Dave Barry's Only Travel Guide You'll Ever Need (11 page)

You don’t have to go all the way to Europe to be in a foreign country, because there are several nice ones right here in our own continent.
¹⁰
Among the numerous cultural advantages of visiting these countries are the following:

1. They are nearby.
   

2. They get American TV.
   

The largest of our North American neighbors are, of course, Canada and Mexico, both of which share lengthy borders with the United States, and both of which have long maintained peaceful relations with us based on mutual trust and respect and a heartfelt understanding of the fact that any time we feel like it we can nuke them into radioactive grit. Let’s take a closer look at these two “friendly neighbors” and see if we can’t learn to appreciate them more without picking up any actual information.

Although we hardly ever think about it except when the TV weather person is showing us a cold air mass, Canada is actually a major country, with an area of more than 169 billion hectometers in longitude, and a bustling population of more than 27 million, if you include members of the wolverine family. There are also a number of humans living up there, and in many ways they have a lifestyle quite similar to ours, including such traditional American activities as driving Japanese cars. The major difference is that Canada is divided into two major linguistic groups—English speakers and French speakers—which have learned, over the course of 300 years of cohabitation, to hate each other. The result is that everything in Canada has to be written in both English and French, which creates a hazardous situation because the two languages frequently disagree, as we can see from these actual Canadian signs:

Despite these differences, Canada has developed into an actual nation with cities, an economy, comical-looking money with beavers on it, etc. To understand how this happened, we need to review:

Canadian history began 20,000 years ago when primitive people came across the land bridge from Asia to watch the quarter-finals of the National Hockey League playoffs, which are still going on. Then nothing happened until 1497, when King Henry VII of England hired an Italian explorer named John Cabot to try to reach Asia by—those explorers were always trying wacky stunts like this—sailing across the Atlantic. Instead, Cabot—he could easily have avoided this by the simple precaution of looking at a map—wound up in Canada. Here is an actual quotation about this event from the
World Book Encyclopedia:

Whoo! I bet THAT thrilled old Henry VII, don’t you? Picture the scene: he’s sitting on his throne, all excited because he’s been waiting for months and months, and he can hardly wait to see what kinds of jewels he’s going to get for his investment, and Cabot hands him a bag of dead cod and says: “And there’s plenty more where THAT came from!”

From that day forward Canada was considered to be very desirable, and eventually the British and French got into a big rivalry over it, which resulted in a series of wars called “The Series of Wars Between the British and the French.” This dispute was finally settled in 1763 when the British forces defeated the French in the Battle of Kicking Some French Butt, after which the two sides signed the Treaty of the Two Sides, under which Britain got to keep Canada, and France got to visit for three weeks during the summer.

After that Canada continued to grow and have many important historical events, among which, according to the
World Book Encyclopedia
, were: Growing Discontent, Lord Durham’s Report, The Return of MacDonald, and Foreign Relations. Also at some point a government formed. The Canadian government consists of a prime minister, whose primary function is to meet with the U.S. president once a year and ask in a whiny voice how come we keep dropping acid rain on them. The president always replies that we’ll stop the acid rain if they’ll stop the cold air masses. Then the two leaders share a hearty
laugh and shake hands, because they know that we’re really close international friends. Plus we still have the nukes.

Canada boasts numerous
goose-infested lakes
and several
major cities
that rival New York for
sophistication
, defined as
lack of parking
. There is also a
Vast Arctic Wasteland
where visitors are welcome to come and get
lost
and try to survive by eating their own
parka linings
. The Vast Arctic Wasteland is one of Canada’s
ten provinces
, the other ones being Toronto, Greenland, Quahog, Alberto, Pierre, Roberta, North Dakota, Manitoba,
¹³
and the Yucatan. All of these provinces feature
culture
as well as
hydroelectric power
, and are well worth a visit. But the Canadian tourist attraction that we rank highest of all, despite the fact that we have not technically been there in person, is the
Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump
. We are not making this attraction up. It’s an
extremely historical site
where, many years ago,
Native American tribespersons
used to kill
buffalo
by driving them off the edge of a
cliff
. According to the legend, one day a tribesperson decided to watch this event from under the cliff, and numerous buffalo landed on his
head
, which, as you are well aware, is generally fatal, and thus
the site got its name: Total Moron Cliff. No,
seriously
, it really is called the Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, and the Canadian government has set up an
interpretive centre
there, and when we called it up, a person answered the phone as follows: “Head Smashed In, may I help you?” This was probably the
highlight of our entire life
.

The first thing you have to understand, as a visitor to Mexico, is that you do not, automatically, the instant you arrive, develop a fierce case of the trots. That’s an unfounded myth that epitomizes the condescending attitude that many North Americans have toward Mexico, and we’d like to shatter it right here and now. We have personally visited Mexico, and we found it to be a charming and hospitable place filled with exciting things to do, although unfortunately our activities were somewhat limited by the fact that the instant we arrived we developed a fierce case of the trots. But we definitely enjoyed what we
saw, and we made it our business to see every single important historic and cultural site in the entire nation that was within a two-minute sprint of our hotel bathroom. These sites included the
hotel bar
, the
hotel restaurant
, the
hotel gift shop
, and the
hotel hallway leading back to our bathroom
, all of which revealed the rich cultural tapestry that Mexico possesses due to all the history that has occurred there in the past.

The history of Mexico dates back thousands of years to the time of the Indians, who, of course, were not aware that they were Indians because nobody from Europe had discovered them yet. Despite this handicap, they had developed a great civilization featuring many advanced concepts including mathematics, writing, architecture, a highly advanced calendar,
¹⁴
and an alarm clock with the “snooze” feature. These Indians built numerous ruins that can still be seen today,
¹⁵
as well as a number of major pyramids, which were made by lifting enormous stones and which served as monuments to Xinzthiznclxn, the God of Hernias. Then, in the sixteenth century, the Spanish showed up and introduced Western civilization until just about everybody
was dead. This was followed, in order, by the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, during which Mexico included a large section of what is now the United States, including Texas, California, Hawaii, and Rhode Island. Mexico graciously yielded these lands to the United States in 1848 under the Treaty of Sign This Treaty or We Blow Your Head Off. Eventually there was a revolution, starring Seymour A. “Pancho” Villa, a heroic figure who rode around having exciting adventures with his comical sidekick and carving his initials into people’s shirts with his sword. Or maybe that was Zorro. But in any event, there was finally a revolution, and today Mexico is a modern happy nation of 90 million people, 87 million of whom currently reside in Los Angeles.

Well for one thing, there is a tremendous amount of
Mexican food
, which is
delicious
and
perfectly safe
as long as you are careful never to get any of it in your
digestive system
. You will want to visit the ancient cities of
Quzxnclznaontxnzl, Czqnxzlnqlnxz
and
Zxqcnxcxnzxclqnxlnzqnlnxn
, which offer
thought-provoking, fact-filled lectures
by
leading cultural anthropologists
, followed by
live human sacrifices.
¹⁶
Also, you may want
to attend a
bullfight
, although you must be careful never to
stand up
, because that’s how you indicate that you wish to participate in the
Amateur Matador Event
.

Traveling in Europe