Mike's Trek to the Great White North 1994
Part 7: Conclusion
I concluded a lot of things on my trip to Canada:
- It was a heck of a lot easier to get into Europe than it was to go to Canada.
- If a Canadian border guard ever asks if you are there for work or pleasure, tell them "pleasure."
- It might help to know French in Quebec. Crazy drunk people will be less rude to you if you do.
- It is very cold and dark in Canada in the winter.
- Canada has amazing hockey.
- Everything is expensive in Canada.
- We don't want a national health care system.
- One day Quebec is going to secede, and I won't be surprised.
- Quebec is completely foreign from the rest of Canada.
And how cold was it that winter? Well, here is a picture of my barracks and the icicles that met me when I got home.
Oh - a post script to this story. This turned out to be a very important trip for me. The Air Force said that if you had accrued a total overseas travel time of more than 90 days overseas, you would be exempted from a short tour (a year in garden spot like Korea or Saudi Arabia). When I added up all my days, it came out to 89 days. However, add in my week that I spent in Canada - which, although I didn't need to travel over any seas, was considered "overseas," as it was another country - and I got that short tour exemption! However, as you will soon see, that did not stop me from going to Korea...