The Real Canada

7:02 p.m.

I arrived in Toronto full of dreams and wonder and awe. My jaw dropped as I wandered the streets, I giggled with excitement as I spoke to the natives, and I swooned over the fine women.

Then I realized I was in like Mississauga or something.

But it's cool, it's cool. It's like a suburb, I think. It's like all the people that live in suburbs of major cities here in America - we all just say that we're actually from that major city. It just makes life easier. Or at least, everybody else's life. I live like two or three hours away from all the major cities here. Thanks.

I still got to see Toronto, though - it just required a "Go Bus", or whatever you people call it - it's a bus, and it goes. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me step back and start at my arrival.

Upon arrival there was a snazzy van to take us to our hotel - I had decided the moment I arrived that, since I didn't know anyone in Canada, and I had no idea when I would come back, it was safe for me to act in any way I saw appropriate. I saw it appropriate to pester the hell out of our van driver.

Lee: All the speed limit signs are in kilometers. Oh, that's right, you use the metric system, don't you?
Driver: Yep.
Lee: It says we're going like ninety kilometers per hour? How fast is that in American speeds? With the conversion?
Driver: *sigh*
Lee: Sorry, it's cool, you probably get sick of us Americans asking that kind of stuff. I'll just like guess some speeds and you tell me if I'm close. Ready? Okay: Forty miles per hour.
Driver: No.
Lee: You sure? It feels like we're going about forty. Or maybe less. I think I saw a kid on a bicycle pass us. Two miles per hour.
Driver: No.
Lee: All right, all right. Sorry, again, really. I guess I'm not a good judge of numbers. You know what they say about our American schools and stuff. I'm probably doing this all wrong, anyway. It's faster, right? I bet that means we're going like a hundred fifty miles per hour. *grabs onto the back of the driver's seat to let her know that the speed may be too great for him*
Driver: *something in French*
Lee: Oh, cool, you speak French. I mean, I kind of figured - you had an accent - but I wasn't sure. Did you just swear? In French?
Driver: *laughs* No, I wouldn't do that.
Lee: Oh. I kinda want to learn some swear words in French. For educational purposes. But we'll keep it simple: How do I say, "Where is the bathroom?"
Driver: Blah Blah French Blah
Lee: Okay. How do I say, "I'm just holding this for some guy, officer"?
Driver: I don't know if I should tell you that.
Lee: That's cool. I understand. What about this one - "Baby, you got it goin' on!"
Driver: *laughs* Blah Blah French Blah
Lee: Great. Okay, last one, for later on - "Honestly, I found her like this!"

Later my mom lectured me on not disturbing people responsible for safely transporting us from one place in a foreign country to another. Then we went to the mall.

I convinced mi madre that the best course of action would be for us to split up for a bit and then meet back up by Tim Horton's (where I would later snag a box of TimBits). It isn't that I was trying to ditch my mom so much as I was trying to kind of ditch my mom. Just for a little while, honest. I spent the whole rest of my time with her. I just wanted a wee spot of time to myself.

And I'm grateful she went along with it - the nice thing about my family is that we're very compromising - she knew I wanted some peace time in Canada without her but was also well aware that to make up for it I would be very willing to go to whatever boring doo-dah she'd want to do later on with no complaints.

Let me state for the record that Canada's ratio of totally hot girls to disturbingly grotesque ladies is pretty much equivalent to that in the States. I'd been led to believe that it might be somewhat different, probably because all the girls we've imported down to Texas from there have been on the cute side - I'm sure it's a common mistake.

Canada is Asian hottie central, though. Seriously. So many Asian girls in tight pants with long, multi-shaded hair and pouty faces that it made my head swim. And I talked to as many of them as I possibly could. Asian hotties with sexy French accents - not too thick that I couldn't understand them, but just right. Argh. I mean, just...argh.

They all laughed at me when I told them I was from America (probably because that was what I opened with half the time), which might have made me feel more self-conscious if not for the fact that I didn't give a shit. After a while I came up with an almost survey-like approach that seemed to work very well. I got this idea from the survey people I had already passed by on numerous occasions - here is a point of difference between Canada and America. Canadians are very courteous. In America, you see some guy/girl giving a survey, what do you usually say? "No time, so busy, no time, sorry, gotta go!"

We have no time for your piddling questions.

In Canada, apparently, nobody has anything to do or anywhere to be. They'll spend long engrossing amounts of time not only answering survey questions, but going into great detail on stories that might happen to have something to do with their survey answers, who knows, but it must be worth sharing.

So I would find a group of girls and tell them that I was an American in a foreign land and looking to conduct a survey on pretty Canadian girls.

