just a few things i've noticed since i've been here...

differences between the u.s. and canada

*maple leafs everywhere.
no, seriously. they're on signs for mc donald's (which they sometimes say MAC donald's), wendy's, blockbuster, denny's, etc. it's like, "in case you didn't know you were going to a canadian denny's, we'll put a maple leaf on the sign, so you'll know everything's in candian dollars." hehehehehe!!

*boston pizza and new york fries.
those are chains up here, but not back in the states. boston pizza is like chili's and a sports bar had a high-class baby. it's really yummy!! and new york fries sells poutine, a candian treat. but hey, i can't make too much fun of these american names in canada, since we eat "canadian" bacon and it's not called that up here. :)

*km/g/metric system!!
ahhhhhh!! it's taking a while to get used to, but they also measure things in inches, and weigh things in pounds. grrrrrrrrrrr.

*one dollar and two dollar coins
last time i was up there, i kept getting one and two dollars back with coins. i knew they had them up in canada, but i thought they also had bills. i thought i was getting them because they knew i was a tourist. it's really a good idea, because they're easy to find for the bus or whatever, and i'm sure it saves the government tons on not printing a bazillion dollar bills each year. but they have silly names and i try not to giggle when people say them outloud. a dollar coin is a looney and a two dollar coin is a tooney. i'm pretty sure those are both misspelled.

*hockey
one thing i LOOOOVE about (or should i say, aboot??) canada is that hockey is effing everwhere. no, seriously. even the junior championships were the top story every night up here. i looooove that canadians get this game!!

*english/francais
all right, so this i already knew; everything in english on a box of cereal is also in french. but it's seriously on EVERYthing!! i do double takes every now and then when i see the name for bran flakes or whatever. hopefully my french will improve un peu.

*driving
so there's no reflectors on the roads, no reflective paint, no u-turns at signals and weird left turns. the first two drive me absofuckinglutely crazy at night, because i just have to follow the car in front of me. the u-turns thing is more like, you can turn around if you've pulled to the right side of the road and nobody is coming, which is never in vancouver. sometimes you get "advanced" green signals for left turns, and sometimes you don't. so sometimes at a signal, there will be a specific left turn lane which you get to go through before oncoming traffic, and sometimes you don't. when you don't, you have to wait for traffic to clear first, which sometimes means you wait until the light turns red, and you fucking fly through the intersection.

*news
it seems a bit more fun and relaxed up here. no crazy ladies in tons of makeup, and they're just reading the news like robots. they showed a clip from the daily show the other day where jon stewart is making fun of canadian election ads. they showed it on the news and had a good laugh. i loved it.

*gov't
of course their government is different from ours; we hated the british and they have the queen on some of their money. it's interesting to learn the different parties up here since there's an election tomorrow, and figure out how people are represented and stuff. oh, and the liberals aren't really liberal.

*flags
damn, canadians have flags on everything!! if you had 5 american flags in front of your house in the states, people either think you have a son serving in the army, or you're a crazy hick. they have a lot of pride up here, eh.