# Finding someone in Canada, any ideas? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 28, 2019, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finding-someone-in-canada-any-ideas/830355 "2019-02-28T23:57:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2019, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finding-someone-in-canada-any-ideas/830355/21 "2019-03-03T11:08:36Z")
> [@dstarfire](#): > > I could kind of understand that from Europeans. Stuff is ridiculously close together. John Pinette (comedian) once told a story about working in France, and howhe was surprised to learn that Italy was only a 2-4 hour drive away. They drove down for an afternoon. > > Here in the Americas, that’s the distance between where you actually live and the closest city non-locals might know about. And yet… Many visitors from N America come to the UK and assume that because it’s a small country, it takes no time at all to get between cities. On a cruise forum last week, an American who had three days before their cruise sailed from Southampton, proposed an itinerary with a hired car, visiting a number of widely scattered places that would have meant them spending almost all of that time driving on boring motorways. I have seen proposals to visit London on a six-hour layover in Southampton (hint - A train to London takes the best part of two hours and you may have a half-hour wait at either end). As for driving to Italy from France for an afternoon; I guess it might depend on where in France you were. Paris to Rome is a 14-hour drive on a good day; Nice to Genoa is less than 2 hours. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2019, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finding-someone-in-canada-any-ideas/830355/22 "2019-03-03T11:47:16Z")
From here in Phoenix metro to San Jose, a trip I make about once a year, is fourteen hours on a good day.\* In a similar vein, the western US is rife with stories about Europeans landing in Los Angeles and intending to rent a car to see LA, Grand Canyon, and San Francisco in a span of four days, then depart from Seattle the day after that. Once while traveling on CA-88 from Carson City to San Jose I chanced on some people in a pull-out puzzling over maps laid out on the back deck of their car. Being a good Samaritan I stopped and it turned out they were German tourists on their way to San Francisco. How they got there I have no idea as it was off the beaten path to the Bay Area but using my rusty high school German I was able to convey to them it was at least five hours to SF on a winding two-lane highway for a driver who knew the way. It being 9pm already and they weren’t catching a flight or anything, it would have been a lot better to take 89 to South Lake Tahoe, lay up for the night, and push off in the morning on US-50, a much easier drive. \*Only because I’ve learned a way to bypass the LA basin to get to I-5. ---
**Author:** ![Sparky812](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eb9ed0/32.png) [@Sparky812](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sparky812)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2019, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finding-someone-in-canada-any-ideas/830355/23 "2019-03-07T13:37:22Z")
Any luck? ---
**Author:** ![Zyada](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zyada/32/3028_2.png) [@Zyada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zyada)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2019, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finding-someone-in-canada-any-ideas/830355/24 "2019-03-08T20:38:20Z")
One of the libraries found the older brother for me, and I had a talk with him and his wife. They’re still in touch with the older sister, but the younger sister dropped communications with them about a year after Bob’s mom died. They’re going to talk to the older sister and have my number in case she wants to talk to me. I was right on one thing - the older pair of siblings had a different mother, and there’s about an 18 year difference in age between Bob and his older brother. I also found a piece of paper in Bob’s stuff with the younger sister’s address. I think it was an apartment so I might be able to find her through that. ---
**Author:** ![Sparky812](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eb9ed0/32.png) [@Sparky812](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sparky812)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2019, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finding-someone-in-canada-any-ideas/830355/25 "2019-03-14T12:40:05Z")
> [@Zyada](#): > > One of the libraries found the older brother for me, and I had a talk with him and his wife. They’re still in touch with the older sister, but the younger sister dropped communications with them about a year after Bob’s mom died. They’re going to talk to the older sister and have my number in case she wants to talk to me. > > I was right on one thing - the older pair of siblings had a different mother, and there’s about an 18 year difference in age between Bob and his older brother. > > I also found a piece of paper in Bob’s stuff with the younger sister’s address. I think it was an apartment so I might be able to find her through that. Good to hear! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/finding-someone-in-canada-any-ideas/830355.md?page=1)