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Friday morning, I had to take my dad to the hospital to get a cortisone injection, because he has been developping acute shoulder bursistis and needed something for the pain.

A friend from Syria who was visiting us happened to know a doctor who worked at Centre Hospitalier Pierre Boucher, in Longueuil on the south shore of Montreal.

From the outside, it looks more like a library or the headquarters of some Web 2.0 (sorry...) company than a hospital, all glass and brushed aluminum.

I've never had such a positive experience in a hospital here in Canada before. Despite the renovations and construction work going on to expand the hospital's east wing, everything was clean and spotless. Any questions we had were answered with a courteous, friendly and professional attitude, and everyone was smiling. No one seemed like they didn't want to be there, which is more and more the case in the Canadian health care system.

First we had to have his hospital card made, which took all of 15 seconds to do at the reception. Then we went up, and the receptionist of the orthopedics department told us we needed to do xrays first. We walked for maybe 30 seconds across the hall to radiology, the xrays were done after maybe 4 minutes.

After that, we walked back to the doctor's office, and the xrays were literally waiting for him on the computer screen! This may not seem like a big deal, but I was amazed at how efficient they were here.

It turned out that it was just the beginning of a great, productive day - there's the 1$ sale at the supemarket (Maxi) going on right now, so I stocked up on weeks of groceries for like $100. Pack of 12 hot dogs, 12 buns, and bag of McCain fries - 3$. Enough food to feed 4 people. That's unheard of in my house, where I generally try to shop organic and local whenever I can, which ends up costing way way more.