Greetings All!

After two weeks in the frozen north I have returned to the country of my birth... unfortunately now I'm stuck in North Dakota. If you've never been to North Dakota you are missing out on some of the most barren and boring country that I've ever seen, and keep in mind I just drove through the middle of Canada.

Speaking of Canada I have wrapped up my two week tour of the Edmonton area. Overall the shows went well and I'm sure I can be invited back someday if I want. The question is can I afford it? As many of you know the Canadian dollar has caught up to the US dollar in recent years, however the price diffence between the two countries has not changed. If you've ever bought a book I'm sure you've noticed it lists the American price and the Canadian price, which is often higher. The reason for that used to reflect the difference in currency, but now the currency has matched and the prices are still divided. The result is an expensive country to visit. The biggest challenge was gas, which worked out to somewhere in the neighborhood of $4.25 a gallon. Imagine my relief when I got back to the states and was able to fill up for $3.24 a gallon!

None the less the experience has been fun and somewhat eye opening. The Canada comedy scene is much different than the U-S comedy scene. The main reason is Yuk Yuks, the primary comedy chain in the country. Of the 25 comedy clubs in Canada, 15 are Yuk Yuks. And often the club requires that if you work with them you sign an exclusivity agreement, meaning that almost every working comic in the country can be divided into two groups: The Yuk Yuks comics, and the freelance comics. As an American outsider I am not really part of the conflict, but I did learn that it is something of a gossip topic among local comics.

In case you've ever wondered what our neighbors to the north are like here are some things I've learned.

1. They think we Americans are stupid.
And honestly after electing Bush twice who can blame them. The notion of a stupid american is somewhat of a running gag in their country. In part it's true though because Canadian's have an extremely high literacy rate.

2. They are highly influenced by American entertainment.
It seems that anyone who has talent in Canada goes to the US to make it big. The result is poor quality among Canadian programing. So much of their television comes from the states, and even though they are in the metric system they often use feet and inches when talking about measurements.

3. They are mad that the US dollar has gone down.
Mostly because we are spending less money in their country. Even so their economy is seeing a boom and most people are living quite well especially in Edmonton where oil is a major resource.

4. They have one of the most diverse populations in the world.
I was amazed at how every crowd was extremely diverse. White, black, hispanic, asian, middle eastern, and native americans are all represented somewhat equally. White's still have the majority, but not by much. The main reason is their open immigration system. They have a lot of empty space and are eagar to fill it with people. They even give foreigners 5 years of citizenship where they don't have to pay taxes, which is a sore spot among locals.

5. Candians can be racist.
We often associate racism to be worse the further south you go, but up in the north they can be quite intolerent of foreigners. In part because they feel the free taxes are damaging their bottem line. And while most of the people I met are quite nice and tolerant there were some people who would have fit in well with the KKK.

6. If you aren't in Quebec you won't hear any french.
That's not entirely true, many of the schools in Canada require french to be taught, but because it's used so little outside of Quebec many people hate that they had to bother with it and don't care for people who do.