A Comedian in the Internet Lounge at Canada Media Marketplace

I am surrounded by friendly Canadians. Everywhere there is that familiar flat accent, that wonderfully sincere way of approaching writers like me. Today I’ll meet dozens of tourism board people who will regale me with story ideas…stories that they want us to publish on GoNOMAD Travel.

It’s a great opportunity to find out what is happening up in our gigantic northern neighbor. Last night I joined a bevy of writers who met up at the very cool Ace Hotel, and it was great to reconnect with writers like Johnny Jet, Cathie Arquilla and Stef, who edits Travel Girl magazine. She was in from New Orleans for the meeting with the tourism boards. These meetings are sort of like speed dating–you get a short little visit for 15 minutes and they tell you all about their destination…and why it’s worth writing about. The writers share a little bit about their outlet, what they can bring to the game. We compare notes and if it sounds good, we eventually will be invited to come see their part of Canada.

I am writing this blog in a room on a tiny little computer, and my fingers are challenged. There is a guy who I think is a comedian doing a routine as if he were a drunk guy, and the woman bartender is playing along. At first I thought someone was going to call security, like he was an obnoxious drunk, then we realized it’s entertainment…he’s doing this routine on purpose. It’s pretty distracting to those of us who are trying to check email and write….but I salute the Canadian tourism board for the fun idea of a comedian in the internet room to entertain us while we sit here.