Oh Canada

Canada!

We have been estranged too long.

I am coming for you!

After twenty-seven long years of living in ignorance of my northern neighbor, the sum of my knowledge stemming from a few Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons, a Five Iron Frenzy song, and some pictures of what was likely Antarctica, it is time for change. Real change. Powerful change. Barack Obama-style change -- though with less ambiguity and non-productivity. It's settled! I am going to Canada, and in the national spirit I will hug a Canadian. Which I can only assume is an eskimo.

In anticipation of this warming in relations, I have heavily studied the recent 2010 Vancouver Olympics. Although it took me two weeks of additional TiVo watching to get through it all, or most all of it save yet another women's biathalon with fatigued Norwegians drooling all over their rifles, I have learned that some Canadians are good at sports and NBC news personalities seem to enjoy mounting and riding moose. Or mooses. Or meese. I think this is sufficient information to bridge the cultural divide.

I have the USAF to thanks for my pending travels. After further consideration, and a second round of acceptance from the ACP, they have agreed to pay my way to Toronto for the the National ACP Medical Conference where I will present my research and, I guess, do some serious conferencing. Having never been to one of these events before I am not sure what to expect. Boring lectures? Boring lectures by distinguished guests? Internal medicine physician dance party?

This brings me to my last question, though, what to do in Toronto? I hear they have a tower. And.... the Blue Jays? Perhaps I will get myself some milk in a bag. Or stir up the Quebecois.