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Growing up in Victoria I've never felt very "Canadian". -Pretty much no one I know is interested in let alone has played hockey, it's seen as a thing for rich suburban families or Albertan/Ontario transplants. -We only got our first tim hortons like 10 years ago and it was an experimental "upscale" one to try to get into a market dominated by starbucks and local coffee houses, and holy moly do they produce sugary poo poo. We have a few more now though, but it was not a franchise we grew up with, I think there was one out of town but nothing in the city. -Snow is quite a rare sight. -No one speaks french and there's probably 10+ more relevant languages to learn that you might exactly get exposed to in your daily life. -Lots of people I know don't have cars, let alone a truck loaded with quads or skidoos or what ever. -Everyone rents an apartment, yard care, garages, grilling, street hockey, are all alien concepts. -!!!WESTERN ALIENATION!!! feel absolutely culturally and politically disconnected from the rest of Canada. Our national identity being mostly based around being marginally less horrible than the US in some areas is super pathetic too and is often really outdated or just wrong on so many topics and is used to gloss over a ton of our inexcusable shortcomings. "Our beer is better our beer is better!" I shout as I slowly turn into a pine cone. Baronjutter fucked around with this message at 20:53 on Jul 12, 2017 |
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Jul 12, 2017 20:50
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| # ¿ May 5, 2024 12:25 |
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I'm paying like $600 something in BC, finally hit the max discount.
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Jul 19, 2017 18:49
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Bloody Hedgehog posted:At $600 though it sounds like you have the absolute bare minimum insurance. Sucks to pay more, but you should up your coverage amount a bit, get collision and all that. Bare minimum coverage in BC doesn't cover much, and if something does happen, the bare minimum deductibles are pretty onerous. I got the extras privately through an insurance company. Only fools take the most basic insurance. What's the minimum liability like 200k? You should get at LEAST a million, at least.
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Jul 19, 2017 22:20
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Fuckstick posted:Man I should’ve came to this thread before we took a trip to Vancouver. My wife and I are food tourists of a sort, and wherever we go we try to sample something we won’t find anywhere else. Only from reading this thread, it would seem we missed out on about the most Canadian thing you can do (Tim Hortons). We did manage to have breakfast at an A&W, which is unheard of in the states. I had a nice breakfast sandwich on a hamburger bun, and brought home some seasoning from there, which turned out to be nothing more than seasoning salt, but again, is unheard of in the states. We would like to come back there in May or June, as Vancouver in late November was downright wet and miserable. The wife enjoyed the shops in Gastown, a made it over to Canada Place and did the Flyover Canada, but the constant rain made kinda wrecked everything else, so we went back to Seattle. People in this thread say that BC residents have a PNW accent, but some people we some with had a decidedly British sounding accent. A friend of ours in Seattle said they were probably from Victoria. Does someone from Victoria actually sound that different? Unless they're actually english or not from the area, people in Victoria, Vancouver, Seattle all sound the same.
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Dec 18, 2017 04:56
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Also I'm really sad at the idea of people who are food tourists going to lovely garbage fast food places. Vancouver has some amazing local food but it's not loving A&W or Tim Hortons.
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Dec 18, 2017 05:46
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Canada has been moving to the right pretty hard over the last couple decades. Our "left" party has expunged all mentions of socialism from their official platforms and it's been a desperate race to the centre to try to attract voters, but what's regarded as the "centre" in Canada for anything other than some nice high profile social issues has been moving to the right for a while now. 2-tier privatized healthcare keeps getting floated while the system is internally sabotaged and underfunded to make future privatization more appealing. Our post system was run into a ground by a libertarian installed to pave the way for privatization and only just barely failed to do so. The alt-right is leaking pretty hard from the US up into alberta and rural ontario and spreading out from there. We're selling weapons to brutal theocracies engaged in warcrimes and mass executing gay people, but our PM marches in pride parades and weed is almost legal so we're a progressive paradise! Canada has some of the worst corruption and transparency ratings in the developed world with crony-capitalism running the economy and funding the major parties, but by goly gosh we're so polite and nice unlike those rude americans. What Canadians are great at are cherry picking a few things we're less terrible at than the US then declaring ourselves a progressive paradise while ignoring the rest of the country going to poo poo. "At least we didn't elect trump!" they smugly congratulate them selves while ignoring skyrocketing rates of poverty, homelessness, and economic inequality. The actual leftist spirit Canada had back in the days of Tommy Douglas are long dead. Also the RCMP is like an incompetent racist rapey small town US police force but somehow on a federal level but they sometimes put on a horsey parade so they're a symbol of national pride.
