Canada's Wonderland and crossing the Border

I've been to the Caribbean, Canada, Europe, and Africa, and I've never had anyone treat me rudely because I'm American. That includes being in France where they supposedly hate us. (People in the Netherlands are friendly in an entirely different way...)

During the GWB administration, I had more than a few people question me on America's policies and such, but always as a friendly discussion, and always in the spirit of trying to understand something they didn't personally agree with.

Personally, I don't understand the whole thing about this country being so big that there's no reason to go elsewhere, or that "I want to finish seeing the US before I go abroad"-type of thought. Seems like a cop-out. Like not going to the movies because there's still more video games you haven't tried. It doesn't have to be an either/or proposition.

I really don't think that I spent any significant amount more going to Europe than I would have had I gone to Disney World for the same amount of time, either.

(Also, foreign chicks with accents are hot, but that's neither here nor there.)

Lord Gonchar said:

And I can confirm that this has indeed been validated by a third-party source. :)

With scientific precision no less. :)

The whole question of perceptions of travel/distances is interesting. I saw a conversation among some British guys discussing whether to attend an event in Edinburgh. One of them stated "I can't be bothered to go way up north...that would be a three hour drive". My thought was that's practically next door...I know people whose daily commute is almost that long.

Although I feel I haven't traveled abroad extensively (Canada 7 times, Panama, Honduras, Switzerland and France), I always feel blessed to have had some travel/life experience whenever I read about people who have never traveled more than 30 miles from home or about college seniors traveling to a bowl game and seeing snow for the first time, etc. I can't fault people with being content where they are, I just can't relate. My first trip to Canada was when I was five years old and we took the month of August to drive up the east coast from Atlanta, eventually going to Montreal, crossing back into the states in Michigan and heading back south again. I have always enjoyed traveling.

I do know that they have different ideas about going on holiday overseas. In the US we frequently think of vacations as being one week long trips. In other places, going on holiday is frequently several weeks to a month.

I'm in an interesting position regarding travel. I am a french canadian from Montreal. I lived in France (10 months, working for Disneyland Paris) and Florida (Orlando, WDW 15 months), so having a passport is like wearing underwear for me... I can't really live without one! Plus, I work now for an airline and it allows me... interesting possibilities. 48 hours trip to France? I litterally went there, went to DLP on the first day, had dinner with friends, went the next day to a small park called Nigloland and flew back the third day in the morning. It allowed me to travel twice to South Korea and Japan, plus a lot of places in the US and to Paris 4 times in a year. So, my passport is getting quite full.

I like to have friends everywhere around the world and I enjoy visiting them, since it allows me to see where they live and not just the tourist stuff.

French canadians always had more passports than americans, because its almost a tradition to go one or two weeks in the "south" during winter. In our case, "south" means an all inclusive vacation (booze, food, hotel, plane tickets included) to Mexico or the Caribbeans. Except for Dominican Republic, they all require passports to enter. Prices can be very competitive, as for 800-900$ CDN (about 700-800$ US), you have one week all inclusive in a 4 stars hotel in Puerto Plata or Cuba.

Alan T. said:
...I read about people who have never traveled more than 30 miles from home or about college seniors traveling to a bowl game and seeing snow for the first time, etc. ...

Snow? What kind of crappy bowl game is that?

How much are you really going to learn about another country by spending a week there visiting the sights? Could you not learn just as much/more by talking to someone who lives/recently lived there? Could you not learn just as much throught the internet?

Plucking some "dumb American" down in a foreign country for a week or so to see sights is not going to "educate" him. (Now breaking the union monopoly on k-12 education is another story...)

The dumb American stereotype is very much alive and well. I'm an American transplant and have been living in Toronto for the last five years, so I get to see this and cringe from time to time. Plenty of American tourists visit Toronto and are fine, the idiots are generally very loud and demanding and draw attention to themselves and become the more memorable tourists.

Last month I was in a McDonald's in downotwn Toronto. An American tourist was paying for his food in US dollars, which is fine, but was throwing a fit and demanding that he get his change in USD, which is insane. He was yelling and demanding to speak to a manager and making a big scene.

Tourism in Canada will take a hit from the passport thing, especially places like Niagara Falls and Windsor. A friend of mine that worked at the casino in Niagara Falls just took a golden handshake package and said there's been major layoffs there all around. Marineland could have some issues but CW should be fine. They don't really depend on international tourism business anymore than a US regional theme park next to a major city would.

