I’m on vacation. I’m supposed to be having a good time. I was enjoying myself, until I went to Canada.

A simple, innocent trip to Montreal for some dinner, a croissant, perhaps a Montreal bagel or some poutaine turned into a harrowing near death gauntlet of utter fucking lameness that threatened to swallow me complete, never to let me escape it’s cheese curd and gravy fries eating clutches. Eh, indeed.

It may seem like just about the end of summer in New York City, but in Montreal, it’s colder than my grandmother’s ass on Easter morning. Wandering the streets in what felt like near hurricane winds, dressed only in a t-shirt, jeans and a hooded sweatshirt, I had to keep telling myself that somewhere in Antarctica, there were Ethiopian children, naked and without benefit of parkas, freezing to death and that I should be grateful for what meager clothing I had on.

I had no idea where anything was and the guide books available were obviously written by prunish, evil Canadian gnomes that lived to fuck those who refuse to speak French while wearing flannel. I spent the majority of the time there wandering around, desperately trying to find something, anything close to cool. All the places I went to were hideous tourist traps that could’ve at least sprung for a pedophile in and oversized mouse outfit.

All the food I was hoping to find was buried deep beneath a pile of semi-edible crap, covered in cheese or some maple product. I could’ve paid some Starbucks employees a few bucks to read me some French while I ate some of their crap food and drank the over-roasted swill coffee and my experience would have been quite comparable and cheaper.

I used to love Montreal. I’d head up there at least a couple times a year when I was still living in Vermont. I’m not really sure what brought the wrath of the hockey puck gods upon me and caused them to curse me with the most spleen-burstingly horrible day trip I’ve had in years but I have learned my lesson. I spent much of the time swearing, freezing and wandering around in a blind daze. Not exactly that different from a typical day for me, but the love just wasn’t there.

To finish off my Canadian experience, I and the others I was with became fully fucking lost trying to get back to America and spent several hours driving around, squinting at shitty maps with the fearful thought that Canada, now having us in it’s clutches was refusing to let us go and was contenting itself by leading us in endless cheese smothered and French-spitting circles . Hell. It wouldn’t be so bad if Canadians weren’t so damn polite.

So, obviously and eventually, I was able to get my ass back to Vermont. I highly doubt I will ever be willing to set foot in that godforsaken, moose-humping country ever again.