Is it Centre or Center?

Funny story the one of this picture I took today.  My small fries are behind my POP.

I always take the train back home and to kill time while I wait at the station I stroll around Downtown Vancouver. Today was rainy though, so I took cover in an A&W.  I forgot my water bottle home so I decided to ask for a drink.  I had brown-bagged my lunch so a drink was all I wanted.  But today I realized I still haven't fully gotten used to the different vocabulary used in Canada.  See, the nice Asian cashier took my order with a big smile when I said I wanted a small soda.  She nodded, punched some numbers in and told me the total.  I paid and then she asked me if I wanted ketchup.  Ketchup? With soda? Oh! I  know what happened!  She obviously did not understand the word soda; I should have asked for a small pop instead.  Silly me!  She was still giving me a big smile so I just took my small fries and ordered a small pop this time.
Pop instead of Soda still sounds too cute to me.  So much that I feel silly saying it but I better get used to it or I might end up getting wrong orders all the time! :-)

Canadian English and US English are not the same.  Beside the obvious fact that no two countries use the same words, the spelling also follows the British pattern.   When you are in Canada you go to the washroom, not the restroom.  If you ask for tea you'll always get the steamy variety unless you explicitly ask for cold tea.  If you park above ground level then you are in the parkade.  And you don't ask for the check, you ask for the bill.   And by the way, check is a very good example of the difference of spelling.  Here it is cheque (which drives your spellchecker nuts).  And centre instead of center.  Other words would be colour instead of color; catalogue instead of catalog; cancelled instead of canceled.  You get the idea.  But if you dont, here is a good link that I will  also keep handy because my emails are full of a mixture spelling that does me no good!

Father and daughter strolling around the rainy streets of Gastown in Vancity today