Vancouver, Canada

Had the pleasure to travel to Vancouver for work. It was my first time to this city and the first time I'd been to Canada in quite sometime (fishing trip to Saskatoon in 1993??). Been to Calgary and Quebec over the years as well. This is the first trip to Canada where I actually took notice. Traveling to Canada is basically going to a facsimile of the US but different...to me it is kind of like how Marvel Comics has Earth 616 to represent the main continuity of the comicverse and Earth 1610 which represents the Ultimate Universe. Basically the same but just a bit different. Like candy....mostly the same but the packaging is just a bit off. Cars seem a bit different...gas was $4.25 a gallon! Customs was clean, Canadians (all the agents were sharply dressed and smiled) seemed happy versus coming back to the States in which all the agents seemed grumpy. The TV channels seemed a bit more lofty, not so much dumb down. I mean they have the Canadian Broadcast Channel!. The downtown was nice. Set on an almost island. The mountains just go from 0 - 60 in no time. All the bars were called pubs. The beer was good. Overall a good experience, nothing like talking to a Eastern European that lived in Louisiana for a time and is now driving a taxi (hybrid no less) in Vancouver wanting to talk to me about American politics especially Obama vs Clinton!