It has been over a week now since I crossed the border from the US to Canada. Since that very moment I have been enjoying the small but significant little differences. It started already with the border crossing. When I came to the US three months ago, I had to face a hostile FBI / Homeland Security team. Smiling - not on the special agent agenda. I was scared and intimidated (probably the whole purpose of the non-smiling policy) and it took me a loooong time to convince them that I really did not want to live in the US and work illegally and that I was quite happy with my German citizenship.
Coming to Canada on the other hand involved one look at my passport, two friendly (!!!) questions and with that I was done: "Enjoy your stay in Canada!"
With these words I seemed to have crossed a line to a more European version (at least that's my interpretation) of the US:
- the cars got smaller and so did the roads and parking lots
- good bye automatic cars, hello stick shift
- finally the measurements are back to "normal": meters, degrees Celsius, and liters (even though it spelled "litre" and, strangely enough, Canadians still use ounces ...)
- everybody seem to be slim and fit
- there seems to be a Canadian obsession with recycling that reminds me of good old Germany
And then there are obviously some things that seem to be genuinely Canadian:
- girls, no matter what body shape or size, like their outfits as short and as tight as possible
- the beer is great but very expensive (I genuinely wonder how Canadians get drunk without having to spend a fortune!)
- and people are really as friendly as the stereotype claims
But then again, maybe that is just me (and I haven't even gotten to the French Canadian part yet) ... what do you think makes Canadians Canadian?
P.S. I decided to participate in this month's #31WriteNow challenge, write one post every day (http://www.awesomelyluvvie.com/2013/07/31writenow-blog-challenge.html), so stay tuned for daily news from the road!
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