After years of showing my American friends our country I realized that there are certain things that do cause culture shock while when I head down to the USA I am super used to their culture. I remember that one of the first times I went to Seattle, I asked what "pop" they had, and my dad quickly corrected me to ask which "soda" they had on tap. I don't know why Canadians order Pop while American's order Soda while they both come from the word Soda Pop. I felt embarrassed to say "Pop" and show that I was a Canadian, but the waitress didn't make it a big deal. As I got older and went down to the US with friends, I noticed more differences like Miles vs. Kilometers. The next was trying to use a Canadian penny instead of an American penny because in Canada we accept and use American pennies, nickels, and dimes like it no big deal (well no longer the penny) but if you tried to use the Canadian version of the coins in the USA it was like you were trying to pass a forged bill.
I also had a hard time getting used to the American bill which were all green whereas the Canadian money is referred to as "monopoly money" by a lot of Americans due to the variety of colours ($5 is blue, $10 is purple, $20 is green, $50 is red, $100 is brown). To some American's how many skating rinks available throughout the year it fascinating. The fact that we have indoor skating year-round is not all that weird to me but being someone who lives on the West Coast and we do not get snow in the Winter, makes skating rinks normal.
Visiting the Maritimes and meeting the extremely polite people make me realize how so many people think Canadians are polite however if you visit cities like Toronto or Vancouver, you quickly realize that it is only a select demographic of people who are not only polite but also say "eh".