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Dec 22, 2017 20:18
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Chatrapati posted:This is really informative and interesting, thank you! I don't live in a country that has had a history of displaced populations, so it's difficult knowing what's appropriate. I remember talking to someone from America who was saying how someone was being racist for saying that first nations people still lived in teepees, I honestly had no idea that they didn't at the time. The conditions on reserves can vary drastically by reserve. Some urban reserves are just like a normal lower class neighbourhood in a city, some rural reserves that have gotten rich off a local resource can be good too. But some are absolutely horrible, like full on gulag conditions. No running water, limited power, no road access. Housing unsuited to the climate because some bureaucrat in southern ontario decided to use the same plans or same mobile homes designed for a temperate climate in a much colder climate. lovely insulation, deadly mold problems. A lack of access to medical care or education and a multi-generational culture of utter hopelessness. Some Canadian reserves are worse than any 3rd world refugee camp you've ever seen. Then the government decided to do something like build a road or fix the leaking black mold infested housing and canadians scream about lazy spoiled natives how come white middle class canadians don't get free government houses?!
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Dec 23, 2017 01:22
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Also like hundreds of first nations women can be murdered and the RCMP just short of shrugs.
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Dec 23, 2017 02:28
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I've heard from quite a few people that Canada has pretty much the worst immigration process and staff involved in the western world.
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Feb 25, 2018 10:40
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Earwicker posted:what is a good distinctive food of Vancouver or BC? Japadogs
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Feb 27, 2018 18:58
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Nanaimo bars are from Nanaimo!! Vancouver don't you dare claim this!!!!
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Feb 27, 2018 19:57
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mobby_6kl posted:How much lamer is Canada than the US? I've been to the states a few times and enjoyed it tremendously (so avoiding the problems that come with living there). Canada though seems like, I dunno, the North American version of Belgium or something. There's more variation within each country than between. Living in a nice "liberal" american city is very much like living in a nice canadian city. You'll see more in a cultural and lifestyle difference between say NYC and Houston than you would between NYC and Toronto. Just as if you move to Canada you'll have an extremely different experience living in Vancouver vs Calgary vs Toronto vs Montreal. If you're asking more about tourism, yeah I don't know I don't think Canada is very interesting that way. Quebec city and Montreal are worth a visit, Atlantic Canada is pretty unique, coastal BC has some absolutely stunning nature and a ton of outdoor stuff to do. The rest of Canada is pretty "fly over" or "of no interest unless you work in finance or oil". Canada is also extremely expensive to get around in domestically vs domestic US flights. I've known a few fellow Canadians who have gone on trips to see Quebec and to see atlantic canada and enjoyed them, but domestic tourism isn't a big draw here, not a lot of places worth the effort of visiting. Most time people travel it's "Uhg, I have to visit my family in Winnipeg" or "uhg I need to go to Toronto for this finance conference" or "Uhg the military is forcing me to move to Edmonton". Tourism wise, most of Canada is pretty lame.
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Mar 6, 2018 19:26
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WhatEvil posted:Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal? That one isn't an absolute must but it'd be nice. Looking randomly at the map maybe somewhere like Chilliwack would fit the bill but I have no idea what it's like living there, it's just that it's near to Vancouver, likely big enough to have the facilities I'd like and maybe it's far enough from Van itself that housing isn't nuts? Totally guessing and probably wrong though which is why I'm asking this. -I'd avoid greater Vancouver area at all costs, very low paying jobs, one of the world's worst housing bubbles, and brutal traffic combined with very poor transit outside of the core. Coming from the UK you probably want to live somewhere with some sort of actual neighbourhoods and community you can walk around in and not be stuck in a car in gridlocked traffic any time you needed anything I assume? Chilliwack is not a pleasant place to live and you'll be looking at 600-700k+ for houses that aren't trailer homes (there's a lot of trailer homes in Chilliwack). Driving into Vancouver from Chilliwack would be about 2h in typical traffic. Doable for events and things but not really for work. -Montreal is really great, reasonable housing costs, great transit, an actual economy, culture, a whole spectrum of neighbourhoods from urban to suburban and many served by a decent metro and bus system, but the whole french thing so that's probably not an option. You can get by in Montreal without french depending on your job and where you live but you'd want to jump on learning it asap. -Toronto is just about as expensive as Vancouver but has actual jobs, but I've found it a miserably depressing city with a crumbling under-funded transit system and horrible politics that keep making the city worse. Imagine the gray dirty urban feel of NYC but without most of the interesting parts and surrounded by a sea of depressing suburbia where you still need to pay a million for a lovely townhouse. -Ottawa is a decent mid-sized city, I've never been but people seem to love or hate it when they move there. People generally move there if they work for the federal government although there's obviously private employment there as well. It's still, like most of Canada right now, expensive. -Winnipeg is an often derided Canadian city, race problems, poverty, severe weather, but there's jobs and cheap housing and it has quite a good cultural scene. -Calgary and it's smaller brother Edmonton have economies entirely linked with the oil sector, which is in the trash right now with no sign of recovery. It's also canada's cultural and political wasteland, although the people in edmonton seem lot less aggressively awful than Calgary and seem to have smaller chips on their shoulder too. -Victoria is another mid-sized option. About 380k people, quite a walkable and historic city (that used to market itself on its englishness) that isn't just a grid of office towers surrounded by big-box and suburbia. It also has better income levels than Vancouver but a nearly equally hosed up housing bubble. There's some great indoor climbing centres here at least, some real affordable ones as well. It's very much not a sports or nightlife town but has a decent to good cultural scene. It's where I live so obviously know the most about. A few of my friends work for big engineering companies, Stantec is a big one, they do a lot of environmental engineering stuff. I also know a few people in the whole fancy/robot woodworking industry, Victoria has a fantastic makerspace with a CNC setup which can be a great place for networking. BC is a total write off if you want to own a home, as is Toronto, hell all of Canada is kinda hosed on housing right now. And even if you could afford it, now is really not the time to buy. Montreal has the french issue. Atlantic Canada has very poor job prospects but cheap housing. Winnipeg has jobs and housing but is Winnipeg. I personally despise most everything about Alberta so can't give any unbiased advice. If it wasn't so drat expensive I'd really say to visit a bunch of your prospective cities and see if you like the vibe.
