It wasn't until I moved to the Netherlands for two years as a post-doc in the late 1980s that I gained an appreciation for how far north northern Europe is. I grew up just outside of Boston, which is the same latitude as Rome. London and Amsterdam are ten degrees further north. I enjoyed my time there, but man, December and January were really hard to take.

And of course, thanks to the Gulf Stream and the Mediterranean, Western Europe and the UK have far more temperate climates than anywhere in Canada aside from the west coast of BC.