P. D. and J. want to hear from you!

Dear European and Canadian Blog Readers,

In an effort to better understand what attracts you to our blog, we invite you to comment on this post. There are over 100 hits to our blog between you. Do you find our quaint stories of American Life(tm) exotic and strange (believe it or not, not a single one of the blog's authors drives an SUV, and we don't eat at McDonald's! Well, I guess I can't speak for J, but I presume if she knows what's good for her she doesn't! And get this! We don't own or carry guns, either! And we have health insurance! Don't let that fool you, though. True to form, we don't save nearly enough money, we carry balances on our credit cards [except P, who just paid his cards off {jerk}], and we are definitely as materialistic as they come. In fact, let's go shopping!)? Or is it just fascinating that we don't end all of our words in "e's" and call chips "french fries"?

I should point out that we DO have our similarities. I love hockey, for example, and can sing the entire Canadian national anthem. And my experience with people from Quebec is that they are annoying. (If you are from Quebec and are reading this... oh who am I kidding? By now, since you've realized this site isn't in french, you've given up.) And your blog authors are all of European stock, so we understand what it's like to be pasty and burn, even when it doesn't seem like there was enough sun to cause any sort of problem (except P, who is Italian and does not burn, ever [jerk]). And P and J have been to Europe.

In any event, please... comment. Let us know what you like, what you don't understand, and what we can do to make this a more pleasant experience for you.

Pip pip for now! Cheers! Eh? You get the picture.

P. D. and J.

Bonjour! and Merci! and bon... jour...

Dave and I went to Montreal! Above is a picture I took while helping Dave navigate our way back to the interstate, back to the states. As you can plainly see, I was not completely to blame for misleading directions.

Dave and I make an annual trek to Dave's hometown of Coventry, CT every year (well, okay, for the past THREE years now) after Christmas. This year, we decided to switch it up a bit and go for Thanksgiving. Plus, Dave had a high school reunion that weekend.

The thing about Canada is, I never expect it to be that different from the States. But it is--as soon as you cross the border, things are just a bit different.

After MILES of flat farmland, you suddenly see Montreal across the river. It's a wonderful city. Of course, IT instantly feels different because of all the French everywhere. And, for all those little differences. For example, KFC is PFC in Montreal:










We stayed at the Omni, which is a 5 star hotel (Dave got a us a rocking deal) and is in the central shopping district. It was perfect. Here is a picture of one of the must-see sights we saw in our 24 hours in the city: Notre Dame. It is spectacular!


Here we are taking our own picture there:

We then spent the next night at a family friend's beach resort on the coast in Maine. I fell asleep to the sound of crashing waves. Here we are on the beach:

The rest of our time was spent in Coventry, which if you haven't been is quite a cool little town. At least the way Dave gives the tour.

Back to Canada: Dave and I decided Canadians are extraordinarily nice. Even the angry callers to the talk show we listened to on our way back to the States were extremely polite in their arguments and then took forever to thank the host and say goodbye. It's remarkable.