The Secrets of Our Northern Neighbor

Hello everyone,

Tomorrow marks the two week anniversary of my arrival...just six more short weeks and I will return from the Texas of Canada, to good ol' Virginia...and my car! It has been weird not driving recently, but I always have that 4 hour drive (or 5 depending on how slow you drive) back to Blacksburg a few days after returning to make me change my mind! Let's hope I remember how to drive by then...

I got to the movie theater on Monday, which was nice! I planned to get there early so I could wander the mall downtown, but to my surprise, all the stores had their gates down at 6pm...apparently people don't like to shop that late. So I sat in a movie theater for an hour waiting for it to start, and got to listen to some 12 year olds talk about doing cocaine and wanting to date high school women (no joke, they said women)! It was an eye opening experience. Also, I think that Canadians think all Americans are stupid from our movies...I heard several "Only in America" and "Silly Americans" comments during the previews...I casually ignored them all, using my amazing gift of selective hearing! One quick note, their preview shows (before the trailers and the movie) are really amusing. They had this one that had these puppets, and randomly Coldplay (in puppet form) shows up and starts singing. It lasted 4 minutes, and I laughed the entire time...look it up on YouTube if you can! (After further review, it is there official music video...still funny)...here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fXm7_D3hF0

What other secrets have I learned...oh yah, 65% of Canadians support secret assassinations...be forewarned! Oh, and there are a lot of signs warning about schizophrenia and how people who have it are not evil...I guess it beats our STD ads in subways...but just was odd to see! There also is some kind of radiation thing in our basement...I will have to investigate this further! Oh, and there are allegedly no terrorists here, as several people have said that they are an only in America thing...my response was a blank stare, which ironically was the same response when someone referenced Tech as the place with the shootings, and then proceeded to "bang, bang" me with fake guns...I do not make these things up...

Overall though, the people here are really nice, and as you can see from my last paragraph, PC (politically correctness) is not really a problem up here, which has its pros and cons. One of the big-wigs here was talking to me, and she said that her friends have a pizza place in Virginia. I asked where, and she said Virginia Beach, in Centreville (spelling as she thinks). I said that I lived right around there, and would have to stop by. She later e-mails me the address, which is for Centerville, Virginia...near DC...and nowhere near Virginia Beach. I told her this, and she laughed and said she knows nothing about the U.S. and that is similar to my knowledge of Canada!

This weekend should be relaxing, as I plan to knock out some of my summer homework, and go to a theatre festival downtown. More to come on Sunday!