Back to Features

How to be a skinny Canadian

Walk back and forth to a plethora of coffee shops and healthy grocery stores

A hop, skip and jump from BC Lions football games, the Back Forty Saloon likes its patrons draped in orange. Photo credit: Pappi Swarner

Email Article Print Article Share on Facebook Share on Reddit Share on StumbleUpon

It's An internationally known fact that I am not an international traveler.

I've made the people of America, and all four of you who read this column, well aware of my feelings toward international travel safety and lack thereof. I've become a huge germaphobe and wuss when it comes to foreign governments. It scares the panties off of me to even think about traveling, so I don't.

Yet somehow, I feel OK hauling my ass into America's hat, our beloved northern neighbor, Canada. Last week I traveled to this exotic foreign country with my own motley crew consisting of my BFF Kate and our families. We didn't tell them we were coming, so they accidentally let us across the border.

Once inside Canada, there were three small subtleties that remind us of the fact that even though we are only a short drive from home, we are definitely still in another country. Stuff like this makes me feel scared, lost, and wanting my mommy.

1.) Nobody is wearing a Seahawks jersey. I needed sunglasses just to protect myself from the absence of green and blue.

2.) Everybody behind the wheel of a vehicle, with a British Columbia license plate, drives like an asshole. Not driving as your typical American asshole behind the wheel of a car, but they drove like a fired up, twitching asshole after a night of $3 Tuesday beers and a few orders of Filthy Nachos with extra jalapeños at The Red Hot. (Filthy Nachos: Sooooooo worth it)

3.) No meat on the bones. Everyone in Canada is skinny and rich. As I walk down the streets of Yaletown, I imagine the devastation that sweeps over the city when it's condominium-dense population of stick people begin rubbing together furiously during sex, thus starting the country's biggest urban fire.

Seriously, everyone is skinny in Vancouver, B.C., and I'll tell you why. This is my dream for Tacoma, so Mayor Marilyn Strickland, I hope you're reading because this is what I want for Christmas this year:

Movability: Everything is walkable, and although everything is walkable there are still plenty of parking opportunities. If you don't live in a squished downtown condo, you can still park your car and walk in the city.

Coffee: On every corner is not a McDonald's, Jack in the Box or Fatburger, but a coffee shop. Coffee makes you poop and pooping makes you skinny, so we should take a note and drink coffee instead of eating a burger. This makes total sense.

Activity: In the bottom of every building, there is some sort of active-gym option. Walk around one city block and you'll find Krav Maga, bar class, pilates, Crossfit and hot yoga. That's correct, all those options all within one block of your home.

Grocery: Two amazing, healthy grocery stores within blocks of each other. Yes, the prices will give you a Canadian heart attack, but as my friend Kate put it, "You'd spend that much on a Starbucks anyway," and she's right.

The grocery stores are like a Marlene's with more options, including buffalo meat snacks, grain-free bakery items (Stop it with the rice flour already! Not all of us are cutting out grains for reasons of this fabled "gluten intolerance".) and TONS of coconut by-product options.

Well shit. I just read over this column and I sound like a effing treehugger. WTF? WHAT HAVE I TURNED INTO? I've gotta go kill an animal and eat it real quick before my dad throws an empty beer can at me from heaven. Next week: carnivorous utopia.

Read next close

Benefits & Deals

Rally Point 6 guides military families to civilian careers

comments powered by Disqus