Today was Heritage Day, the Canadian name for the August Bank Holiday. Now, we don't have August Bank Holiday or any sort of Bank Holidays in the States, so I'm not really clear on this concept in the first place. But apparently the bankers feel that there ought to be a holiday every month, so they invented Bank Holidays. The government picked up on it and used it as an excuse to celebrate diversity (since when do they need an excuse to celebrate diversity?!).

In practice, Heritage Day is a wonderful thing. I say that because the Heritage Days festival, which runs from Saturday through to the Monday holiday, is a great place to get high-quality ethnic food. Although there are no excellent Thai restaurants in Edmonton (none to compare with Sanamluang, for example), for Heritage days a crowd of Thai grandmas gets together and cooks the baddest green curry in town. Somebody makes real Karjalan piirakoita, although I never see any Finns around the Scandinavian pavillion. There are five different kinds of baklava to try: the Arabian baklava is the best, but the Greek was pretty good too (avoid Bosnia-Hercegovina).

There's some culture and dancing, too, although the focus is definitely on the food. Bringing culture into it is a bit rough... since when you start talking about places with a truly different culture, even mainstream tolerant Canadians get a little edgy. For example: although Canada's metaphor is 'cultural mosaic', not 'melting pot', the various tents all fly the Canadian flag. They used to fly national flags (which makes sense: easier to get your bearings from a distance) but apparently this discomfited enough people that they all now fly the Canadian flag. Cultural mosiac -- riiight.