Winnipeg is... flat. Very flat. I live in Ohio, and I think this place is flat.

I also voiced my opinion that I thought it needed more trees. Dave immediately came to the defense of his city, saying that it looks much better in the summer when all the trees still have their leaves. I later amended my tree theory. It has enough trees.

But it's still damn flat.

After pulling ourselves out of bed, we went to get breakfast. I offered to pay the tip, and I pulled out a $2 Canadian bill that I'd had for quite a while. Dave practically jumped out of his chair and grabbed the bill. "Where'd you get this?" he asked excitedly.

I explained that I'd had this bill thumb-tacked to my bulletin board for at least four years, since my last trip to Canada. Well, apparently the $2 bill had been replaced about four years ago by a $2 coin, and the $2 bills were gone almost completely.

I surrendered my bill in exchange for a $2 coin (a dubloon or a toonie), which I plunked down on the table for the tip.

We went to Grand Beach for a walk. Grand Beach is on Lake Winnipeg, which rivals some of the Great Lakes in size. This particular beach has white sands and high rolling sand dunes, and was completely deserted. We walked quite a ways up the shore, just enjoying each other's company and chatting a bit.

It really was a beautiful day, with bright sun and rolling waves and the sand and the trees... I hugged Dave close, happy to be there.

We went home to change before we headed off to Thanksgiving dinner. Winnipeg has a road called the Perimeter Highway, which runs completely around the city. After you pass the perimeter, there's nothing. Flat wasteland, punctuated by occasional buildings. His friends lived about forty minutes outside the city, on a dirt road. Modern house, rustic surroundings.

We had turkey, and ham, and potatoes, cranberry sauce, carrots, rolls, and pie. Seemed very American to me. One of our hosts had a bit of a verbal tic, saying "'eh?" every other sentence. And I thought that was just a stereotype!

After dinner we built a bonfire in the backyard, and sat around drinking wine. I marveled at how clear the skies were, and how many stars I could see. The skies were especially dark, and we could even pick out the Milky Way, something I had never seen before. It was a blurred cloudy band across the sky, dotted everywhere with stars.

I was pointing out satellites to them when someone exclaimed "Hey! Look!" We all turned our heads to the north and saw a dim shimmering on the horizon.

The Norsemen believed it to be sunlight shining off of the breastplates of the Valkyries as they rode the sky, looking for honorable warriors to take to Valhalla. Other thought it was starlight reflecting off the ocean into the sky, leading lost travelers home. Aurora borealis. The Northern Lights.

When I was six I had been woken up at 2:30 in the morning, and dragged outside by my father to see the lights. I don't really remember that, but he insists that it happened. This was sheer poetry. We walked a bit down the road to get a better view, and watched the pale blue (Dave said green, but I thought it looked blue) curtains ripple across the sky. We saw a few shooting stars, too, falling through the curtains of lights. The lights were shot through with yellow, and a bit of pink.

It was cold, but I snuggled up against Dave and didn't mind the temperature. It was a beautiful way to end the evening.