Downsides of living in Vancouver

Before starting with the subject of this post...

While I did mentioned it before, I want to emphasize once more importance of making and updating fore example LinkedIn and Indeed profiles. I suppose it is just a coincidence but in a last 10 days I got 3 job offers (two via LinkedIn and one via Indeed). So it was not a invitation for an interview, but job offer. Obviously when some recruiter contacts people, companies are in a great need for people.

Two of them were from big Canadian companies (Ledcor and TekSystems) and one was from a American recruitment agency to work all around States. To put it in a context, I never sent a single resume for those kind of jobs. For Canadian ones I was not interested (installing residential IT equipment). For USA job I was very interested (pretty much same job as I'm doing now) but unfortunately without Canadian Permanent Residence or Canadian Citizenship companies are not so interested to hussle with all of the papers and shit. Recruiter said she will get in touch if they don't find enough people with "easier" passports. In my mind I was even ready to sacrifice all the mountains here in BC to get a chance to get closer to USA working permit. 

To put things in another context, if any of those offers were for some kind on electrical engineering jobs, either IT or High Voltage, I would probably took it regardless of probably  less pay / beginner type of job. For those kind of jobs I'm sending couple of resumes a week just for the sake of it.

BC Place, Downtown Vancouver

I'll try to list few things that I think are not as good or simply don't suit me here in Vancouver. Other part will be leaning more on things other see as bad, while I see them either good or not yet come to a stage I'll see them bad. It took me 10 min to make this sound like something understandable. :D

First and most obvious thing that I or for that matter anybody normal don't like is amount of rain and clouds in the winter. October and November were abnormal with amounts of rain that was pouring almost everyday. Rest of the winter was much better and I got used to it pretty quickly, but that doesn't change the fact that it is sometimes annoying as hell. 

There were some sunny days in last couple of weeks and you can immediately see the difference of people's attitude. Everything is more lively, people all around doing some sports, running, walking dogs...for a moment you remember how much rain there is. On a positive side, last summer was almost completely sunny and without rain so let's hope this one will be the same. Other good thing is large amount of rain in town transpires into large amounts of snow in the mountains which for snow people means fun. This season local mountains got more than 10 meters of snow (and it is still going to fall). I'm trying to sugarcoat it but you got the point: Rain sucks and there is a lot of sucking in the winter in Vancouver.

Watersprite Lake, BC

Second thing I'm kind of missing when comparing to Croatia is drinking couple of beers on the open, chatting and stuff. I think it has much to do with the rain rather than culture. I've been told that in the summer time it is pretty usual to go and have a barbecue and a couple of beers on the beach, so let's hope again that it will be the case. Truth be told, summer is for many people living here much better part of the year.

While on the rain subject, one would be surprised how are most people unable to comprehend idea of walking with an umbrella. Instead that they just lift up the umbrella you have to walk around them. It is really fascinating phenomena...

Prices of mobile plans in Canada in general are relatively high. By 2018 a new (big) player should enter the market and in long term prices must go down. Part of the problem that will never go away is the fact that Canada is 2nd biggest country in the world and it has only 35 million people. Building and maintaining all that infrastructure is expensive. While I think there is good reasoning for mobile plans to be more expensive than for example in the States, high prices for a car (and other vehicles) insurance is a mystery to me and the most of the people I talked to. 

Marin Ujdur edit: Reasons for high car insurance premiums is pretty simple. Monopoly of the ICBC. I would expect such a thing in some less developet countries, but not here. As always, monopoly is a second name for bad service and high prices. Thx Marin!

Things about real estate in Vancouver are pretty straight forward I would say. Vancouver is one of the most desirable cities to live in. Production of the new condos / houses can't keep up and the result is high prices. Marko (from Victoria) told me the astonishing number that prices have gone up 20% only in last two years. Other data that shows how the future will look like (not good for people want to live in center of Vancouver) is that 60% of new entrees on the market get sold in first month. In a "healthy" market that number is around 15-20%. In a long term that means rents will also go up etc. Not a sparkling future to be looking forward to.

Titus, a Polish friend, soon to be Canadian

Thing I'll be personally most annoyed in the long term is abundance of political correctness in Canada in general. Most people are in support of it, but...

I didn't encountered it too much for now (some sporadic cases) because I don't have too much contacts with snowflakes (non PC term for people being triggered for whatever they don't feel comfortable about). For example you are a racist if you say that most older Chinese are not as polite as others (to put it mildly). But if you notice that in all of the Indian restaurants there is not a single white person working, that is not racist at all. People who know me know that I'm as far as possible from any real racism or violence but I really, really hate double standards and blame game.

Maybe all above sounds little bit over dramatic, most people don't care what somebody else is doing or how he looks like and that is great. But f*** I want to have a good argument about everything while not taking care about every word I let out :D.

On a lighter note, our food making community got a new temporary member, Petra. While meat pie and strudel were superb she only did it once so we are not completely sure if that was just a accident or she knows what's she doing. Mario B. made a sushi dinner. Same goes for him. I miss dinner with #kustosi on which I was never invited from the start!

Samoborska strukla (or whatever)

On my behalf I think that is about it regarding things I find lacking living here. And yeah, one totally subjective thing. It would be nice if Vancouver is Silicon Valley with bunch of engineering jobs :D.

While engaging numerous conversations with people who have been living here for dozen and more years things that would pop up as a downsides of Vancouver were mostly cost of living in Vancouver. Like real estate, insurance, daycares, gas (cheap comparing to EU but expensive comparing to USA), mechanics and such stuff. We still have to be aware that Canada is a rich country and living here is pretty comfortable (money wise) if both parents are working for example. It is not same when East Indian is saying x is expensive and when Canadian says Vancouver is expensive. They are world apart when talking about "luxury" of life style.

Some say that lack of cultural identity is a issue. Both USA and Canada have pretty short histories as a nations, but USA has much stronger national identity. Personally I prefer less nationalism on both sides of spectrum, either good or bad. I think becoming Canadian is pretty easy. Just say sorry and be polite and you're one of them. Future is a place to look at, not the past. I would prefer little bit more of an American individualism but once I'm a Canadian prime minister we'll tackle that issue.

If you ask random Canadians what is the one thing they miss most, they will say caves and pasticada! They are crazy about both! 

Nah, that's only my wet dream. Back to the topic.

It is hard for me describe another thing that is missing here (I think in most urbanized parts of N. America for that matter) for some people and that is a sense of community. I would assume that is interacting with neighbours, children playing together around houses... Things are more alienated and you spent time with people you choose and neighbours are neighbours.

I've been told that thing which is a side effect of being polite and nice is sometimes trying to avoid straightforward response or opinion. As would my Australian friend say: down there you know if somebody doesn't like you or thinks otherwise. I still haven't encountered much of it (except on Tinder :D).

Close to Main Station with Mt. Seymour in the background

Not really sure what else to put here. There are only few things that annoy me, so for vol.2 of "Downsides..." I'll have to wait for honeymoon phase to end and for some things to change from like to unlike column. 

Maybe Canadian immigration office should be nice enough to give me a Permanent Residence in couple of months or at least some 25 year old Canadian so I can marry him or her to get a PR. Other than that I'll never get used to "hey, how are you? Good, thanks. How are you?" introduction to the beginning of the conversation. It is such a waste of time instead of just saying "hi". :D

May the good food be with you!