This Is Canada Nice

I remember, as if it was yesterday, that week in June 2015. It was the week before my final exams in high school, the last days of my 15 year school career. My friend Tobi called me one night and told me that I had to come over to a party at one of his friends’ places and that I would regret it if I didn’t. I told Tobi that this was a shit idea to go to a party and drink, just a week before my final exams. He kept persisting that I had to come because there were two Québecois dudes there and that this was THE opportunity to get to know some people from over there. At the time I was planning to spend a year work and traveling, with the main objective being that I wanted to improve my French and experience life in a French-speaking environment. Well, I did end up going to the party. When I arrived, Sam and Émile were already pretty drunk. When I asked them how they came to be at the party they were saying that they are couchsurfing with someone in Nuremberg and that the host took them to the party in Augsburg. After a couple more drinks I saw one of the two heading to a toilet, probably to relieve himself of some Alcohol. After some more drunk talks and a few hours both of them swore that they would love to host me in Quebec and that I should just let them know when I’d be coming and that of course I would be welcome to crash with them. At first I thought that this was the alcohol talking. Turns out that it wasn’t and that Émile not only hosted me, but that his family became somewhat of another family to me as well. As I am writing this, I am on my way to visit my Canadian family for what I think is the 5th or 6th time since that first encounter in 2015 and my heart is filled with joy at the reunion.

Indian Summer

Vieux Quebec City

Learning about life the hard way

It was lucky that Émiles family became an anchor for me in 2015, because job and language wise I had a pretty rough patch starting out in Québec City. Why? -> Well, turns out that Canadian French is a lot, a lot different from French French. I guess you could compare it to Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese, or high German and Swiss German. The dialect is different, the pronunciation is different, the vocabulary used differs slightly, depending on the situation you’re in. This makes it hard for native speakers already. So there I was, totally blindly running into a situation in which I found it very hard to adapt to my new environment and not having the money to take courses. On top of that, I had developed a pretty unhealthy attachment to a very brief summer romance with an Ecuadorian girl which I couldn’t get out of my head. Ouch.

After a few weeks I found a job at the port of Québec, checking in guests on cruise ships. This was a great deal for me because it was only a couple hours at a time and pretty flexible. Plus, there were a lot of German and English-speaking tourists, so I could be very useful there. At the same time I was working at a luxury restaurant, ‘Le Continental’, where few of my colleagues spoke as good of an English as I did and where I was therefore super useful in handling tourists. At the restaurant I sometimes felt like a penguin, running around in a red wrack with black bow tie, pretending to know what it means to behave fancily with rich customers. In reality I was the lowest level of service at the restaurant, a ‘sous-serveur’. I was only allowed to clean and prepare tables, hand out menus and refill wines. Besides that I spent my time in the back polishing wine glasses, cutting bread and trying to hide that I only ever understood 30-50% of what my colleagues asked me to do in a high-pace environment.

The trouble with both of these jobs was that tourists stopped coming at the end of October, the time when winter started slowly creeping in. That meant I lost my first job, because no cruise ships would come anymore, and the hours of my second job were reduced to just 3 working days. Since I couldn’t manage to find a job anymore at the time, I decided to pack my bags and leave Quebec at the end of November. Next destination: Toronto.

Downtown Toronto Cruising

Toronto Black n White

The illusion of easy

I chose Toronto because I thought it would be much easier making a living in an English-speaking environment. Turns out, it wasn’t easy at all. Over the months of December 2015 to February 2016 I had worked as a restaurant host (-> Quit because the environment was just shit), dishwasher (-> quit because we were 3 people washing dishes for a 3 storey restaurant + my first shift was 13 hours because the poor deaf-mute who trained me always had to show me where to go, so that took a lot of time + I stabbed my hand with a grill spear that had somehow found its way into the trash that I was taking out), fundraiser going door to door for a charity (-> Quit because I froze my ass to death for hours at a time at -10 to -20 degrees) and Subway sandwich guy (-> Quit because the owner wouldn’t pay me for my trial period of 3 days and only offered me a 50% position). Finally I found a somewhat stable job as a driver at a snow plowing company. The deal was that I would have a fixed income of 1.000$ per month for the first 55 hours of work every month. If I worked less than that: good for me. If the hours would accumulate to more than 55 hours per month, I would get an additional 18$ per hour on top of that. The downside was: you cannot predict the weather. From January until March I never worked more than 55 hours per month. This was great for having free time. But: I also only made 1000$ a month and would have to be available whenever snow was coming. And that was hard to predict. So I ended up trying to do some of these jobs mentioned above on the side because the living costs in Toronto were crazy. You can imagine my monthly budget like this:

You can easily see that working on the side was absolutely necessary in order to survive and at least have some money to spend on leisure time. Those months were some of the hardest of my life.

w/Levin: Work Outfit Snow Removal

The crazy flat share

While I had a tough time job wise, I definitely had some of the best months of my life with my roommates. Let me characterize the people I lived with.

