It seems
rather unreasonable to judge such a vast country on the basis of my somewhat
pitiful level of exposure. I was warned that it was boring beyond
belief, but as I was living in Sweden at the time, my boredom threshold was
under review. With the exception of Edmonton, whose only claim to fame
is a shopping mall and two airports (so you can escape faster) it was not as
boring as expected and altogether quite a pleasant place. OK so
Saskatchewan I virtually only saw from the air and I suspect that the
charming geometry of the fields might lose something of its appeal at ground
level when you are aware that there is another thousand miles of neatly
grid-lined landscape before your next taste of "civilisation".
The only place I would claim to have
"visited" was Vancouver and, were it not for my Eurocentric perspective on
the world, that would be the ideal place in the whole wide world to
live. That is, it has everything I could reasonably ask of a home,
other than that it is far too far from Europe and devoid of (European)
history, architecture, and all the things I might miss. But it does
have an interesting ethnic mix (so good food!), space, landscape, views, the
ocean for sailing, the mountains for skiing...what else could I want?
A bit more sunshine perhaps, but again, compared with England?
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