Vancouver
Most of Alberta’s resentment towards BCers, or
Colombiites
The Brits
Germanic Hill People (niche)
Those fucking west coast potheads
is, as you would imagine, misplaced. Envy is quite the drug, and reasonable winters combined with a more widespread acceptance of pot lowers the mean provincial cortisol concentration to levels that seem unbelievable to the hill people further east. The provincial personal tax rates are not actually that much better in Alberta. Unfortunately, rent in Victoria being higher than Edmonton’s is for a reason. Many reasons.
(The resentment is misplaced until you put anybody from BC behind the wheel of a motor vehicle. I’m driving a 6500lb truck and you’re going to ride my ass in a jetta? We’re on St. Albert trail; if I witness you try to lane split amongst the geriatrics one more time I’m going to call border services and ask them to light you on fire. This seems to go both ways, though, as the vacationing Albertans drifting around BC drive as if someone has slipped a couple xanny patties into their double-double. Tit for tat)
Life just happens a little…easier there, and although people can be a more neurotic, openly abrasive kind of mean (read: European), they don’t have the same level of blatant, short-sighted self-centredness that defines their provincial neighbour. Or the bad taste. Another funny note about BC is that outside of Vancouver, the province is what the rest of the country thinks Alberta is. The remote groups of shacks that constitute towns in BC communicate the fact that you will be dismembered if you dilly-dally around the Super Save for too long. Rural Alberta is just slow and stale. Rural BC is where Robert Pickton lives. Don’t look up statistics or anything else that might run counter to what you just read. It’s a feng shui type of thing.
Alberta is calling: to tell you that your car insurance is going up
Alberta is calling: you will now be paying out-of-pocket for the BBL (siri: what are public services)
Alberta is calling: our rent is cheaper, until enough of you pricks move here
Vancouver can get it. Forget everything I just generalized BC for. Vancouver is bustly. You will have to bustle, in fact, or you will miss the rent, but squatting is always on the table. You’ll save -150$ per month living there, while working full-time, and figure the experience is priceless. You have a 2-storey apple store and sometimes big expensive cameras are wheeled around. You’re damp. Of course you should take 27 airy-fairy photos of Macleod Bookstore, and then go across the street to shop the poetry section because honestly what the fuck is that Zaboomafoo-ass-mess. The cuisine, the coast. Cute.
There is a show going on at Commodore sometime in April. You book the appropriate things and then dump your credit card on a single father at an esso after ‘paying forward’ his gas. The interest is no longer on the table. I promise this isn’t an acid story, but you will bring a liquid vial of LSD so that you can administer 2.5 standard doses before biking around stanley park and subsequently sitting in a cafe, resembling someone in need of clinical help, as you ride out the motion of the ocean in a corner chair by the window, observing people who certainly need clinical help. You may lose the vial somewhere in airport security on your way back. Is that a federal offence? It doesn’t matter, my uber is here. There is a British girl, Sara, who will nurse some drinks in the hostel bar downstairs with you and bring up her boyfriend immediately so there is no verbal dilly-dallying. Thank you Sara. The first Swiss gentleman you meet in ages overhears you mention a philosophy degree
ah shit he has nice teeth. he’s going to bring up Jordan Peterson immediately
he’s Swiss with testicles. He’s going to bring up Jordan Peterson inside of 12 seconds
He overhears you mention a philosophy degree to another student in the room and he asks so who do you read? And you’ll give the same mediocre answers you give everyone who asks and then he’ll say have you heard of Neitzche? And you’ll say yes, actually, suppressing a furious rant that involves 4 starship troopers references, 3 minutes dedicated to defining irony, and a very pointed reference about nazi gold
it’s staring him right in the face. He’s dying to say it
And then he’ll say you know who I really like? And you’ll say who and he’ll say Jordan Peterson and instead of calling him slurs, like you’ll learn to do in approximately 14 months, you’ll just slip into the same familiar coma you always do when a European man discovers another literate male and assumes you also have the same 4 vapid opinions that came from the same book that was written to sell itself. I’m going to turn my own head into a canoe. Latent Randians running around with a new hardcover to throw at unsuspecting pedestrians. I’m going to follow you back to Switzerland with a car battery and turn your nipp
.
The show goes very well and the bike lanes in the city leave a pleasant impression. It is worth as many jokes can be made about the cloud coverage. The beaches are nice in the sense that it’s nice to breathe in sea air and not in the sense that the beaches are actually nice. Musical acts actually come here - they visit Toronto, and then take a train through the middle of the country, wondering what the fuck is going on, leaving Alberta with the Trudeau Salute before playing one more show in Van. The drummer visits Gastown, and the VAG, and considers moving his family here. There is a nice neighbourhood within walking distance of several cheap ethnic places, it is somewhat pacific, and the right amount of busy, he thinks. The singer, because he is a sop, walks around East Hastings and thinks ‘The Balmoral’ would be a reasonably solemn song title. He will ponder his own drug use for all of 27 seconds before remembering at least half of his parents loved him, so even if he k-holes once a quarter it really isn’t that serious. For dinner he will try french. The guitarist is visiting old friends and the bassist is searching for the cheapest hooker along the docks. All of them are utilizing electric bicycles.
All of your pretend-artist friends will try living here for a period of time in between 6 months and 2 years, before realizing it really isn’t worth it, and they should have finished that degree. They will then go back to school at home and finish that undergrad only to realize that the undergrad was just as inane as getting by via a line of credit in Yaletown. Your overly-serious artist friends are in Toronto, because that’s where the money and salaried industry people are. In 7 years they will have shat out 2 mediocre albums and become salaried industry people. Yes, their parents are rich. How is that relevant, they say. Your actually-artist friends live in Montreal. Their parents are less rich. They stopped learning french as soon as the grocer stopped bullying them, although the grocer should have continued bullying them. They work a service job and are the healthy amount of spiteful. Your overly-spiteful artist friends still live in the town they grew up in. Awkward.
The ferry out to Victoria is really fun the first time you bite, and by the time you pull out the amex for your return trip you’ve just about fucking had it. Victorians are busy working for the government and counting down the 6 hours of their day they have to be physically present at their jobs until they can spend the afternoon biking around and being quaint. Victoria can get it another day. This isn’t about you, Victoria. Victoria.
If you are into discreet grooming, you will enjoy Vancouver. If you like a wide, deep selection of food, juju, and illicit drugs, you will enjoy Vancouver. If you like the idea of working the docks but not the reality of working the docks, you will enjoy Vancouver. People in Vancouver do not hike but instead walk vigorously to F45. People in Whistler hike. If you are even remotely poor Vancouver will waste little time digesting you, but it will be significantly easier to squat a rental than it is in Calgary. When you are done your free trial of depression in Vancouver and leave to join the Big Leagues of being a Canadian loser (backpacking Australia), you’ll appreciate how half-in-the-bag the city is. The grand total of 14 days I’ve spent there is has given me enough of that appreciation; only connecting flights from here on out. If I’m going to spend over 20$ on a smoothie I’d better be getting a fucking sunburn.
Living in vancouver is like finally taking that gal who’s at least 2 points above you out for dinner. The whole thing goes phenomenally, but you neglected to check the prices, (they were fucked) and now instead of cleaning ice cream off her collarbone on a pier bench you’re washing dishes in the back while she Ubers home. She liked you, it was fun, and now you have no money. Better luck next time.
Happy trails