a canucks view of america - part 1

this is the disclaimer part of my post: this post is merely my opinion and reflection on the united states of america ... my opinions in no way represent those of every canadian ... my opinions are not meant to harm or hurt, they are just based on my experiences and observations which are mine alone

i'm not a lawyer so i have no idea if that is enough to cover me

as a canadian, i'm always interested in what others think of my country ... i'm usually amused because either the observation is so way off as to be hilarious, or is so accurate as to be embarrassing

growing up, our family took trips to "the states" as my parents referred to it all the time ... i grew up in a border town so a trip to the states was sometimes just a drive across a bridge ... many times it was trips to florida to visit my grandparents ... trips to ohio to ride the roller coasters at cedar point ... anyway, people that we would meet seemed interested to know that we were from canada ... they were interested i guess, because they had a cousin/uncle/aunt/friend who also lived in canada and so therefore, we should be able to pass on their hellos when we got back ... we'd get that a lot ... "oh you're from canada? do you know jerry milton? my cousin? he lives up there too" ... all ... the .... time, we got these kind of questions all ... the ... time ... if you are an american, and you have a relative or friend living up here, and you're wondering if i know them ... please refer to the map (i live where the purple dot is) ... canada is slighty bigger in land mass than the u.s. ... yes, our population is about 1/10 of what yours is ... but that is still 30 million people ... and although i was quite the social butterfly for many years, i still have not met them all

we were camping in upstate new york one summer and we had met a nice family at the beach one day ... after talking for about 2 minutes they said "and you're all from canada right?" ... we weren't sure how they knew ... we weren't drinking beer or eating moose on the beach that day and we never said "excuse me" or "sorry" if anyone accidently kicked sand in our face ... so what had given us away ... well, they heard us saying "eh" ... it was funny to us and something i've always been acutely aware of ever since ... we never even realized that we said it and yet we did often enough to be identifiable as canadians ... i still catch myself saying it from time to time, and christy, my transplanted american wife says it once in a while too, then catches herself and changes it to "huh"

we could never understand why we got strange looks at mcdonald's when we asked for vinegar for our fries ... never understood why people seemed quite sure that we lived in a frozen tundra 365 days of the year ... is it because our temperatures are reported in celcius? so when the temperature is 34 up here and it's 92 down there, are you picturing us in snowshoes and furlined parkas ... in july? we make fun of your beer ... we used to have a popular commercial up here "if i wanted water, i'd order water" ... we laugh when your sports commentators refer to our game as "ice hockey"

i read a survey that one of our national magazines did of americans and their views of canadians ... you know what the number one response was? the first thing that came to most american minds? canadians are funny ... i could be insulted by that, but i'm not ... because, well, we are ... we're more than that of course, much more ... but funny is good

stay tuned for part 2 - why i love america