Canadian

“The restaurant downstairs was still cheap, if you didn’t mind the difference between francs and euros. Three-franc wine was now three euros, which was more than fifteen francs, but Harris was not interested in such mathematical calculations.”

--from “Belons” in Edible Stories: A Novel in Sixteen Parts by Mark Kurlansky

In general, I was a rather tame college student. I didn’t drink at all until I was 21, and even after that my bouts of heavy drinking were few and far between. My Friday and Saturday nights consisted mostly of lounging around my dorm or apartment. I just wasn’t interested in the frat party scene or the bar scene.

But there was one aspect of the college stereotype I was interested in: SPRING BREAK! It wasn’t so much that I wanted to go to Panama Beach and wear a bikini and get trashed, but I did want to get the hell out of town and go on a trip with my friends. I spent the spring break of my freshman year at home with my parents, but after that I was determined to go somewhere for the remaining spring breaks.

This was one goal I actually ended up achieving. However, none of the trips really turned out the way I expected.

When I was a sophomore, six of us piled into my friend Stephen’s dilapidated minivan and made our way down to Myrtle Beach, SC. We had high hopes for beaches and sunshine, and the memories of the drive down there are some of the best of my life. But two things happened when we got there that really put a wrench in the trip. First, turns out that Myrtle Beach is not warm and sunny during the first week of March. The week was rainy, windy, and cold. We got so frustrated that we actually got back in the van and drove to Florida one day. Second, during our first full day there, I caught some kind of Godzilla virus that made me cough until I choked, and most of the time I was barely able to keep my eyes open. While now, looking back, I would not trade my memories of that trip for the world, at the time it was a big let down. I wish I would have enjoyed it more. As it turned out, it was the only trip I would ever take with that group of friends.

When I was a junior, I was studying abroad during spring break. When my friends were on spring break back home, I was in Rome, walking until my feet felt like they would fall off and spending a night in an airport with some random guy doing tai chi. During my own spring break of sorts, I was in Russia, eating last night’s moldy desserts for breakfast and getting ushered into Russian Orthodox Easter services by armed military personnel. Again, I wouldn’t trade those experiences for anything now, but they were their own kind of bizarre and not the kind of spring break I had imagined.

So, my senior year came around, and I really wanted to go on a trip. It was complicated, because some of my friends had different spring breaks than me because they were doing teaching internships at the time, and others just couldn’t be away for other reasons. I would not be deterred, though, and I begged three of my available friends to go somewhere, anywhere with me. Somehow, I talked them into driving to Toronto.

I don’t remember a lot of details about what we did in Toronto. The only thing I remember clearly is how much we were annoyed with the process of converting prices from American dollars to Canadian dollars and back. Most places accepted American money, but it was hard to tell if you were getting the right amount of change back. Some places would give you change as if you had paid in Canadian dollars, and since the American dollar was worth more at the time, that was a total gyp. So, it was a constant mathematical battle, and it turned into a running gag.

Every time one of us said something about money, another made a point to say, “Canadian or American?” even if the context made it completely clear what we meant. Then we started asking the same question about any number at all. One person would say, “They said it was a 20-minute wait for a table.” Another would answer, “Canadian minutes or American minutes?” Someone would point out that the next attraction was 10 blocks away, and another would ask if they were Canadian blocks or American blocks. It sounds lame, but it was all extremely funny.

Being college students, stayed at a cheap, dingy hotel. We spent some time in the pool, and we were always the only four people there. The pool was pretty large, and if two people were in the water at one end and the other two were talking on deck at the other end, we had to shout to hear each other. Yet, on the wall, there was a sign saying that the maximum capacity of the pool area was 15 people.

This made no sense, of course. It could clearly fit many more than 15 people with room to spare. So what was the deal? I don’t remember which one of us said it, but I should have known it would come out eventually. “That must mean 15 Canadian people.” And the rest of us answered, “Oh, yes, Canadian.” And we cracked up.

Like I said, I know it’s a stupid joke. Yet, it’s what I remember from the last of the spring break trips I so coveted. It was odd and untraditional the way my other spring breaks trip were, but it created a joke that no one but the people who were there will find as funny as I do. In that sense, I have to believe that the true essence of spring break-ing was accomplished. We got the hell out of town and came back with a gem of an inside joke.

I went on one more spring break trip while I was in grad school. We went to New York City for a day, then on to Montreal. Oddly, I don’t remember any difficulties with conversions on that trip to Canada. Maybe in Montreal, all the numbers were in French Canadian, and that’s why I didn’t notice.

Shut up. I think that joke is hilarious. But I only expect Candace, Matt, and Carl to understand.