Katharine Woods wrote:

And my Mum had some friends who had a daughter who was flying to Canada to spend a year out. They contacted some Canadian friends who lived in Vancouver and asked if they could meet the daughter when she arrived in Toronto. The terse response from the Canadian friends was "You meet her. You're nearer."

LOL. Yep, the old, "Oh, you live in New York, do you now my friend whosie?" problem.

We hosted several foreign exchange students over the years, and one French girl was putting on airs about how her family had vacationed in six or seven European countries as she grew up and what sticks in the mud we were since our family had only gone to Mexico and Canada. After consulting an atlas we figured out that the eight states our family had *lived in* over a similar period covered a much greater geographic area than all her travels. ;-)

Susan Beth (susanbeth33@mindspring.com)