Oh, Canada!!!!

So Canada was beautiful. I flew into Toronto and lectured for the Canadian National Advanced Fire and Explosion Training Program put on by Dennis Merckley of Fire Facts Incorporated. I had the pleasure of lecturing with Steve Carmen (retired ATF) and met his son and partner, Clinton Carmen. Everyone else was from above the border. I found routine objects to be fascinating with bilingual French and English writing on most everything. That and the money was strange.

I did not get to travel downtown, but I have been invited back next year, so I will make it a mission to spend more time there. It was a very international city and everyone was so nice. I have had some Canadian students before and hope to see more in the future.  

Several highlights of my trip included going to Peter's, where I had an amazing filet and the maitre d' at the restaurant  gave every woman a rose after dinner- it was very elegant. Peter's had only old white men as servers (in an asian part of town), who made everything fresh. And then the following day I was invited to tour the Coroner's Court, where the Medical Examiner's Office and Department of Forensic Sciences were housed in this 1 year old beautiful building with 5 levels and an open atrium so that you could see into the laboratories all of the state-of-the-art equipment. Their autopsy suites were 3X the size of my current office in Norfolk, but they handle a much larger population. They had a CT scanner and an MRI for doing virtual autopsies. The forensic anthropology laboratory was huge, with steam and electric pots, along with a well maintained bone room. 

Everyone I met was super nice and it was such a bustling international city, I cannot wait to return.

Thanks for reading.

pope