Well, my jetset lifestyle once again has me sitting on a plane in Buffalo, NY, waiting to go to Atlanta. My flight has been delayed by over an hour now, which while it does suck, was actually to my benefit because I was so late getting to the airport that I would have missed the flight if it had been on time. Canada was definitely interesting, and I’ll try to note it all now. That way, if you read this you’ll already know the punchline to any stories I tell about Canada.

The trip started off on a bad foot when I first tried to cross the border into Canada. Kat had previously told me a story about her ex going up to Canada for business and lying to the customs people so he didn’t get any trouble when entering the country. I totally forgot this story, so when I’m crossing the border and the guard says “whatcha visiting Canada for, eh?”. I reply “I’m here on business.” The guy then yells at me for driving through eight ficticious stop signs on the bridge (seriously) and tells me that I’m going to have to go in to the customs office to make sure everything is kosher. Fine.

I go into the customs office where there are no less than ten Canadian mounties hanging out with nothing to do. Three people look at the slip of paper I got at the border crossing and finally point me to the correct person to talk to. I speak with a customs agent who immediately starts grilling me about what I’m visiting Canada for. “Who do you work for? How long are you staying? Where are you staying? Where is your company located? What kinds of services are you performing for the Canadian company? Are they paying you for this visit?” It went on for a while. Since I’ve never done anything like this before and my company isn’t generally used to sending R&D people to foreign countries to work on problems (this is the first time it’s happened since I’ve been working for the company), I had absolutely no documentation about the customer with me. Instead, I just had about $10k worth of my company’s equipment, and $600 for gambling. After the flurry of questions, the customs agent began to tell me all the stuff she could do to me. “I could send you back right now….I could make you wait here until your company provided me with a bill of sale for the products you sold to the Canadian company….I could permanently refuse your entry into Canada” Not my day. But, luckily for me, the customs agent decided to let me into the country anyway. She said that if my company were located in Buffalo, she would have sent me back on the spot. But, since I flew in from Austin, TX, she was going to let it slide. She also provided me with the NAFTA document outlining all of the information that I am obligated to provide when I enter Canada for business.

So after a half hour of getting a stern talking to, I went on my way to Oakville, Canada. The business visit really wasn’t of much interest. We already what we supposed was going to be a working solution. I was just up there on a goodwill mission, to let them know that we care about them as well as to ensure that they implemented the changes we suggested correctly as well as to answer any technical question they’ve ever had about our products. That part was alright. The rest of the trip was the interesting part. Here’s what I learned about Canada.

1. Canadians really do say eh at the end of every sentence. Well, not all of them, but definitely the younger ones. The customers I was working with didn’t really have an accident, but our local sales guy and most of the other people I met definitely did.
2. Canadians don’t believe they say aboot (instead of about). But they most definitely do.
3. The road/highway system is completely fucked there. I guess as a part of being a commonwealth they took to the goofy street placement that London has. I’ve only been truly lost two times in my life. The first time I was in London. The second time I was somewhere in downtown Toronto. And jim can back me up on this: I’m not one to get lost. In fact, even if I have a lot to drink, I’m still really good with directions.
4. There were no maple syrup fountains in any of the restaurants, bars, or other locations I visited (that was really disappointing)
5. Canada loves Our Lady Peace. I heard more Our Lady Peace songs on the radio than Linkin Park and Papa Roach combined. That’s saying something.
6. Even in Canada, the edge still repeats it’s programming every fourty five minutes. Since I didh’t have the forsight to bring any cds with me, I was stuck listening to a lot of radio
7. Rotis are phenomenal. A roti is some kind of Carribean curry wrap. I got turned on to this roti place by one of the customers I was there to visit. They were incredibly spicy, but I liked it so much I had one on my last day in town. On a side note, how do you like that roti link? That’s some of the most atrocious html I’ve ever seen. I like going visiting websites like that every now and again to remind myself why I hate everyone.
8. Canadian sales tax is crazy. It’s over ten percent (read on)
9. Canadians are the most polite people I’ve ever met. Even moreso than people in the South. When I was at the casino I had ten canadian dollars left over. I went into the gift shop to buy kat a t-shirt (I realize it was a stupid idea, but at 4am it sounded good) I was short. The t-shirt was $8.99 CA, but with tax the total came out to $10.34. That’s right, the sales tax rate there is over 10%. And that’s not some sort of special casino tax rate, that’s normal sales tax in Canada. The guy gave me the shirt anyway. I know it doesn’t seem like much, but it was supercool.
10. There’s a reason the call it the “great white nort” (purposely missing the ‘h’ because that’s the way they say it up there). It was pitch black out on the way to the casino and there was just about nothing inbetween. And when I left the at 4:30am, there was a layer of frost on my windshield. FREEZING.
11. Canadians are the most polite drivers I’ve ever seen. I was honked at there multiple times for doing things that in America would be expected. When Canadians see a yellow light, they immediately stop. They seriously do not drive through yellows. They take it to mean it’s time to stop, rather than going with the Amarican belief that you should always try to beat a yellow light.
12. Instead of “merge” or “lane ends” signs, Toronto has “sqeeze left” signs.
13. When playing craps, bet the Field. I know it’s a sucker bet, but it treated me unbelievably well.
14. Fuck video poker. It still sucks. I would rather put my money in a slot machine.

