I've seen a lot of threads about people missing home, so I figured that maybe pointing out the great things that are here in ol' Yankee-ville might help? If not, at least you wasted a few minutes thinking about it right?

-My absolute favorite thing is of course that my wife is back with me (I've lived here all my life, she lived here for 15 years before having to leave for a while to Canada).
-4th of July and Memorial Day vacations and celebrations
-Able to get awesome tickets to hockey games because most Americans don't care
-Businesses are open pretty late and we get mail on Saturdays
-Taxes are less
-Lately there's a sense of optimism now that ol' George W is going to be gone in a few months
-We have Hawaii

Go for it haha

I'm not living in the U.S. yet, so I have nothing to add, but I think it's a nice idea! Just thinking though, one thing I am looking forward to is having more places to shop from online.

I've pretty much become a hermit since online shopping really got into the mainstream. I hate shopping so I love nothing better than ordering online. Only bad part is I just have to hope that the clothes fit haha.

TARGET! I just love that store....

oh yea...and my other half of course...he he he

My wife always complains that the dollar stores are MUCH better in Canada, but she ends up staying at Target for hours

Good one bowflex. I like it.

-Being with my American!
-Saturday postal service (definitely!)
-Beer & wine at convenience stores and liquor stores with decent hours (LCBO is pretty but don't miss it too much)
-2nd amendment
-the desert states are GORGEOUS!
-people are really pretty friendly (in a different way but friendly just the same)
-Summer cookouts rock here
-y'all
-cheaper cigarettes
-Las Vegas!
-Target!
-Warmer weather (in certain states)
-Cold Stone (if you haven't discovered it yet, go find one!)
-Better speed limits
-Bed Bath and Beyond
-did I already say my American husband!?
-Superbowl Sunday parties (not so big in Canada)
-MUCH better Mexican restaurants
-California
-The bliss of ignorance
-Later store hours in some places
-Route 66
-Real Virginia accents
-cowboys
-Better iTunes selection
-The flag pretty much rocks
-Grand Canyon
-My Maryland mutt
-More reasonable cell phone charges (Canadian wireless providers are LEACHES!)

Aaaaaah that actually felt really good to spit out all that positivity!

I seriously HEART Target! A LOT.




Oh yes, I forgot about that one - shopping online at places that don't ship to Canada is definitely great.

I totally forgot about the horrible hours of the LCBO. When we went with some friends to Toronto for New Years this year, we had to go flying off the 401 and tear around London once we realized the sun was going down and we had minutes to get the beverages for the hotel room haha.

Not to mention the HUGE lines whenever there is a holiday.

My parents live in London... love it there!

~~Cheap ciggies!!!! (though you still get the YOU SHOULD BE BURNT IN THE STAKE look from some idiots, as if you were shooting heroine or assaulting a kid)
~~Mass transit is way better than in Edmonton
~~The weather - NOPE, I do not miss going around like Froty the Snowman's evil sister. I can wear mi high heels and be the style diva God intended me to be.
~~Being close to Bren's parents; and certainly closer to mine than when we were in Deadmonton

- ESPN
- ESPN2
- Bravo (watch what happens)
- Shiner beer
- Saint Arnold beer (local Houston brewery)
- Rolling Rock beer (which I've lover since '92)
- Cheap groceries (thanks, Kroger!)
- Amazing Tex-Mex
- Texas BBQ
- Being able to spend most of this summer at Minute Maid Park watching baseball
- Shipley's Donuts
- It hasn't been -47 this winter down here. Not once.

I Targét

No wonder my life is so empty.... I've never been to Target. Does that make me a bad person????

No it doesn't make you a bad person at all... but try it. You'll love it. I can spend hours in there. Love.

Pretty much everything. Right now I can't think of anything I liked better in Canada at all. The number one thing I think when I first moved was how much better quality the TV shows, the news, the commercials and everything media was.

In Canada I would have to unplug my tv from the cable just so I could get the Detroit stations in rather then the hijacked Canadian Content ones. During Superbowl I'd be laughing at the commercials when my other friends would be in the other room talking and comming into my room to see the real superbowl...

