Spring Break was just a couple weeks ago. For many of you this meant fun in the sun on the beaches of California or Florida, nights of drunken debauchery whooping it up with thousands of your peers, and so many wet t-shirt contests and games of naked twister that if hormones were a viable fuel source we could successfully light Seattle into the next millenium.

For us up in the northwest without Hillary Rodham Clinton's business savvy, the choices are a bit more limited. My spring break budget, for instance, allowed for a day-trip to Vancouver, B.C. or a pretty good chance at a communicable disease up on Aurora. Despite the title of the column, Vancouver was the option I chose.

I picked up a couple friends, we hopped into the Anti-Christ (my 1975 Buick Skylark) and started the trek north.

Now, I don't know about you, but I've been on enough road trips to not consider them a novelty anymore. Consequently, I am compelled to do strange things to liven them up. The first of these was making sure there were plenty of soft drinks in the car, then refusing to stop at any of the many rest stops between here and the border. Not only does it provide for more exciting discussions during the drive, but it heightens the chance of life-threatening injury. The second fun thing to do is when then border guard asks, "Are you carrying any firearms or tobacco?" I like to say, "What do you need?" Nothing can add to the excitement of a road trip like a body cavity search.

Actually, I did none of these things on this particular trip. I was the height of politeness until we got across the border. When confronted by all those "furriners" I got a little cranky, though.

It's bad enough that they change all the road signs on you. I mean, pardon me for not having my metric conversion chart stapled to my forehead.

"It's 100 kilometers to Vancouver, how far is that?"

"300 maybe 400 feet?"

And then they've replaced all my friendly "do not enter" signs with little "-" signs. For the first 30 miles or so across the border I thought they were strongly urging us not to do math in the car. That particularly annoyed me because since they were on metric, I had to do math to be able to figure out exactly what time we were going to hit Vancouver and therefore assert my manhood.

Once we got into Vancouver, things were pretty good, though. In fact, parking was far simpler than in Seattle. For one thing, they only charge you $6 for a whole day at the downtown lots. In Seattle, they place a lien on your house if you even imagine your car parked at a lot for more than 20 seconds.

I'm not sure if that was on the up and up though. See, I paid for parking with credit card because we hadn't had a chance to convert any money yet. You stick the credit card into a ticket machine and pull it out for each ticket (4 times for a whole day's parking). As trustworthy as I'm sure the Canadian people are, I'm pretty sure that something was kinda fishy about that. I suspect I'll end up on Canada's Funniest Home Videos:

"Look at that stupid American. Hah, he actually stuck his credit card in the parking ticket machine."

*The studio audience laughs so hard they have to hose them down to move to the next segment*

"Well, let's see how he reacts when he gets his credit card bill and realizes he's funded the CBC for the next three years, next time on Canada's Funniest Home Videos."

Once we were parked, we set about on the business of finding some Canadian money to play with. Unfortunately, due to a clerical error, we showed up approximately 20 minutes before every bank in the universe closed. Our first bank choice was a dismal failure, they had taken too much of a lesson from their American brothers and decided that no one who was anyone really needed a bank's services after 4:30 pm. The second bank was better. Well, it was open.

We walked in, American money firmly in hand and waited for the next available teller. This is where things got a little edgy. Delores (my teller) listened to me patiently as I described the transaction I required:

"This money. I need it to be Canadian instead of American."

She nodded her assent and filled out what looked suspiciously like the Dead Sea Scrolls. After marking them carefully, making the conversion from Canadian money to shekels, then shekels to American, she disappeared to call the Prime Minister and see if it was ok with him that I had Canadian money. This all took about the time it would take for an average human being to be born, go to school and have a 50th wedding anniversary. Eventually, she returned and gave me Canadian money.

Now for me, the conversion rate is a constant source of amusement while in Canada. Whenever I walk into a store and see something that I might want to purchase, I have to break out my trusty slide rule, call my broker and exhume Pythagorus before I can determine if it's a good deal or not.

"22.95? How much is that in American?"

"15 . . . 20 cents?"

"Wow, good deal."

Fortunately, we got there late enough in the evening that shopping wasn't an option for too terribly long.

The real goal of our trip was to find a decent dance club. The place we ended up at was called "Luv-a-fair," which is french for "We serve weak drinks." After locating the club we had a wait of about an hour before they opened.

So, like any good tourists would do, we hunted for a place that served french fries. We found one, but not before we found something really interesting. We located Hooker Central in Vancouver. There were at least five of them when we walked by the place in our search for fries. High heels, tight skirts, big hair: there was no mistaking them for anything else.

They took no interest in me and my two women friends, which was almost disappointing. Of course I lacked the pre-requisite desperate look and sweaty fist with money clenched inside it.

We marveled at their boldness, they seemed to operate out of this restaurant in total disregard of the law. But we quickly forgot about them when we found a place that served fries.

Fries ingested and hour conveniently whiled away, we headed back to the club where the bouncer carefully inspected my companions ids. I tried to show him the somber "I'm so cool I don't even have to smile" picture on my license but he waved it away. Canadian law says that men cannot grow a beard until they are 19, so he didn't need to see my license.

The music was ok, but really the drinks were something really special. Apparently, alcohol is an unfamiliar concept in Canada. One of my companions is 5 feet tall and thin and had to spend $32 Canadian dollars to even feel buzzed. Now, I realize this is only about $2.50 American, but still there are certain standards to be upheld.

I didn't drink enough to feel more than relaxed. The most amusing moment of the night (after laughing at the price for a bottle of what we could only loosely term "beer") was watching my companions get hit on by an entire fraternity from the University of Oregon.

"So, you're from the US?"

"Uh, yeah."

"Wanna come back to our hotel room so you can save money?"

"Do I have the word "stupid" painted across my forehead in neon green?"

"Um, no. Do you like that kind of thing? Wierd."

Amusing as that all was, the time came when it felt right to leave. We had done what we came to do, and it was time to go.

But on our way out of town, we drove by the special little corner again and lo and behold, their were 15 more hookers than there had been before! They had multiplied in our absence. Apparently, they were capable of asexual budding, ripping themselves in half to produce two hookers dressed exactly the same (tight mini-skirt, high heels, big hair). Thinking back on it now, I wouldn't be surprised if there were 1000 Hookers on that corner by morning.

Next time you go up to Canada, be sure to look out for them.

Copyright © 1994 by Robert T. Bakie