That’s all I can think of for now. On to long-winded stories.

So while I was driving around downtown Toronto, I was listening to the edge and the DJs were talking about how they wanted to start a trend of saying a.w.k. to mean awkward, kind of taking a stab at the whole betspeak business. I think it’s a pretty good idea.

Gambling
Now everyone that knows me knows I’m way into gambling, so when I found out I was getting shipped to Canada for a few days, I immediately had to look for local casinos to see where I would be playing. I definitely had to make the trek to casino rama because it is the only casino in all of Canada that has a poker room. The only problem, was that it was about an hour and a half north of Toronto. Add that to the fact that I was staying in Oakville (suburb west of Toronto) and it’s a two hour trip each direction. Getting there was an adventure. The directions on the website were simple. “From Toronto: Take HWy 400 north to HWY 11. Take HWY 11 East to HWY 12. Take HWY 12 south to Rama. Gamble the night away.” Unfortunately, there was some missing information. I didn’t really have a good map of Toronto. Instead I had a horribly distorted map that came in a hotel entertainment guide magazine. I followed the map into downtown Toronto, but never saw HWY 400. Jesus. So I get off the interstate in the downtown area and start driving north, since that’s the direction I want to go anyway. The road I happen to be on has a ton of construction, so I decide to turn and see if I can find another street going north. Instead I end up in some kind of neighborhood and the street continues to wind this way and that until I am actually confused as to my direction of travel. I find what appears to be a major road, turn left thinking that’s going to lead me north, only to find that the road dead ends three blocks later. After thirty minutes of wandering around, I finally end up exactly where I started. Fucking nightmare. Finally the local sales guy calls me to confirm our visit the next day and while I’ve got him on the phone I have him give me directions to HWY 400. Free at last. so now I’m going north on 400 and I see a sign for 11, This, unfortunately, is the actual exit sign so since I’m travelling 80 MPH and I’m in the fast lane, there’s no way I’m going to make it to the exit. No worries, I’ll just get of at the next exit. The next exit turned out to be 10 km away. So tack on 13 miles to my overal trip. Alright, fine. I take 11 east through a bunch of small towns (I’m something like 30 minutes outside of the Toronto area), but I never see HWY 12 much less the city of Rama. Finally after travelling about 30 km, 11 dead ends (not at HWY 12). Shit. I must have missed it. I stop in a gas station to ask the attendent how to get to the casino. He kind of laughs when I ask him and says “let me get a map to show you”. That’s right, I was so far off where I wanted to be, that the guy had to pull out a map to show my how dumb I was. It turned out that I had gotten off at 11, which was *not* HWY 11. So I had actually travelled 30 km going the wrong direction (that’s 20 miles people). HWY 11 was actually another half hour north on HWY 400. So now tack on another 60 km to my overall travel. Now i’m absolutely livid, but at the same time completely determined that I’m going to make it to this casino. I finally get to HWY 11 and on to HWY 12 and finally into Rama where there are signs that tell me which direction to go to get to the casino (thank goodness). Unfortunately the signs to the casino are fucking with me. Rather than saying how far away the casino actually is, the signs just tell me how far it is to the next sign telling me where the casino is. So the first sign says 3 km. The second sign says 5 km. The third sign says 8 km. Finally, I’m certain that this place actually doesn’t exist because it’s pitch dark outside and I can’t see any lights for miles. Finally, I get to the casino. It looks like a lodge. I seriously expect that when I walk in the door there’s going to be a roaring fire in one corner and a bearskin rug with a single poker table on it (actually, that would be kinda cool). But, at long last I finally get into the casino (and it is a real casino there) and get on the list to play 2-5 poker.

The poker table I sat down at was crazy awesome. There were two of the worst poker players I’ve ever played with at the table. They would be anything. And call it down all the way too. No matter what, they were raising every round. Now a lot of people at the table were pissed off about this because they felt that having some jackass betting at everything makes the game more of a luck game and less of a strategy game. Those people were completely wrong. Having people that bet crazy just means that you need to fold more often than you normally would. Don’t let it bother you that you sometimes fold what would have been the winning hand, because when you do have that winning hand it’s going to pay you 3-4 times as much as it would if no one were playing crazy like these guys. These were 11 person tables and a minimum of 5 people were seeing each flop with a capped preflop bet of $8. That’s a lot of money. And most people that stayed in were seeing the turn as well for another $8 a piece. That means you’ve already got a $75 pot and you haven’t even hit the expensive rounds yet. It was nice. I was up and down a bit, but I ended my poker night up $80. I seriously wished I didn’t have to work the next day because there was just so much money waiting for me at that table. There were 11 players in the game, but there was easily $3000 on the table. I saw the guy sitting next to me rebuy 5 times in the span of two hours. I’ll sit at a poker table with him anytime. And to make it even better, this guy provided me with a good story.

