No, I'm not Canadian but do feel like a Homie around them. I grew up 6 miles from the border in Buffalo NY. We've probably passed each other on the way to dinner! Me for Chinese food and you for chicken wings!
There certainly does seem to be a lot of English speaking expats on the blog. Makes me feel comfortable already.
I have a long standing customer and friend who emigrated from Hamilton, Ontario to Berkley, Ca. I always teased him because he'd lived in Berkley for 35 years and never knew any of his neighbors names and he'd tease back that the only reason people from our part of the world knew each other well was that if we didn't play the neighborhood games, we'd all die of cabin fever in the winter!
I'm in N. Carolina now. When my southern friends hear us talk about Canada, they invariably ask how long it took to get there. I tell them I've walked there dozens of times as a kid in less than 2 hours!
It was actually easier and faster for me to cross the border to go horseback riding than it was to get to any ranch on our side of the border as a kid!
Glad to see you guys there in force!
Michael