Mail on Saturdays
Cheap Beer
Fast Food.

also living in the south.. the winter weather!

Yes!! Target. Love as well. Almost everything shopping related is much, much better. Palm trees and good beaches in the same country as me! Really cheap last minute vacations to the Caribbean when I get my GC. Mexican food. I second Las Vegas - yay! Tons of choices for ski resorts. Cheaper cars. Awesome accents.

Sani-wipes at the entrance to grocery stores so you can wipe the coodies off the carts before shopping.

Though I only used this service once when my neck went out (old whiplash injury) .... grocery baggers who wheel out your groceries and place them in the trunk for you, then take your cart back. But I have to have this little mini rant..... Everyone leaves their carts all over the place in the parking lot. Since I have a huge dent in my cart from some a$$hole in Canada who did that at the Walmart parking lot on a windy day, that is a HUGE pet peeve of mine. For some reason, they don't have shopping cart return areas here. And if they do they are hard to find, so people just leave them all over the place.

Ooops. Sorry about that. *how to make this up?* The US postal system ROCKS!!!!

that is funny because I find that the dollar stores are much better here in the US... my favourites are the Dollar Tree and 99 cents Only...

the dollar stores in my town in Canada just sold crap....

the ones here actually sell almost anything you need.....

Famous blonde moment....

My friend and I went to the new dollar store by our office one day. I picked up some toques and said "I really like these, but I wish I knew how much they were." My friend said "Duhhh.... it's the DOLLAR store."

you have to be careful some dollar stores sell things that are more then a dollar.....

-10 zillion channels which I'll never get to watch all of them
-Fluff! My future mother in law introduced that stuff to me and I make fluffernutter san-miches...he he he
-Spirit Airlines! $9 flights!
-lower cost for cell phones & land lines
-gotta love window shopping at Saks, Nordstrom's & Neiman Marcus (the only upscale store we have in Canada is Holt Renfrew - kind of sad)


yes sorry...Target = Tar ghey (said with the French pronounciation) he he he

Fluff the wonder food! Mix 1 part Fluff to 1 part plain cream cheese and.... voila!.... instant fruit dip! Mmmmm. Now I want fruit and dip.

being with my hubby
Target
Saturday postal delivery (but not trying to find an open post office on Saturday, that's a pain!)
cherry limeades

that's about it.

oh, and living in central time means not staying up to all hours of the night watching the Oscars, playoff games, etc

The interesting thing about Target is that the last time my wife was down here, she said that Target looked almost exactly like Zeller's. Apparently, just about everything in the two stores -- from the layout to the products sold to the color scheme -- resembled each other. Just to see what she was talking about, the last time I was up in Canada, we stopped in a Zeller's and true enough, they do look an awful lot alike.

Oh... and yeah, my wife has also spent an inordinate amount of time looking around Target, which I thought was a little bewildering. I never gave the store much consideration. Although I much prefer it to places like Wal-Mart or Sam's Club. Costco isn't that bad, but the other two? Terrible, just terrible.

My husband and I will not step foot inside a Walmart. Never.

I haven't been to Zellers in YEARS - actually, probably the last time I remember being in Zellers was when I was about 11 years old and a friend and I got caught trying to steal lip gloss - it was totally her! lol I guess it was a little like Target.

I`m not in the US yet but I would like to contribue with:


BISCUITS.

I agree with your wife. Target does look like Zellers. But with much better stuff. lol. I absolutely positively without-a-doubt LOATHE Walmart and Sam's Club. Very un-american, I know.

Hmm, seems people in this thread have more favourite things than I do.

I don't see what the big deal with Target is.
Canada Post was 10x better than USPS.
American TV has more lawyers, pharmaceutical drugs, and Head-On commercials.
I'VE ONLY SEEN 1 HOCKEY GAME ON TV IN 6 MONTHS. WTF?
No cider anywhere. And the beer is so so.


In the last week, I had two people come and ask me for money. One guy who pulled up to the pump in his car asking for gas money. And another guy in the grocery store asking for food money. Both strike me as odd.