So I’m chit-chatting with the crazy gambler next to me. He mentions something about where he’s from (somewhere an hour or two away from Niagara Falls in Canada. Once he finds out that I’m from Texas, he starts with the questions: Do you have a gun, eh? Do you like George Bush, eh? Who you, eh, votin’ for there in the U.S. election, eh? We talk about America for a while and then I mention something about not really being familiar with the North much at all (Canada or NY). He says, “Do you know who the Bills are?”. And without thinking, I immediately reply “Yeah, they’re that terrible football team from Buffalo.” a.w.k. Why was it awkward? I’m sitting at a table with a bunch of country bumpkin Canadians, not civilized Canadians from Toronto, but the small town kids out in the “big city”. Every single person at the table was a Buffalo Bills fan. All of them. No one really talked to me anymore after that one. That’s ok though, they donated to my gambling habit and I appreciate them for it.

After winning some money at poker, I decided it was time to go, since it was 3:30 and I had to drive the 2+ hrs back to my hotel in order to be up at 8:00am to do some customer visits with the sales guy. But, as with all things, I got stuck playing craps for an hour, only to end up breaking even. Finally, at 4:30am, I decided it was time to head back. I was back in the hotel room by 6am (no wrong turns this time) and awake for the sales guy by 8am. It was a rough morning.

Casino Rama totals:
craps: broke even (w00t! that’s a win in my book)
poker: up $80
video poker: down $70

The next night I opted not to go back to casino rama. Though I didn’t have anything to do on friday, I figured I should go ahead and see some of the toronto sights. After sleeping away most of the afternoon, I woke up in time to make it to a second city comedy show. It was a lotta fun, but as witih all things, it’s only so much fun if you don’t have anyone to discuss it with afterward. After wandering around a little after the show, I called up the sales guy and make plans to hang out with him and his friends from his hometown. Now this guy is quite a character. He was born in Hong Kong, but grew up in a small town in the middle of nowhere Canada. So in some respects he’s like me, since I’m a Panamanian that grew up in small town oklahoma, but this guy definitely messed with my mind. He had a pretty thick canadian accent, like on the order of rick morannis in Strange Brew. But he looks like the stereotypical spiky-haired asian that you’d find at any Best Buy or Fry’s location. Hanging out with him and his high school friends was a lot of fun. Just like with any group that knows each other really well, they made a lot of references to people that I’ve never met before, but it was still superawesome ot just spend time out with people after spending time alone for the past few days.

The next morning I woke up at the crack of 11:30am, determined to find the roti place. I called the customer that had gotten me one previously for directions and went on my way. After a couple U-turns, I found it. I can’t express how tasty rotis are. Hopefully I’ll be able to find a place in Austin that makes them. They are hellaspicy though. You know you’re in trouble when there are more than three spice levels: nothing, mild, touch, medium, medium+ (?), hot, suicide. That’s right suicide. I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to recover when I got a medium the first time. And I actually had to buy another drink when I ate a ‘touch’ version. I’M SPICY!

I saw Niagara Falls on my way back. It was way cooler than I thought it would be, but I still can’t believe that people go there for thier honeymoon. It very well may be the lamest vacation destination, because you look at it for maybe an hour and then that’s it. You can’t swim in it, you can’t dive off the top (well, maybe you can - but you’re not supposed to), it’s just a waterfall that’s really cold most of the time. It still looks cool though. After looking at the falls for a while, I ventured into the casino (why wouldn’t I) to play some craps before my flight. I played craps for a while and was up and down for a while before I finally just started hitting like crazy. It was a $10 minimum table and I was maxing odds on every bet on the table. That did well for a while, but then I got hit pretty hard. Frustrated and short on time, I took all my winnings and bet the field multiple times, pressing my field bet all the way up to $100 at one point. Five rolls later, I’ve got $300 profit and I tip out all the rest. It’s 4:00 pm when I leave the casino (on the Canadian side) and I’ve still got a 30-45 minute drive ahead of me to make my 5:15 flight. I hauled ass all the way to the airport, dump of the car, and get to the ticket counter 15 minutes before the flight. The clerk tells me I’m not getting on the flight at first, but notices that the flight is delayed by 40 minutes and decides to let me on. I seriuosly would have raised hell if the flight were delayed I they didn’t let me on. fuck all that noise.

Casino Niagara totals:
craps: +$300 canadian (so it’s only really $250)

This post is obnoxiously long, so I’ll end it here. I’m sure I’ll think of other remarks to make about the trip later.