After 3 weeks of hanging out in Canada (Toronto, Prince Edward County, Montréal, Quebec City), I'm coming to think of Canada as the control country and the U.S. as the experiment.

Maybe it's just because the U.S. is at serious risk of turning its government over to an insane and dangerous man, while Canada is just happy it's summer and its big neighbor isn't a crater yet.

Maybe it's because it's easy to see how in the U.S. a (if not the) default answer to threats is guns for individuals and war for the nation, while in Canada the answer to both is "hold on, let's think about this and see what we can work out."

Maybe it's because U.S. history begins with a bloody revolution, and many of its biggest problems have been worked out with more blood (its own and others), while Canadian history is a series of relatively less bloody moves toward independence, while maintaining legal (e.g commonwealth) and cultural ties.

Maybe it's because politics in the U.S. has devolved to Rightland vs. Leftland, while in Canada those on the left, right and between still seem able to hear each other, at least to some degree, and share many common narratives about culture and history.

I could go on.

Here's another interesting thing. Servers in restaurants here (or at least the good restaurants which as foodies we seek out) are remarkably convivial. In at least two cases the server pulled up a chair to sit and talk with us, because ... why not, if most of their work was already done and we were having a good talk already?