This doesn't help businesses but possibly the passport thing will trim some of the mouth breathers from the herd!

Alan T. said:
The whole question of perceptions of travel/distances is interesting. I saw a conversation among some British guys discussing whether to attend an event in Edinburgh. One of them stated "I can't be bothered to go way up north...that would be a three hour drive". My thought was that's practically next door...I know people whose daily commute is almost that long.

This is absolutely true... I found it hilarious, too.

I took a bus from Scotland down to Blackpool. It was about a 3.5 hour trip, IIRC. We had to stop twice on the way, once for about an hour for lunch. They generally have no problems flying anywhere, but in a car is another story.

I will get a passport eventually. It's just not on my priority list. :) I did all of my Canadian travel several years ago so I have no immediate plans to get back up there.

I do want to see Europe someday, though!

-Tina

Alan T. said:
The whole question of perceptions of travel/distances is interesting. I saw a conversation among some British guys discussing whether to attend an event in Edinburgh. One of them stated "I can't be bothered to go way up north...that would be a three hour drive". My thought was that's practically next door...I know people whose daily commute is almost that long.

The radio station I used to work at in West Virginia, we had a disc jockey who worked weekends..in Philadelphia which is a good three hour one way trip and of course many throughout Virginia have no problem at all commuting to DC or Richmond for work and/or to visit Kings Dominion or Six Flags America even if those places were at least 2, perhas 3 hours away.

Amazing how the terms "commuting" or even "...that is too far away for us" changes from place to place, even within America. Take Denver for example. Everytime I visit there I always get a kick hearing people saying "..oh I live in Aurora but THAT DRIVE to Lakewood...that is so damn long..I can't do it" or someone from Parker saying how Denver is "soooo far away". My favorite was that post I saw on another site from someone in Boulder, Colorado who says he will NOT visit either Elitches or Lakeside park because ..yeah..Denver "is way too far to visit..."

Nevermind the fact that Aurora, Lakewood and Parker are within the greater Denver metro area are served by Denver's public transportation (RTD ) and Boulder..they too are served by Denver's RTD.

LOL. I go to Sears Optical in Mentor, OH, an eastern suburb of Cleveland. The lady that is the manager there commutes daily from just east of Erie, PA. That's roughly a 75-90 minute trip depending on trafficand an 85 mile trip. I can't imagine what it's like when the weather is bad!

Tom

Lankster said:

Snow? What kind of crappy bowl game is that?

I never said it was a good game. Could have been the Peach/Chicken bowl in Atlanta.

How much are you really going to learn about another country by spending a week there visiting the sights?

It is not so much learning as experiencing. I "knew" that Switzerland and France share a border; but it was really cool to get off of a chair lift at the top of a ski hill and have a sign indicating Switzerland to the right and France to the left. No border guards or passport checks in sight. You just had to overcome the momentary sticker shock when the average price on the lunch menu in France was 80 francs instead of 40 francs in Switzerland ("Oh yeah, that's "French" francs...that's not a bad price after all!"). [That 40 to 80 francs for lunch was essentially amusement park pricing; but way, way better food]

In Europe a "torchlight" ski means you are handed an actual burning torch, that drips molten wax all over the place, instead of a flashlight like you get here in North America. When you leave your hotel, you hang your room key on a hook by the front desk and retrieve it when you return. If you stay in the bar to long and forget to get your key before midnight you end up throwing snowballs at your window to wake up your room mate to let you in...or so I've been told ;)

You can't learn things like that out of a book.

Plucking some "dumb American" down in a foreign country for a week or so to see sights is not going to "educate" him. (Now breaking the union monopoly on k-12 education is another story...)

I agree; but that's a whole other argument there.

It isn't how much you learn about another country by spending time there; it's how much you learn about your own country (and yourself) by spending time in another culture.

But I don't have to leave the country to experience another culture. Heck, I don't have to leave the state. I could visit any major inner city in this state and be out of my world--same thing if I went to Nelsonville...

Yeah, and going to Epcot is just like globetrotting as well!

Have you BEEN to Nelsonville??

Alan T above talks about some things he's learned by traveling, then says : "You can't learn things like that out of a book."

