Monday, January 02, 2006

The Case of Us vs. Them

A day or so ago Linny almost fainted becuase I didnt know what sweet tea was....and I started to comment back to her about Poutine but realized that it would make a better post. So here it is....

IN CANADA WE HAVE:

1. Poutine - Its SO yummy....french fries, with cheese on top, and then gravy covering everything....it makes the cheese all melted...one of Miss Ash's favorites.

2. Rye - NOT the same as Whiskey....it's so much better, get thee to Canada, and a bottle of Crown Royal.

3. Coffee Crisp - I've not tried it, but I know people that love it. I guess it's like a chocolate bar, with wafers, and Mocha flavor inside *help me out Canada...i dont know if this is right or not*

4. Smarties - Yes, I know, you have Smarties, but not the same kind WE have. Ours are like plain M&M's....candy coated with Chocolate in the middle. And M&M's competator....but so much better than M&M's....What you guys call Smarties, we call Rockets.

5. Free Health Care - Okay...not free, it's included in taxes....but when you go to the hospital to have a baby, you leave with a baby. No bill. It's quite lovely really. You need stitches at your doctors office? No problem...you get "See you soon". No bill. The eye doctor and the dentist are something different, but surgery, doctors visits, those types of things, are all covered.

6. Summer - We do not have snow all year long. And in fact, where I live in Canada is below 12 or so states. And warmer than parts of America itself. *eg. North Dakota, Wisconson, Iowa, Maine...etc* We do not ski all year long, we do not live in Igloos, In fact, Buffalo NY gets about 7 feet of snow a year, Windsor only gets about 10 inches. I dont know what you'll do what that information, but there it is....LOL

7. Colored Money - Yes, our dollar is called a "Loonie" our two dollar is called a "Tooney" and they're both coins. Our 5 dollar bill is blue, 10 is purple, 20 is green, 50 is red, 100 is brown. When I lived in the states, I had the hardest time discerning what bill was what without at least looking at the presidents first. I cant tell you how many times, I didnt take out the right note, as I looked quickly and thought a 1 was a 10. Ugh....Colored money makes life EASY....you just pull out the right color, and you're done.

8. Back Bacon - I just know it exists here, i dont know what it is....i've never had it. I dont eat bacon....Someone please post a comment about this. HELP!!!! LOL

9. Thanksgiving in October, and Boxing Day - I dont know why our thanksgiving is different than yours, but it is. It's the first monday of October, so it changes yearly as to the particular day. We also have Boxing day, its the day after Christams, and a stat holiday....it's sort of like your Shopping day right after American Thanksgiving with loads of deals.

10. Provinces and Territories - No States here....And No president Either. We have a Prime Minister *although WHO that is going to be, is up in the air right now....Federal election up and coming*

Provinces (In order, west to east)
British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland

Territories (In order west to east)
Yukon Territory (that's the one touching Alaska *see how I tied the states into this*), Notrhwest Territories, Nunavut

The sad thing? Most of you had NO clue what the names of the provinces are, or that we even HAD provinces...and I can name all 50 states, AND capitals.

IN THE STATES YOU HAVE:
Republicans, guns, weapons of mass destruction, states, a moron pretending to be president, Cocoa Pebbles, and Sweet Tea....thats about it right? =)

25 comments:

Anonymous said...

from winnipeg to st catherines....happy new year , if you wanna call me , you know where to find me jamie.

and if you think way to much about calling, it's cool, i understand.

nice blogs, hope everything was fun and these knew boys are better then me.

from " 5 more mins", lots of love.

Miss Ash said...

For the love of god do not call LOL.

Yes indeed i do love poutine....but not made with real gravy :)

You can also purchase beer in the states in the grocery stores or Wilson Farms which we cannot do here in Canada.

rawbean said...

Mmmmm poutine is delicious.

I think you got the coffee crisp description down quite well.

If you say "I'll phone you later" instead of "I'll call you later" in the U.S. they will laugh at you (I speak from first hand experience). They will also make fun of you if you refer to the strip of grass dividing a two way street as the "boulevard'.

Princess Pessimism said...

Anonymous - You never have to put yourself as anonymous on this blog.
Happy New Year to you as well. The new boys are seeming to turn out to be disasterous....So it's not going very well with them at all actually.

Miss Ash - Oh yes, Miss Ash, likes it made with the Powder gravy...out of the packette....its got no animal byproducts in it.

RawBean - They also call it the bathroom instead of the washroom.

Phil said...

Hi Princess! Happy New Year. I loved your Canadian education for your neighbors to the South. Living not too extremely far from Buffalo I am sadly aware of how much snow we get each winter. I noticed that your list of all the bad things about the States was almost all things related to the Republican party. Maybe they weren't, but that's my bias in reading them. Yes, I do know there are provinces and I can name some and have even been "up" there.

Princess Pessimism said...

Phil - I'm glad you liked. I thought it was about time I gave all you Yanks a lesson on the fairer country...LOL. Although there is much left to be said. And I have no comments about the Republicans. They speak enough for themselves... =)

Jennifer said...