Favourite things here so far?
Cheap shipping and no tax on internet purchases.
No scraping windows or running the defrost in the winter.
The enjoyment of walking outside during "winter."
Can go to a concert without spending the night (ferry + hotel). Much cheaper and faster. Just drive to the show and drive home.
Cheaper investment fees/taxes.
Lastly, paying US prices for books and magazines.

Looks like you have a pretty good list so far. You wrote more favourite things than a lot of us.

I'm glad you all like Target so much. Here in NY access to Target isn't quite what it was for us when we lived in Minneapolis and had a car to load up with cheap stuff. Here we have to take the subway up to the Bronx and then we can only bring home what our little hands can carry. This has me asking myself: could I survive living in Canada? Knowing Target was so close, yet so far?

Whenever I'm away from Target for too long, I find myself browsing its website. It has a special gravitational pull for me. (Maybe they install some sort of homing device in your forehead when you visit the story your millionth time?)

Plug for my fine state: Target is a Minnesota company.

Since we're talking about where companies are based (or formed), here's a list of U.S. companies by state. It won't include every single company, but it should have the better known businesses on there.

Just to be fair, here's a list of Canadian companies as well. I would've included a link for Canadian companies by province, but Wikipedia doesn't seem to include that.

Umm, you may need to move! We watch hockey on TV several times a week AND there is cider in the stores and bars in the DC area. Plus, new coach and Ovechkin means Caps hockey is even worth watching most of the time!

Course, the downside is that you may have to scrape your windshield or run the defrost here. And still just so-so beer.

I do think though that you are the only person I have ever heard say that they like Canadian Post over USPS. :

Really? Versus has a game every Monday and Tuesday, plus NBC runs their game of the week on Sunday. Granted, the Red Wings are almost always involved...

FSN shows Dallas Stars games throughout the week. The Comcast Center Ice package is a good deal, too (they ran a free preview last month.)

http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/scoreboard Yahoo shows a few live games a week! Just look for the BLUE camera and it saw WATCH LIVE. one does require a free yahoo ID.

cbc.ca is showing one right now -- click on the Sports tab and look for the HNIC logo on the right

I was watching it on CBC.ca and then it went blank and the said "this video is not available in your area" I figured that would happen!! If so, why would people pay for NHL centre ice!! As long as they show the curling final Mb vs AB, I'm happy!! Sort of undecided who to cheer for!! Like both of the teams, but think I will go for AB!! Believe it was 10 yrs ago that Kliebrink lost to the Womens best ever curler Sandra Schmirler!! Schmirler had to make an amazing shot in that game!!

I'm not interested in watching hockey on the computer. I like to relax on the couch and watch it on the big screen.

I'm with AT&T U-verse instead of Comcast. Can't get Comcast in our apartments. It's either Phonoscope or U-verse. No satellite allowed either. I went with the U200 package rather than the U300 package with Uverse. Basically the same thing but without the 30 channels of Fox Sports (mostly football, but I'm sure there would be hockey on there).

But I miss it being on CBC/TSN/Sportsnet. It was always available. I mean who didn't have those channels? I think they were included in the cheapest TV package, never mind the good ones.

I've yet to see Cider in restaurants, grocery stores, or liquor stores. Not sure why.

USPS is full of black people and Mexicans who know they can't get fired due to equal opportunity laws. Probably different in other areas. They've left all our mailboxes open and unlocked, lost our mail, taken weeks to deliver from Dallas to Houston, not delivered packages we've signed for, and not picked up outgoing mail from my wife's office. In the past, they've had carriers dump their entire bag of mail into the ditch. Nobody gets punished for it.

Canada Post on the other hand was friendly, outgoing, and fast.

I'll have to look into Spirit Airlines. I must say, I'm liking Continental Airlines. They offer miles for bank accounts, credit cards, credit-debit cards, eating in restaurants, using certain electric companies, first class flight draws for donating blood, just a good all around company.

