I love Canada. Although I think it would be alright if they only competed with us in hockey, and left baseball alone. Just seems unnatural.
Anyway, Canada is fabulous. It's like Minnesota, but even cleaner, with fewer guns, and more francophones. And poutine. And socialized medicine. And pâté. And liberals. And up until recently, a favorable exchange rate with U.S. dollars.
Let me tell you a little story about Canada. We went to Canada on our honeymoon, 10+ years ago. We got married in December, in between semesters in law school, so we were *broke*. While I wanted to go to the Greek isles, that was simply not possible given our budget. And seeing as we like snow and my husband wanted to ski, we decided to go to Canada. We went to Calgary for a couple of days, which looked exactly like Minneapolis but with a rodeo. The exchange rate was killer, so we stayed in a Fairmont hotel (fancy!!). We had a suite, for the low low price of about $119 USD / night.
When we arrived, I was really tired so I took a nap. I woke up from said nap with a sore throat and a fever. The next day, my brand-new husband called the front desk and they found us a doctor that was open on a Saturday and sent us on our way. At the clinic, we waited for about 10 minutes and then got to see the doctor. The receptionist asked if I had my Alberta Health card, and I said no, I'm American. They were so apologetic when they told me the visit would cost $35. Canadian. Even a broke law student can afford that!
I got in to see the doctor a few minutes later. He looked at my throat and in my ears and wrote me a prescription for antibiotics for my strep. He then spent the next 10 minutes writing down places for us to visit, eat, and ski -- he was our own personal Not For Tourists guide.
I got my prescription filled at the Canadian pharmacy for about $5 CAD, and then bought all sorts of fun flavors of Halls that they don't sell in the US (blueberry!) and boxes of allergy medicine that were prescription-only back home (Allegra!). Customs didn't seem to care, thankfully.
I felt better right away, so we drove to Banff and Lake Louise right on schedule and skiied and ate and had a fabulous time, for a very reasonable amount of money. I hope we can go back for our 15th and do the same, although I doubt it will be as cheap.
(Socialism + snow / decent exchange rate ) * really nice people = what's not to love about Canada, eh?
