find, it was a little weird figuring out where to park at first.  Hotel was nice, nothing extraordinary about it.  We went to the IMAX theatre to see Santa vs Snowman, it was way too short.  The IMAX is located in a mall which I don't know the name of, but you can get to it by walking through the walkways attaching most of downtown Winnipeg.  The mall was, in my opinion, worse than the one in North Dakota, but hey, I don't like shopping....it didn't seem to have anything I recognized, I know it's a different country, but.....We walked around and around, someone mentioned to us about a huge Christmas lights display at the horse race track, so we went to find it.....after a couple wrong turns and several different peoples help(yes, I did stop and ask directions!!), we found it...Lots of lights, again, MAKE SURE YOU HAVE CANADIAN MONEY!!!  They took my ten dollars, but not without giving me a funny look...There was ice skating, food, sleigh rides, and more there, the kids just wanted to stay in the car because of the cold....Finally made it back to the room and just crashed.  Overall impression so far: City seems a little dirty, locals are friendly.