Haven't looked into cell phone costs, but landlines are crazy expensive. We were paying $62/month for a landline with AT&T. Compare that to $32 with BC Tel/Telus. $62 for phone service is outragous. Wound up switching to VOIP which runs about $20/month.

Haven't been to Saks, but I went to the other two. $500 for a tie? LOL

I am sorry, but that is absolutely and completely offensive. I am disgusted. How dare you.

I was talking to my Dad about Zellers a few weeks back. We both came to the same conclusion. It's almost as if they don't deserve to have our shopping done there. No advertising, no deals, nothing of particular quality that outshines anybody else. Everything seems so bland inside. They don't seem to cater to any market in specific.

Hate to say it. But it's true. After spending 20 minutes in line at the post office lineup to finally get to the person working there. They then spent over 30 minutes gone in the back while I waited. I watched the clock. All in all it took 65 minutes.

Going there another time to ask how to file a lost report because my package was missing, I got the evil eye and grief about it. You can't do that here!!! That's federal! When I told them I'd been sent there by the police to file a missing mail report, all of a sudden they got real nice.

Return to sender mail never gets returned to sender. They just send it back to me.

I've been here less than a year and have gotten horrid service from them. They don't care. They don't applogize. When we ordered a Christmas gift that was mailed from Arkansas Dec 3rd and couldn't even get to our home until January, you know something is wrong. It's one state away.

I've yet to see a non-minority person working for USPS. I see their trucks all the time. I go to the post office somewhat regularly.

ok so you have had bad service at the post office.. what does that have to do with blacks and Mexicans??

Buggles, is that you?

What a bunch of racist clap-trap coming from you texanadian. I second what crikey said. Absolutely disgusting.

Yes, racist comments have no home here!

Perhaps I should have said the Post Office hires nothing but visible minorities who believe they can't get fired because of their special status. And because of that, they show very poor workmanship.

I'm not racist against Mexicans. In fact I was just saying the other day that I've never seen one begging for change at a stop light. The only time they're standing on the corner is when they're looking for work and bothering nobody. The Mexican restaurant down the street has fantastic service. Very friendly. They're hard workers.

I am against illegal immigration and using services without paying, but that's a seperate matter.

My first post above though where I apparently unleashed the hounds is directed at people who take advantage of the system and don't deliver. Literally. In this case, it was the two groups I specified.

I'm not alone in my disdain for USPS. There has been talk of circulating a petition to everybody on our street asking that the people who deliver our route be replaced. The complex manager has been to the central Post Office and complained numourous times. But nothing ever changes.

I'm gathering you're not the USC in the relationship, so you're having a difficult time adjusting to life in Houston, TX. That's fair. However, as a born-and-raised Houstonian, please allow me to assist you in a few matters here...

I'm not sure what area of Houston you live in or what apartment complex you're at (all of which can make a difference), but Comcast is most definitely available in Houston. They took over Time Warner in the area. The level of customer service they seem to provide is about the same (read: lackluster), but they do exist. As far as I know, they provide television and Internet service; they may even offer a DVR setup as well, but I'm unclear on that. Some apartments restrict what their tenets may or may not use, usually because the apartment complex themselves have signed non-compete contracts with those companies. So that might explain your problem as well.

There are tons of sports channels in Houston. I'd be very surprised if ESPN, at least, wasn't available with some sort of package. Texas, as a whole, is a sports-crazy state (especially when it comes to football). Hockey generally isn't too popular in Texas, but it has more support in the northern states. Football, once again, is the big seller here, with baseball and basketball coming in right behind.

Cider (as well as other beverages) are widely available if you look in the right places. The best places to shop would be Central Market and Whole Foods Market. Central Market is a Texas-only grocery store and both are considered quite "upscale." If you can't find what you're looking for there, then it's not in Texas.

USPS post office centers are, in general, not the friendliest places on Earth and they're usually quite crowded. I'd recommend going to privately owned mail/shipping outlets. Two that are very easy to find would be The UPS Store and Mail Boxes Etc. You might have to pay a little more, but the service is much better and the people are a lot nicer. So in my mind, it's definitely worth it.