Actually, the only things that were different were the units, i.e. km/h and cents/litre. Everything else was the same.
My first Canadian meal was at Milestone's, where our waitress was good-looking and gave us free a free spinach-dip with nachos. That was awesome. We also had a waitress ask us randomly how our food was, but in the end, we decided she wasn't a waitress at all, but someone posing as one to decide what to order...It was kind of weird.
The next day (Saturday) saw us wake up to get Sean signed up for the gym and run a few other errands. For dinner we went downtown to Calgary Tower.
"Hi," I said, addressing the waitress smilingly. I was ready to order. "I'd like the Fresh Fish of the Day, but please, please don't tell me the fish. I want it to be a surprise."
Without skipping a beat she said, "It's halibut."
Wtf? She caught herself right away, but still. How daft can you get? I wasn't angry since the halibut was exquisite, but it was still rather funny.
Afterwards, we walked a bit downtown to look at some of the avenues. We saw a few homeless people. We saw what we thought was a homeless couple.
"Excuse me, sir," one of them said, smiling toothily. He smelled of liquor. "Can you spare us a few dollars for our pursuit of hard liquor?"I was caught off-guard, but before I could react, the indigenous lady said to me, "We can give you this shirt, if you'd like!"
She showed me a shirt from Spencer's displaying a cannabis leaf insignia. Below it read, "I'D HIT THAT," and below that was a large joint underlining the caption.
At first I was tempted, but we walked away, the three of us, brusquely. Two steps out, we stopped.
"Do you want a souvenir of your trip to Calgary?" asked Claire-Lise, Sean's sister.
"Yeah!" Sean interjected. "It would make for a great memory!"
So we turned around, and I gave them some change. And I got the shirt in return.
What impressed me most was how honest the homeless in Calgary were. In America you hear things like, "can you spare some change? I'm trying to catch the bus" or "Do you think you could help me out? I want to make a phone call."
But no, these bums were honest as hell. No lying or deception for Calgarians, homed or homeless, no. If they want money for liquor, that's bloody what they'll tell you. Anything else is just crass.
We also met Dave, who was very homeless. He had tried numerous shelters to no avail. He is one of the only Canadians I've heard use "eh?" in conversation, but he made up for the lack of it, using it at an average rate of .75 eh/ss (spoken second), a number not to be taken lightly.
Put it like this, .75 eh/ss is the same as 750 meh/ss.
And the three of us have some harsh words for Dave. His hygiene is just despicable. As his friends, we have decided to talk to him about it. I think Sean should, but we'll see. Dave just has to change. He can't go on living like this.
Anyways, The rest of the trip was fun. I bought some Canadian beer that night, and had to drink it all alone, since Sean is allergic, and Claire-Lise decided not to like beer. Canadian beer is a bit stronger, but hey, I liked it a lot. Plus, I was legal, so it made it even tastier.
That's it for my trip, really. The rest is rather ho-hum. I met Sean's friend Ashwin, who was hilarious. We somehow got him to leave his number for the waitress at Earls, who was very pretty.
Actually, Canadian girls are generally prettier than American girls, as I found out. They're nicer too.
I leave you, then, with a quotation that best represents the general attitude of our conversations for the weekend.
I was talking to Ashwin, "Are all your friends in the medical field somehow?"
"Almost, I think," he replied, thinking, as we were about to part our ways outside at earls's parking lot.
"Sean's going dentistry," he started. "Declan's medical, I think. I'm medical..."
"Oh, Tyler!" Sean said.
"What's he doing?" I asked.
"He's doing business with my sister," was Sean's accidentally genius reply.
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