I Just Got Back From Canada...

...and it was frightening. Whoever thinks that Canada is just like the U.S. or our friendly little neighbor to the north is incorrect; based on my 1.5 hour drive in the extreme southwestern corner of the country.

I had to wait at the border for about a half hour. I really didn't mind it because I never actually sat at the border of our country before. Everyone should try it once. But, OMG, the border cop was the most frightening person that I have ever met in my life. Do you remember the bad terminator, T-1000, from T2? Played by Robert Patrick? Do you? Cuz that's exactly what this guy was like, the way he looked, talked, acted...exactly. Here was our conversation:

(before I put my car into park)
Cop: "Where are you from?"
Me: "Wisconsin"
Cop: "Why are you here?"
Me: "I'm at a conference in Blaine and I'm staying at the Semiahmoo Resort for a conference"
Cop: "When did you get here"
Me: "Ah, yesterday at about 4:00ish"
Cop: "Where are you going?"
Me: "Vancouver"
Cop: "Why"
Me: "For Dinner"
(wierd look on his face)
Cop: "Who are you meeting?"
Me: "No one, I've never been to Canada before so I..."
Cop: "You're eating alone."
Me: "Yes."
Cop: "Where are you eating?"
Me: "Umm, at this place on Betty Ave. I think it's called um, um, it's on 781 Betty Ave. oh here I have it written down: It's Big D's BBQ and Brewery, 871 Beatty Ave."
Cop: "Go"

No "Welcome to Canada" or anything. And this guy was ripped, he could have easily tore my head off, no kidding.

And of course, I was not expecting the sudden change from the english units to metric. Everything was all of a sudden in km/hr and meters. It was hard to adjust. I locked the cruise control right on 100 km/hr cuz I didn't want to risk getting picked up by the mounties.

The rest of the drive was fairly normal. Lots of bridges. My GPS got messed up and took me off on the wrong exit so I had to figure that out quick.

As I got into town I crossed a huge bridge and descended into chaos. For streetlights they have green, blinking green, yellow, blinking yellow, and red. WTF? Only in Canada. I noticed all the houses were made of this cement/adobe material, no siding, kinda run-down looking. Extremely dense population. Althought, this is what they are going for according to wikipedia because they don't want urban sprawl. All signs were in English/French/Chinese. Tons of Chinese/Indian live in Vancouver. It is a very diverse town, more than I have ever seen. I got into downtown and everywhere you look are these huge towering glass apartment building from the 1950s/60s. It looked so futuristic, it reminded me of Tokyo. I'm guessing there is a lot of crime because of the way things are locked up so securily and have huge bars over the doors. It's such an artsy town, often called "North Hollywood" since it's the 3rd largest maker of films in the world behind the US and India. A hip culture.

I was thinking of stopping for dinner, but no way. I realized I didn't have any canadian change and all the street parking was meters. So I just drove around and headed back.

The drive home was uneventful, it only took 5 min. to get back across into the U.S.

So that's my story...

Oh, I found a clip from the 3rd episode of "Twin Peaks" It's this weird dream sequence. Watch the entire thing. Do not watch it right before bed. Shawn, this is right up your alley.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uLpRvERjLE