On Being Canadian while not in Canada

Last night Adam and I had our weekly date night and we encountered a whole group of Canadians. They were identifiable by their ostentatious wearing of red clothing adorned with a Canadian flag and a big bag of poppies on the table that made me want to weep for joy.
As we were about to leave Adam approached them, explaining that we were Canadians also and we were invited to join them. As it turns out they are a group called the Digital Moose. They were mostly men, with a couple women in the mix also. And with the exception of me and one other woman they were all engineers, all having graduated from Canadian universities. (made obvious by their iron pinky rings)
Anyhow it was an interesting evening. Much talk about where we all came from and what we miss and the differences here. Eventually talk did turn to housing costs. Everyone that owned a house bought it before 1999, with the exception of us. Many eyes widened and mouths made Os when we mentioned that we just bought a house. Clearly they felt sorry for us, since they have all made loads of money off of their houses.
It was also interesting to realize that many of them have lived here, moved home and came back, because you just can't make the same money anywhere else. One guy was a particularly downtrodden Canadian, singing all of the praises of the US and hating on Canada. I deemed that he should have been stripped of his poppy*. However as it turns out he moved home to Newfoundland and was screwed by the government and the economy in general, so I understand some of his bitterness a little.
All in all it was an interesting night. Some good hockey talk, football talk and reminiscing about home.

(*much like Jason of his man card when he got his pink girly drink)