Oh Canada

As many of you know, I had the opportunity to travel to Canada recently. Cool – a country that’s exactly like ours. Ha - not so much. Okay, let me give you a little primer on our cousin to the north. You may think we share a language. Not exactly. They truly are a bilingual country. Road signs, ads, radio stations, even products are all in English and French. And then if you wander into an area where there’s a large population of First Nation people, you may find their language thrown into the mix as well. Oh, and if you’re thinking English is English – nope, try again. Centre, cheque, colour, whisky, and on and on. Then there the whole metric system -hope you’ve brushed up on your math skills. Try buying a kilo of grapes or a litre of gas or figuring out how fast you’re driving in kilometers. Can’t forget about food, you need to eat, right? Walk into just about any fast food restaurant and they’ll put gravy on your french fries. You can buy potato chips with ketchup flavoring. In a small café I ordered a cheeseburger and was asked if I wanted ‘sweet’ or ‘old’ cheese. Uhm, wasn't sure what either was. ‘Sweet’ sounded like cream cheese and ‘old’ sounded like it might be moldy. I went with ‘old’ and later found out the first is mild and the second is extra sharp. Another time, I was having coffee/tea with some ladies and was asked if I wanted ‘whitener’. Since I wasn’t doing laundry, I was a bit confused why I was being offered bleach. Had I spilled something? Nope, turns out that’s creamer. I could go on, but I don’t want to seem like I’m bashing Canada too much. So, yes, I was feeling rather dazed and confused much of the time I was in the country. Not like I could phone a friend or ask google for help. My phone was as good as a brink most of the time – ‘no service’ was all it kept telling me every time I tried to use it. But I must say, they seemed, on the whole, to be much more patriotic than us. I was there for Canada Day. Needless to say, I was shamed by the fact I wasn’t wearing any Canada swag. Plus, if you look, you will see evidence everywhere of Canadian pride on any given day. Many business have incorporated the Canadian flag and/or maple leaf into their logo, sign or products.

Denny’s has the maple leaf for their apostrophe. Tim Hortons uses Canadian things everywhere. Canadian Tire does as well. Cool. Go wander north, far, far north. See the small towns of Canada, the great people who are only to willing to share a laugh or two. Uhm, I know, they were laughing at me because they couldn’t quite figure out how someone from the deep south ended up in the Yukon…