America the Beautiful.

I had a fine time in the States on my holidays.... I love going to the U.S., everything is familiar, but different, they speak the same language (kind of) , the money more or less makes sense and you can get anything there. It's sort of like going through the tv and visiting your favorite show, like Alice in Wonderland.

I especially love American grocery stores. Nobody does junk food like Americans, and even though I have no desire to have Cool Whip in 6 different flavors, I'm all giddy at the possibility that I can. They have an entire aisle of salty snacks and another whole aisle of sweet ones. (When one is on vacation, I cannot stress how delightful this cornicopia of nutrtionally dubious food is.) Plus, American grocery stores have a way better selection of Mexican food than the average Canadian store. (On the flip side, there was a dearth of curries, pampadams and biryanis south of the border.) My dad and I enjoyed all kinds of new, unattainable for us, ice cream flavors when I was away, and we were beyond thrilled at the selection.

I like Americans very much, too. Individually, they are pleasant and friendly people, even if they do baffle me en masse. (They seem to put an enormous priorty on liking their president. Here in Canada, we are pretty sure our politicians are not people we would ever want to hang around with.) I don't think I ever went to pay for something or deal with anyone where they didn't ask me where I was from or how I was enjoying my vacation or where did I get my shoes. It was very nice.

I remember once being in the States where they thought my accent was "just adorable". (Just for the record, I don't have an accent. Everyone else does.) They thought I sounded "like the Queen", because I said "solid" instead of "salid", and "box" instead of "bax", and "sorry" instead of "saw-ry". I had no objection to being called "adorable", and took it as further proof that Americans are fun.

Also, when I was in Florida, everyone in the complex thought I was way younger than I was, which was partially because they were all so nice, but mostly because I was hanging around 70-year-olds. One woman thought I was in my 20s (I'm 47), so that's what cataracts will do to you.But she was very sweet to tell me so, and I'm happy to go anywhere that I can pass for a generation younger than my own.

There are many things I like very much about Canada; the health care, the Crispy Crunches and celcius, but I can really only get one flavour of Cool Whip here. I guess nowhere is perfect.