Canada, round one: Saskatoon

I met a foreign lady who quickly became my wife, and I moved to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. From a city of 2 million to 200,000 in the middle of the prairies, and I loved it beyond words: minus 45 C, bison, and the Canadian life I'd only seen in movies.

I got married at 23, and it lasted exactly 7 years, at least on paper. Still, there are good memories, and the wedding is the one that always comes up.

We were as poor as church mice, as we say in Hungarian. Instead of a fancy hall, we rented the community hall at Saskatoon's Forestry Farm Park and Zoo for $200, with bison and moose as the backdrop. Instead of catering, everyone brought their best dish, and we ended up with about 15 amazing dishes. The total came to about $1,000, and it was more memorable than any $100,000 wedding.

I went to university without really knowing what I wanted, so I picked political science, which interested me. Everyone said you need a degree to get ahead.

On the side, I worked at some really cool places. At the University of Saskatchewan faculty club I had free rein over the salads, inventing crazy dressings and cheese plates with no worries about food cost, because the point was keeping the professors happy. At a tiny Irish-style corner bar I did everything from morning omelettes to bartending at night. Unforgettable. As a new immigrant, I made real friends among the regulars who came in for a pint of Guinness.

Canada also made a big dream come true: the Big Apple, for real. I first went to New York in 2003, not long after moving to Saskatoon, and I've been back about 60 times since. New York has been a big part of my life, with happiness, sadness and everything in between.

New York gave me something else too: my hero. K. is a tall, elderly New York diner server, the kind of person who makes the job look like an art. I'm the one hugging him.

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