I just got back from the Canada-U.S. Fulbright orientation in Ottawa, so as you might expect I have a thick lip, a slight limp, and a busted thumb. Don’t believe anybody who tells you that the Canadian Foundation for Educational Exchange can’t throw a first-rate three-day party.

All great times, of course, start with a lecture. This one was not an exception, and Thursday saw me get up at 3:30 am in Edmonton to fly 1700 miles 2800 kilometers kilometres for a 5:00 pm talk on “Why the Americas Matter.” Actually, it wasn’t an awful lecture and the Bush administration speaker, Thomas Shannon (Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs), even brought up the Quebec City A20 demonstrations to do something other than completely-completely dismiss them as uncalled for. Following the talk, our host, Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, whisked us up to an extravagant parlor atop its Sussex Drive headquarters where we accepted imported cheeses, fresh fruit, fine wine, and panoramic views of the Ottawa River and the province of Quebec beyond.

Friday was all about an “academic conference” that followed an unusual formula: (1) gather a bunch of extraordinary scholars and students from the U.S. and Canada, (2) wake them up at 7:00 am after filling them with deluxe food and wine past midnight the evening before, and then (3) mix them up in widely diverse multidisciplinary small groups and ask them to tackle the most complex questions facing North America today. I’m not quite sure we delivered at the level the organizers had hoped for, but in any case they again rewarded us when it was all over, this time with a full bar at the private home of the U.S. Ambassador to Canada.

After two days of this arduous wine-drinking, they finally let us loose Saturday on the the city of Ottawa, which is a giant walkthrough English-Français vocabulary picture book. Over seven hours of a beautiful and sunny day we got VIP tours of Parliament/Parlement, the National Gallery/Musée des beaux-arts du Canada, and—across the river/riviére in Gatineau, Quebec—Musée Canadien des Civilisations/the Museum of Civilization. I also got a chance to see the tomb-like exterior of the Supreme Court of Canada/Cour suprême du Canada. For those who are wondering why all of these national landmarks are in Ottawa, I can confirm for you: Toronto is not the capital of Canada.

One last thing—the personal injuries. Those all came from the 2006 playing of the Canada-U.S. Fulbright/Killam hockey classic. I made a heroic contribution to my team’s loss, and even skated hard enough to get an unfamiliar warm fluid to drip out of my nose. Maybe that’s a sign of peak physical fitness. The hockey game, and the whole orientation, though, were an unmitigated blast that brilliantly perfected my welcome to the “true north, strong and free.” Make sure not to skip it the next time you take a Fulbright year in Canada.