Er, what? Have you seen Niagara Falls, Ontario lately?
Ooh, Mr. FancyIDon’tEatCrustRatSandwiches.
Rural donut shops. OMG…German, French, Czech, every kind of donut imaginable. Skip Tim Horton’s and find a donot shop that’s independently owned if there are any left.
There’s a gouda farm in our valley started by a 6th generation cheese maker, as well as a few farms that grow potatoes, and the next block over there’s a ski hill with a grill. That means fresh gouda curds (not as salty as cheddar curds) and fresh cut fries for poutine, although today I went for a bacon cheese-burger instead, with lettuce, onion, tomato, chipotle mayo, sweet chili sauce, honey mustard and Barberian’s steak spice.
In TBay there is a family business that makes Persians (large sweet rolls slathered with raspberry/strawberry icing.) Yet another reason to travel to the northern terminus of Highway 61.
I don’t know if they’re still around, but when I was in Quebec a few years ago, there was a restaurant chain called “Marie Antoinette’s”. Its logo was a profile of just her head. I don’t know if it was meant to be ironic or not.
I wish those could spread beyond Thunder Bay. I’d like a snack with my daily coffee (something other than Tim Horton’s donuts, and similar), and those look good.
I visited Toronto a couple years ago
1)Car headlights on in the daytime
2) Problems getting my USA debit card to work at Skydome and Tim Hortons. Hockey HOF wanted id for credit card (passport was good)
3) walking around Toronto in summer and I was one of a very few wearing a baseball cap. Very common here, apparently not in Canada. Cap said “Ferrar” and has their Prancing Horse. One woman asked if I was Italian, I replied “Je suis Francais”.
I’ve only been there twice: with my family on the way to Expo 67, and with a group of friends to see the total solar eclipse in 1972. I don’t remember any special surprises on the first trip; it was all new and interesting. What did surprise me in '72 was things for sale from Communist countries, such as Cuban cigars and Yugoslavian small camping items (we stayed mostly at commercial camping sites).
I don’t think you read the sentence correctly. DrumBum was saying the AMERICAN side isn’t a gaudy theme park because there isn’t a lot there. Which is true. Niagara Falls NY is kind of sleepy. It does have the Seneca Niagara casino, but casinos pull all the activity inside and leave the outside empty.
More like a ghost town. Driving back to “motel row” after the casino was like driving through the aftermath of the apocalypse. I kept watching to see if Rick Grimes and Daryl Dixon would show up. There are some empty and bleak neighbourhoods over there.
That’s weird, I live in Canada and have never once been asked for ID when I use my credit card. On the other hand, when I go down to the States I have gotten used to being asked for ID every time I use a credit card. And also being asked whether it’s “credit or debit”, which is a question I don’t understand but always just say “credit”. Credit cards and debit cards are obviously different from each other here. As far as I know, there is no such thing as a Visa or MasterCard debit card, debit cards just come from the bank.
And on a related note, I was pleased that on a recent trip to Las Vegas, I was able to use my credit card’s chip and PIN at one store! Can’t remember if they still asked me for ID or not. At first I thought “it’s about time!” but then I started thinking maybe you’ve already missed the boat down there. Pretty soon we’ll all just be paying for stuff with our phones and watches, right?
The biggest gotcha I can remember the first time I stepped foot in Canuckistan was that Tim Hortons is a coffee/doughnut shop and Swiss Chalet is a chicken joint. In my mind I felt it should have been the other way around.
I have a Visa debit card (which is supposed to function like an actual credit card without being an actual credit card,) but I hardly ever use it since I have a regular debit card and an actual Visa credit card.
Contrary to popular belief, Toronto is not Canada. 
Ball caps are extremely common everywhere I’ve lived in western Canada. When I go for my walk today, I’ll probably see half a dozen of them.
When I place an order with a USA vendor over the internet from Canada for delivery in the USA, sometimes my Canadian Visa will not be accepted, but my Canadian Visa debit card from the same bank will be accepted. I have no idea as to why one is treated differently from the other.
In Virginia, there is a Pope’s Head Creek and an associated Pope’s Head Road. I presume that it is named after Nathaniel Pope or one of his relatives, but whenever I pass it I imagine a decapitated pontiff.
Visa and Mastercard are used as common verification systems (don’t know if they have anything else to do with transferring the money) by the banks - certainly by mine: just as Visa and Mastercard credit cards can be issued by any number of banks. So any merchant that uses Visa, anywhere in the world, knows that the card is good, whether or not they’ve heard of the bank. You may well find somewhere on your bank debit cards a small symbol for one or another such system.
I know this thread was last updated over three years ago. But my son and I just got back from Canada, which I haven’t visited since I was 6 years old (in 1974!). It was very similar to the U.S. But I did notice some differences.
A little background… we live in Ohio. On a whim, my 15 year old son and I just spent a week in a cottage on a small lake a few miles south of Massey, Ontario. It’s the same place I spend a few summers at in the early 1970s. We crossed the border at Sault Ste. Marie. Did some winter hiking. Had a wonderful time.
The border crossings went smoothly. They asked a few simple questions, then let us through. I guess we didn’t stimulate their “spidey senses.”
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Restaurants don’t have restrooms. They have washrooms.
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Drivers are aggressive; they’re very fast, and will tailgate you if you’re in their way. Most of the Trans-Canada Highway has a speed limit of 90 km/hr, yet most drivers were doing at least 110 km/hr.
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Where we were, the Trans-Canada Highway was mostly a two-lane highway. But every 20 km or so it became a four-lane highway for a couple kilometers, and then resorted back to two-lanes. I suspect they do this to allow faster drivers to pass the slower drivers. (Even though I was doing 100 km/hr, I was constantly tailgated, so was thankful every time the road temporarily transitioned to four-lanes.)
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Native (First Nations) culture was everywhere. One day we took a drive into the Sagamok Indian Reserve. The homes were nicer than anticipated. We tried to drive down to Fort La Cloche from the Indian Reserve, but the snow was too deep for my Saab.
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We saw some Mennonite families. We also have Mennonite families in the U.S., but for some reason I wasn’t expecting to see them in Canada.
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As others have mentioned, people were very nice.
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The “paper” money is plastic, as opposed to the “fabric” our money is made of. I received a $2 coin and a deli.
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Massey, and the towns we drove through, were very quaint. Many of the stores and restaurants were mom-n-pop establishments; there weren’t many chains.
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Here in the U.S., I believe most cemeteries are non-denominational. But all of the cemeteries I drove past in Ontario were denominational (Lutheran, Catholic, etc.).
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Lots of religious signs (small billboards, more precisely) on private property.
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Lots of Canadian flags flown.
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I bought beer at the LCBO in Massey. Most of the craft beer was sold in individual, 473 ml cans at $3 to $4 each :eek:. In the U.S., craft beer is usually sold in 4-packs or 6-packs, and at a considerably lower price.
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The cottage had satellite TV. Much of the programming was Canada-centric. As if the producers were wanting to make a point that this program was made in Canada, this product was made in Canada, etc. Of course, I didn’t mind this. But just thought it was interesting. And there was lots of hockey on TV.
I don’t know if it’s still in effect, but there was a law that required Canadian television broadcasters to show a certain of percentage of Canadian content to keep their license. Parodying this law was the original premise of Bob and Doug MacKenzie.