Are Canadians Friendlier than Americans?

Here is my anecdotal observation from my weekend in Waterloo, Ontario: Canadians are super friendly.

I wandered into the Canadian version of Barnes and Noble (called Chapters) and sat down in Starbucks with my typical pile of travel books. The guy sitting next to me peeked at my random array of travel books (Mexico, Spain, New Orleans, New Mexico, Iceland) and struck up a conversation. After he left, a woman sat down across from me. She too eyeballed my books, and we chatted for a while about our respective travel experiences, our families, our day jobs…etc. The whole time, I was thinking: This never happens to me in Washington DC.

So I started to wonder: Are Canadians friendlier than Americans? When in doubt, I turn to How I Met Your Mother to answer life’s all-important questions. Canadian Barney says yes. What says you?