CANADA SURVIVED US.

Wow. Canada.  I love you.  I really really do.  Some things about you weren't very cool:

Like the fact that you put down gravel instead of salt in order to handle the absurd amount of snow you get every winter.  It would be great, except, there was no snow...and all those little rocks hammered my car.  It doesn't matter that all the other cars in Calgary looked like our car..."Elsinor" (our car) is sad.

And yet you were awesome. Really. We got donuts from Tim Horton's.  We drove past Humptys. I saw an episode of Corner Gas.  I did the Tower. I saw the Flames practice and I saw the Flames win. I flailed like crazy over loonies.  I flailed over Canada's money period.  Poor Goliath.  I ended up hoarding all of the five dollar bills.

He eventually caught on and started hoarding any and all hockey related currency and demanding smoochies from me before I could run away with it. 

And the hockey.....

It took a lot of effort, but Goliath did manage to restrain me.  It involved a children's harness and leash but he was quite proud of his idea.

OH. AND GUESS WHAT?

They actually do say "eh?" all....of....the....time.  Pissed off a few Canadians the first day when we couldn't contain the grins.

In the end, I did all sorts of Canadian things.  I said "eh" and I ate a ketchup chip (Meesh made me) and I saw hockey (WE WON! which...come on, if they hadn't beaten the Avalanche I think I would have died of laughter) and I collected hockey-related currency, and OH OH OH ....I discovered an Alex Tanguay shirt.  THEY HAVE ALEX TANGUAY SHIRTS....just sitting there! On hangers! In the open! And they sell them!

Needless to say I got the shirt.

And Goliath needs to shush because he bought two flames shirts and a hat thank you very much.

The only real disappointment....besides the sad sad state of our windshield...was the lack of snow.  We fully expected snow.  Instead, we get there...and it's all warm and sunny.   Goliath and I couldn't believe it.

Demanding snow...yeah, not the best idea Goliath has had.

Though I should clarify that the snow happened AFTER we crossed the border back into the United States.  I. kid. you. not.

Made us an hour late to our hotel in Montana.

All-in-all, really, I could go on and on and on about how awesome it was.  It wasn't that Canada made all of my dreams come true.  To be honest, Calgary surprised me with its complete lack of touchy-feelyness (I get what you mean about Giffen now, Goliath), small talk, and eh-less sentences.  But it was Canada.  It was unapologetically Canada.  And hockey was EVERYWHERE.  Even on the money.

So in the end when the sun rose and we prepared to cross the border...Goliath had to give me the don't-you-dare-glare to keep me from crying.

And when that didn't work, he had to grab me by the ankles and pull.