PP, on the subject of American Thankgiving, I'm told that Roosevelt moved Thanksgiving to it's present location on the calendar during the depression in order to jumpstart the Christmas shopping season. That's why it's earlier there than here.
We used to make the most of the whole thing in university and invite all the Americans we knew over for American Thanksgiving dinner. Then we would torture them a bit. On year we tried to invite Fidel Castro. He didnt' show, but we love him anyway. It was nice for us too, you rarely get to have family-oriented holiday meals with your friends too, so it's nice to get a second Thanksgiving just for fun. Which makes me think, maybe we should all celebrate Eastern Orthodox Christmas and Easter this year?
As for the buying booze at the convenience store, you can do that in some parts of Canada, but not where we live. It might be nice, but I think the variety would suffer. I was in NYC not so long ago and the only booze they had was malt liquor and budweiser in every store. We have these really lovely government run stores that all have a great selection, increasingly good hours, courteous staff (mostly, except for the guy I had a crush on, he turned out to be quite surly). They rarely sell to underaged drinkers (which always bugged me when I was one). Actually, the Liquor Control Board of Ontario is one of the largest purchasers of spirits in the world.
And I vow to always "phone" people, go to the "bathroom" and keep off the "boulevard" - but I'm already a target for teasing because of the way I say "tomato."

Jennifer said...

And poutine is one of the world's greatest foods.

Jennifer said...

Did you hear that Shania Twain made poutine on Martha Stewart last week. Yay poutine, boo Shania.

Princess Pessimism said...

Jenny - I wasnt aware that you liked poutine that much. But you're right about Yay poutine, and Boo Shania...Also Boo Martha. BOOOO. Wouldnt it be lovely if Donna Hay had her own show?

Px said...

pppx is back again

Katie said...

i did not know that about your bills up there. WEIRD

we have rockets! i think..

Px said...

we have smarties, chips and cheese (fries to you) but no gravy on it...that just sounds odd
we have back bacon again and there were some other things i spotted that i know too
:)

Princess Pessimism said...

Kaite - What did you think our money looked like??? LOL!!!

PX - We should have much mroe in common...not like those bloody yanks who screwed us both over. LOL!!! kidding.

Jennifer said...

I don't think Americans know what back bacon is, they call it Canadian bacon in the US. Why do they call it Canadian bacon, I don't know, I don't feel that it has any particularly Canadian qualities (it's lower in fat, but I don't know if that's a particularly Canadian thing). I guess the French don't really know why Americans call chips "french fries" either.
When was in France I got hooked on French onion soup, but I guess they don't call it that there either, they call it "soup onion gratinee" (whatever that means, maybe it's french for french!)

Princess Pessimism said...

....you know what that reminded me of? The show Family ties....when Valerie was dating that guy Nick. And he was very stupid, and asked about speaking french. And said "like how to they say souffle in french" response being "souffle" he thought that it was the same language, so on his way out the door, he said "see you later, or as they say in french, see you later"

Your comment reminded me of that episode

SS said...

Oh PP! I agree so much. It is funny because I grew up so close to you, just on the other side of the US/Canada border. I used to watch Canadian tv and listen to Canadian radio and when Bush Jr. was elected into office I seriously thought about moving to your side of Detriot since I practically think of myself as Canadian anyway. No one in Florida gets my sense of humor and I totally blame it on my non-American tv/radio habits! Anyway, don't fret, I had never heard of sweet tea until I moved to the (sort-of) South (Orlando is in the South but not so Southern) and I certainly can't stand to drink it! In Michigan you got iced tea and sugar -- what's wrong with that?

Contrarian said...

Woooo Canada!

Would you believe my 18th birthday is two weeks after the election! Bahhh!

Anyways, as big a Canada fan as I am, I am headed off to school in the US of A next year--Brown University.

Nice post by the way!

Princess Pessimism said...

S.Subs - LOL!!!! @ " I seriously thought about moving to your side of Detriot"...lovely...my side of detroit is another country all thgether! LOL. Ahh...priceless!

Chaz - That SUCKS that you cant vote...I cant WAIT to vote. It's so important. And you're going to Brown??? Holy shit...that's AWESOME!

Px said...

hey
as you may have noticed there was a bit of a war on my comments section again and unfortunately as a result of said war the comments section has died
sorry

Lindsey said...

cheese AND gravy? :0( This does not sound good. Not at all.

Princess Pessimism said...

Linny - You'll just have to take my word for it. It's yummy!!

Heidi said...

I have yet to try a poutine..Bowing my head in shame ..lol

Not a fan of coffee Crisp..

Did u know the US choc bars taste different than the Canadian version..Kitt Katts in particular.

Great Blog Entry!

Anonymous said...

PSST - It's called 'Noufoundland and Labrador' now.

Another difference, I have heard -- we have more chip flavours in Canada than in the US (er, flavours of crisps, for UK'ers). Supposedly they don't have ketchup chips in the US? (I heard this when I used to work in a drug store -- lots of US tourists would come in & buy up ketchup chips)

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