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Mar 7, 2018 20:22
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flakeloaf posted:This is good advice for Canadians generally, and more of us should do it. I really want to go to Montreal and Quebec City soon, but it ends up only being a bit cheaper than a trip to europe and with that you can visit family and stuff too. That's always been the problem with in-country tourism, going somewhere more interesting is often just a bit more expensive (or even cheaper depending on the season). A flight to Montreal is 6 hours while to europe is 9 hours, with about the same difference in price. Canada too big.
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Mar 7, 2018 20:33
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I've always wanted to go to germany, I think I'm going to pick.... suburban Frankfurt!
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Mar 22, 2018 16:37
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UnfortunateSexFart posted:A lot of people (Americans especially) seem to want a nice small town rather than one of the big three, and Canada doesn't really have nice small towns. Besides Victoria, but they have big city housing prices. Ottawa I've heard is nice and if you can get work I've known people who have fallen in love with Halifax. Nanaimo isn't great but it's not bad for a small city, especially when compared to other cities of the size in north america.
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Mar 22, 2018 17:56
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tuyop posted:It’s also like 350 days a year where there is fog at some point, which I love and miss desperately, but I imagine would be unsettling for someone from away. BC goes from rainforest to desert so there's a pretty good spectrum of rain-levels for any rain enthusiasts preferences here 
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Mar 28, 2018 22:51
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| # ¿ May 5, 2024 12:25 |
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Carbon dioxide posted:Someone suggested I repost this here: If you want very accessible day hikes, food and food trucks, historical buildings, you probably want Victoria. The only other mid-sized city that isn't an unpleasant nightmare that has much historical anything would be Quebec city, but you don't get mountains next to the ocean next to temperate rainforest for hiking there. The hiking here looks like this     You could spend your whole trip on Vancouver island (it's about half the size of ireland) and see some pretty amazing poo poo. Hell, you're a cool traffic engineering thread poster. I met up with Entropist when I went over to Netherlands, would be happy to meet up and let you know all the best spots and maybe go on a hike or two if you wanted. I'm obviously biased to some degree recommending Victoria/Vancouver island but I've been all over and I've never been anywhere without such quality and quantity of nature as well as good park infrastructure and easy ways to get there. Like you can get to all the above pictures in 20-40 min from downtown. My wife and some friends did some really affordable trail ride thing recently and loved it too, there's lots of that here. No horse driving license required. Getting here is super easy, direct flights from Amsterdam to Vancouver, tool around vancouver a few days to see the big city stuff) then take the ferry over to Victoria. Don't rent the car in Vancouver, rent it once you arrive via transit in Victoria because paying for a car on the ferry is expensive but there's good direct transit. Victoria is also one of the few small cities in north america where you do't really NEED a car to get around, specially to be a tourist. It's very walkable and bike friendly. Rental car would be good for hikes of course. For times, summer is nice, late summer or early summer probably best. But due to being near the ocean and so much forest it really helps regulate the temperature. Any time in the fall or winter will be fairly gray and rainy. The parks are huge, high or low season you won't get crowds beyond the main parking lot. Securing camping spots can be more difficult in high season but if you're just there to hike it will be no problem. There's also the Gulf islands, short ferry trips from Victoria, and many are worth seeing. Baronjutter fucked around with this message at 18:49 on Jun 22, 2018 |
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Jun 22, 2018 18:32
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