?? Didn't I just learn it from reading his post? I can't read/talk to people to learn these "all important but very vaguely described" things?

If I take a calculus course, I learn calculus. What exactly do I learn by seeing sights overseas (beyond the sights themselves)? Of course if you are able to tell me, then I don't have to go, right?

I went to a large university which of course has many foreign students. I had foreign roommates (though the most foreign was an American!), foreign profs, foreign officemates, and many foreign friends. Does this experience pale in comparison to a week at EuroDisney?

And America DOES have many different cultures living here. That is also easily learned by attending a large university.

I've been to Nelsonville, and I don't remember learning much when I was there... ;)

Lankster said:

If I take a calculus course, I learn calculus. What exactly do I learn by seeing sights overseas (beyond the sights themselves)? Of course if you are able to tell me, then I don't have to go, right?

Not exactly. There is such a thing as experiential learning. You can learn all about what an apple is, for example, to include it's color, it's shape, when it's most in season, the various ways to eat it. But if you never actually see one in person, you will never really know what it tastes like or how it feels when you touch it, etc.

The same can be said for traveling to experience other cultures firsthand.

This thread makes an Onion article spring to my mind:
Woman Who 'Loves Brazil' Has Only Seen Four Square Miles Of It
:)

Lankster said:
Have you BEEN to Nelsonville??

Alan T above talks about some things he's learned by traveling, then says : "You can't learn things like that out of a book."

?? Didn't I just learn it from reading his post? I can't read/talk to people to learn these "all important but very vaguely described" things?

If I take a calculus course, I learn calculus. What exactly do I learn by seeing sights overseas (beyond the sights themselves)? Of course if you are able to tell me, then I don't have to go, right?

I went to a large university which of course has many foreign students. I had foreign roommates (though the most foreign was an American!), foreign profs, foreign officemates, and many foreign friends. Does this experience pale in comparison to a week at EuroDisney?

And America DOES have many different cultures living here. That is also easily learned by attending a large university.

Your view of learning about other cultures is exactly what is wrong with America. We think that seeing pictures and reading text is the same as being there, which couldn't be further from the truth. I bet if you told some of your foreign classmates that you could learn just as much about their home country from talking to them as you could from acutally visiting their home country I know they would STRONGLY disagree.

Your logic basically makes it okay to rate a roller coaster that you have never ridden, as long as you talk to someone who has.

My "logic" says I can read about how long a coaster is, how high the hills are, loops, etc. And I can get an idea of if I'll like it or not based on other people talking about it--you do know this is CoasterBuzz, right? Of course riding the thing is the ultimate test. But when you visit a country for a week you don't work there, live there, put up with the clown down the street. You visit. So by my "logic" until you've lived in a foreign country for some time, you haven't "ridden it" either!

When did I say seeing pictures/reading was the same as being there? I'm exactly what's wrong with America? Spare me your pity.

You seem to be missing my point: Spending a week at EuroDisney in and of itself is worth pretty much zilch in understanding some other "culture." If I'm riding rides during the day and holed up in my hotel at night, what am I learning? I could do the same thing visiting many foreign sights. "You need to get out and TALK to the people," is what I hear you saying, but at the same time you discount the 20+ years I have talked, lived, ect with different people JUST BECAUSE IT HAPPENED IN THE US! Apparently I could have talked to these same people in another country and it would have been a wonderful learning experience for me.

Do you really think I could learn more in a week visiting a foreign land than in the 10+ years of conversations I've had with a good friend of mine? That's insane.

It's a matter of scale--I know people who've spent extended time overseas, many months or years. They lived there, they didn't do some whirlwind tour. THOSE people spent the time to really learn about a different culture. You can't get that with a week at EuroDisney, that's my point. (I still don't think these people have any better insight on life simply because they travelled...)

You seem to have the impression I'm totally discounting the worth of travelling overseas. I'm not. I'm merely pointing out that just because someone has spent a few weeks overseas (spread out over years, typically) doesn't mean that person has some inherent greater understanding of other cultures than someone who hasn't travelled.

It's also been implied that learning about cultures outside the US is superior to learning about other cultures inside the US. Why? There is no attempt to say which cultures outside the US are better/worse to learn about, just that they are all better than learning about another culture inside the US. It just smacks of more anti-American bias to me.

And VERY anti-Nelsonville.