CFI Transnational or Meeting Freethought Leaders

Ian | 18 July, 2008 | 06:38

Crossing the border was easy and fast. We left Toronto at 8:00 am and were in Buffalo by 11:30. They didn’t ask twice when my ID was just a birth certificate and driver’s license (although the Ontarians wondered what an “Operators License” was).

We shopped around a Buffalo mall through the early afternoon and had an American sized lunch and the Cheesecake Factory (although we didn’t have any cheesecake), The deals weren’t any better hear, and there’s a 8.75% state sales tax on your purchases. I found a couple things at a bookstore at the very least.

We got to CFI Transnational at 2:30, about half-an-hour to an hour early, because I guess we were the keeners. The rest of the Canadian contingent (35 people out of 90 students here) trickled in between 5 and 8pm. The Centre here owns their own building and has made a nice place for itself since its inception. I must say the building here blows CFI-Ontario’s “historic” building and office away. One cool thing here (besides the A/C in the building, which is very nice) is there library, which is potentially the largest freethought-atheist-humanist-sceptic collection in the world. Unfortunately, you can only access this collection by coming here and looking at the books here. The even have a rare books collection with a few first editions and books dating to the 1700s.

The talks yesterday involved every member present introducing their group (about 2 hours) and an overview of what the point of CFI and us being here is. We also had greasy pizza for dinner.

The highlight of yesterday though was the fact Zak, Emily, (the two who I stayed with in Toronto and who drove me down) and I loaded up on Canadian beer at the supermarket ($20 a flat and $20 for a Heineikin Mini-Keg) and hosted the party of the night. We finally got to interact with students from across the country, and it was pretty cool.

Finally, quotes of yesterday: