Category: Canada

Canada is like a loft apartment over a really great party

The above quote from Robin Williams captures perfectly my experience living in Canada for the last two and a half years. Many of my most memorable experiences and lasting memories from living here – nature, food, people – happened south of the border in USA, but I’ve been very happy to live up here in loft Canada rather than down at that American party. The first 18 months in particular was full of excitement, fun and all kinds of new things and people.

But I’ve got my eyes on the door now. I’ve already started selling things even without a departure date, and since it seems at this point I won’t be making any new observations given I’m stuck in my apartment, I thought I’d make a summary of thoughts from my time here in Canada and specifically Vancouver.

There’s plenty to love in Vancouver. I’ve simply reached a point where I miss home, perhaps exacerbated by Covid. But I don’t feel completely at home here, and I don’t feel I can truly be myself here. Meanwhile there’s a multitude of things – goals, dreams, people – pulling my attention back home. All in all I would recommend living here for two summers and one winter – you could probably go longer if you haven’t been spoiled by living in Australia for 35 years, or if you love winter sports.

So let’s count ’em down top 5 style. The good, the bad, and the plain curious.

The Good / What I Will Miss

1. The Mountains
   The scenery is incredible. Flying into Vancouver is an experience in itself. The mountains are easy to access, the hikes are plentiful, and when the summer days are so long you can do eleven-hour day hikes. Just magic.
2. Seasons
   Nowhere in Australia really has distinct 4 seasons. I had no comprehension that they were definable things prior to moving here. The leaves drop within a few weeks of Autumn and all turn green in a week in Spring. And then they change colour again in Summer. There’s SNOW (I’ll miss snow days), long summer days, and my favourite of all here – an incredibly colourful autumn.
3. USA
   Yeah, one of my favourite things about Canada is USA. My biggest regret about leaving is that I won’t get to see even more of America. I did a series of road trips, and my Utah/Arizona trip is one of the best experiences of my life. All the Americans I’ve met in my travels seem to be genuinely nice people with a decent sense of humour, which was always a great escape from Canadian seriousness.
4. It’s Easy
   Vancouver is an easy place to live (provided you’re paid accordingly). It’s not a big city so I don’t have to worry about crowds. I have been able to walk around pretty much everywhere I needed to go. The streets are clean and safe. If I want to venture further out of town, there are plenty of car shares available and you can be deep in nature in half an hour. The city is clean and pretty, there’s plenty of nice spots to cycle, walk or just hang out. And it’s dog very friendly. There’s no shortage of happy puppers out and about.
5. My Apartment
   I’m not sure I’d do it again, but living 25 floors up in the sky in the centre of the city has been a fun experience. I wake to the sunrise beaming over the mountains. I can walk everywhere I need to go. Work is a ten minute walk, the “beach” is 15 minutes in the other direction.

The Bad / Keen to Leave

1. The Grey
   The first year the novelty got me through winter. I loved the dark, the cold, the snow, hot springs, getting cosy. The second year was painful. I saw the sun about five times in five months.
2. The Roads
   Roads in Vancouver are populated by horrendous drivers and there’s backwards road rules that encourage them. Right turn on red is a dumb idea which pits pedestrians against motorists. Cars are given priority at intersections before people are allowed to cross leading to confusion EVERY time as people go to step out as a car zooms around the corner.
3. Lazy cops
   I thought this was a personal pet peeve, until I saw a trend on the Vancouver sub-reddit frequently mentioning the same topic. It’s lucky there isn’t a lot of violent crime here, cause the police just can’t be fucked – oh, unless you crack a beer on the beach, then it’s time to pull their finger out. But openly shooting up heroin is fine.
4. Drugs and Homelessness
   There is an enormous homeless and drug problem which nobody seems to be doing anything about. It was so confronting and eye-opening when I first arrived, but was also a learning experience. Hesitation and admittedly a touch of caution in some areas, gave way to a realisation that those people were are only a harm to themselves and in the end it’s all pretty heartbreaking.
5. Blandness
   Vancouver is devoid of culture. Even the language us straight up vanilla English. There aren’t cafes, there’s coffee shops – utilitarian, get in, get out affairs full of people on laptops and nobody talking. Sure, there’s hockey, and that’s a load of fun, but broadly speaking it often feels like I’m living in Sim City. Public holidays are not marked with any celebrations or local customs. They’re just days off work. And they’re all evenly spaced across the year as though designed by a robot. Even Canada Day is just a day off work.
   The food, both fresh produce and restaurant meals, is generally very bland (except spring time berries, I’ll love those babies). There’s an element of class here too which is gross. The few rooftop bars that exist are for boring people to stand around pretending to be someone. The sailing boats are there for rich people to leave moored as a trophy rather than use.

Other Observations and Oddities

• Generally speaking, I’ve found most locals to be very serious automatons. There’s no room for sarcasm or any off-colour jokes, or much humour at all really. I’ve had to suppress parts of my personality as I got sick of awkward responses to jokes not landing and sarcasm being taken literally. Very often I have found the famous Canadian “politeness” come across as passive aggression – and everyone seems so phoney (one of my greatest pet-peeves; Holden Caulfied would hate it here). At times it’s sanctimonious.
  If there’s one difference between Aussies and Canadians it’s the capacity for bluntness vs dancing around with linguistic gymnastics. Got something to say? Spit it out. I take offence and suspicion to what isn’t being said.
• The Permanent Residency process here is a lot more straight-forward that how I understand it to be back home. It’s a disgrace that Australia makes committed people jump through so many hoops to become part of a society they love. The Australian government tends to start from the assumption that immigrants would want to take advantage of the country, and it’s pathetic.
• Canada seems to be very good at messaging around climate and the environment. Now, as far as carbon emissions go, the results aren’t dramatically different to Australia when you look at the numbers, but the attitudes by and large seem to be a lot better, and maybe in time this might translate to results.
• Similarly there seems to be decent messaging regarding first nations’ peoples. Many signs have dual names and indigenous people seem to be more involved with government when it affects their lives. I don’t know enough about the local situation to know if there is any substance to this, but regardless, I do think it’s something Australia needs to do better. Messaging and symbols matter. Australia would be a better place to celebrate more Aboriginal culture and history and dump foreign royalty and foreign flags renting free ad space on our own.
• An odd thing to note given how much nature I’m surrounded by here – but I miss the sounds of nature back home. I miss the sounds of birds and bugs.
• Banks and government services are crusty and old and clearly haven’t advanced since the 90s. I was advised to go with a particular bank when I got here because “they have an app”. Wait, that’s not standard?
• Groceries are expensive, booze is cheap. Cheese is crazy expensive. Mobile data is super expensive and people use public WiFi like it’s still 2004, but home internet is great. Berries in Spring are incredible and cheap.
• Vancouver has seasons, it doesn’t really have weather. This is good in many ways as it’s far more predictable. The weather day to day moves very slightly so you know what you’re in for. But despite how many cloudy days there are, the fun part of rain (heavy downpours, thunder & lightning, hail) doesn’t happen. And the summer days are really pleasant, but I miss those days where I feel like I’m dying in an oven.

It makes me wonder, are people shaped by the weather in which they live? Does boring predictable weather make boring predictable people? Does wilder weather make people more likely to get off the fence and say what they think, much like the day itself?

I’m very grateful for this opportunity. I probably should have done it sooner. Would I ever return? Who knows what can change in this topsy turvy world. I would certainly do it differently if there is a next time – ideally, not solo for a start, and I’d be very conscious about getting away during winter.

I came here excited for a new chapter of life, and I leave more excited for the next.

Thanks Canada.