That line fucking worked. Jesus. I would have made American frat boys all over the country proud.

Here's a sampling of questions I would ask, followed by the gist of responses I tended to get, as I remember them:

What do you like most about Canada?
Everyone is so nice, my family lives here, it's Canada - what's not to like? (that last one I got a few times, word for word - you guys are brainwashed)

What do you think this shirt says about me? (Note - I was wearing a t-shirt I own that says "Touch My Monkey" with a picture of a monkey)
You are a funny guy, you like to joke around, you're a crazy American, you want somebody to touch your monkey, you are very lonely. (well, not all of my responses can seem complimentary, but at least every girl I talked to did, in fact, make sure to touch the monkey on my shirt)

What's on your agendas for today?
Huh, what, I don't understand, can you repeat that? (This one got the biggest display of confusion I've ever encountered. I had to rephrase it a dozen times it seemed like. Nobody in Canada seemed to understand the concept of having something to do, and what that something might be.)

What's your opinion of American guys?
Very macho, too cocky, not strong enough, wishy-washy, pretty cute! (mixed results overall - I liked the girl that said that last one, mostly because I think she was directing it towards me at the time)

After a while I got tired of being so boisterous and settled back into the usual "Hi, how are you?" sort of simplicity that I'm charmingly known for. This worked much better overall and I found that most women really enjoyed hearing me talk. This confused me for a bit as I'm not entirely used to being listened to unless I'm doing something ridiculous, but one very nice woman summed it up for me: "You speak so intelligently! If you knew more about hockey I might eat a dinner with you - very nice man - educated. But no hockey, I'm so sorry. This is Canada, you must know hockey."

If that sentence sounded awkward it's because she, like every woman I talked to, had an accent. Some spoke the Queen's English very well, and some were a bit broken. This one was marginally broken. I've moderately translated into less broken english, but kept all the meaning in tact - big words are very appreciated, but do not make up for a lack of knowledge in Canada's national pastime. Next time I'll wear a shirt that says "Touch my Toronto Maple Leaf." The leaf is in my pants.

This is going to sound very dweeb-ish, but I was exceedingly proud of the fact that I was carrying on conversations with strange women so effortlessly. I'm very shy. And I have this thing with new people - I don't generally make so much of an effort. I think being in a completely different country got rid of my usual nervous jitters quite nicely.

My overall opinion of the Toronto area is that it's basically like America, but with a lot more French stuff, and a more friendly cosmopolitan kind of atmosphere, sort of like New York, but in the 1950s. Here's my sum up of the differences between our two countries:

-Canada, or at least, the area I was in, is Condo crazy. I understand now why Joey went for a condo. It's clearly the new real estate craze up there. When I wasn't walking by some kind of high-rise condominium building, I was walking by a big sign advertising an upcoming high-rise condominium building.

-You guys have no concept of a pedestrian right of way. Hey, I'm walkin', 'ere!

-Very, very casual. I talked to the people at the front desk of our hotel and they admitted to me that the part of their job they hated most was having to wear their suits. "It's like a never-ending funeral, with these things" one guy said, tugging at his suit jacket.

-Canadian girls blow kisses. This is a quaint little act that I don't see too much in the States anymore. I don't know if this is a standard thing, though. I also got a lot of hugs from girls whose names I didn't even know. Either I am one smooth gentlemen, or Canadian girls are just friendlier. I don't know which, but since I've never been that smooth here in the United States, I'm leaning towards the friendly part.

-This metric system stuff kills me. I don't mean that it's difficult for me to translate (although sometimes it is, simply because I don't know all the conversions), but simply that everything sounds like a lot more than it is by my way of thinking. I can't drink this 355 ml coke. Holy Christ, that's three hundred fifty milliliters. I'd like to replace this with 12 fluid ounces, please.

-I found the fact that everything is printed in both English and French amusing before I realized that I should get used to that so long as I plan to live in Texas. It's only a matter of time before this entire state starts printing everything in both English and Spanish. Shit, that reminds me. I need to learn Spanish. No, forget that. I'll move to Canada, since I liked it so much. Oh, but then I have to learn French. Fuck. I mean, le Fuck. Oh, screw it.

-That's a good segue into this: everybody and their dog has a French accent. Out of all the people I talked to, I think maybe like two didn't have a noticeable accent. It was sort of interesting - I felt like I was in a movie where they felt like they couldn't subtitle all the French speaking parts so instead they just hired actors to speak with French accents. It was very surreal.

So, let's recap - Canada is cool. No, really, it was like fifty degrees and it's the end of May. That's badass.

Yes, Canada. You are badass. Now go to work, you shiftless layabout. And don't run anyone over on the way.

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