Sharam: Iranian doctor, trying to make it in Canada. 1 child, living with its mother in the area. In order to get there, he had to re-do some of his medical education to be licensed in Canada. To make a living besides his studies, he worked at McDonalds. Fell hopelessly in love with a short term tenant from Germany.

Burak: Turkish immigrant without visa in Canada, working illegally at construction sites. Fun character, English pretty bad, seemed to be a good human at heart with dreams to fulfill.

Zoe: German work and traveler from Braunschweig, working at a Mexican fast food restaurant. Fell in love with a Mexican dude even though she swore at the beginning of that night, that he wasn’t her type at all. Had a bit of a crush on her at the time.

Levin: Ginger German dubbed Kevin by us, work and traveler from Hannover, working with me at the snowplowing company. Would always feed the squirrels with leftover food. Always good for any crazy activities and drinking.

**Jeff: **late twenties, Canadian, occupation unknown although we think he probably dealt drugs from the fact that we never saw his room but always smelled weed around it. Would never leave his room other than to go somewhere with his car or heat up pizza in the oven together with the cardboard packaging, leaving it for 20 minutes at a time.

**Canadian girl: **18 year old Canadian girl that ran away from home due to domestic violence, or so we think. She was quiet and reserved, smoking a good amount of weed and working her butt off at Subway to make a living for herself.

**Felix: **German work and traveler from Halle, dubbed Ronney by us, who lived at another house of the same owner but was part of the crew just the same. Also worked in snow plowing with us and was just as much life and soul of our work and travelers crew as Zoe and Levin.

People came and left the house from time to time, but the above was the crew that stayed the longest while I was there. We spent a lot of time cooking and eating, playing cards, getting drunk, watching movies and sports and just having a good time. Since Levin, Felix and I didn’t work a whole lot at the snow plowing, we would also hang out quite a bit together. To this day we’re in contact and I was honored to be part of the wedding of Zoe in summer 2022. Big shout out to these guys therefore, for the wonderful times we spent at 361 Hollywood Ave. ❤️

The rescue and another heart attack

After the long search for a job that could finally put me on track for actually traveling during my work and travel year, I finally found something: Innovative Vision. There, they were looking for German speakers to service one of their clients as customer service agents. After a training of a couple of days I was set to get to it. The client I would work for was Rakuten Kobo Inc., an e-book and e-readers seller. You can compare it to Amazon Kindle if it doesn’t ring a bell. There I worked night shifts, usually from 3 am to 11 am or later 2 am to 10 am, making a whooping 15 dollars an hour (which was a lot compared to the other jobs I did before). There I also met Maja, another German work and traveler that was soon looking for a new roommate, because her friend and roommate Lilli would move out to go travel around the country. After getting to know her a bit and some work to convince her that it was a good idea, she agreed to take me on as her new roommate. We then shared a basement apartment, which was just a kitchenette, a bathroom and one bedroom, between the two of us. Both that job and this new living arrangement turned out to be some of the best things that happened to me in Canada. First of all, the drought of no money was coming to an end finally. Secondly, Maja turned out to be such a loving and patient friend as I had ever encountered. Being 10 years older than me, I think she was super patient working with my young and adventurous spirit and I can honestly say that I learned a lot from her. To this day she’s a good friend, even if we’re not constantly in touch. This one goes out to you! ❤️

Fast Forward 2022

After 2015 and 2018 I returned once more to Québec City for a week just now. Since my first visit, a lot has changed, most important of which is that I can now fully communicate in French with my family there. Sure, there’s still a ton to learn. But the fact that I need not switch to English almost at all anymore feels like a big deal to me. What hasn’t changed, is the fact that I still feel incredibly happy every time I see my friends over there. Sometimes it’s hard to put the level of happiness one feels into words, but statisticians would probably say I was at the maximum level of global happiness perceived that first evening, sitting at the “Cosmos” bar with Emile, Marie, Felix and Gabrielle. It was just so nice to be there, have a pint and enjoy exchanging stories that happened. Well, the biggest suprise was actually already dropped when I got to Emile’s house: he’s pregnant with Marie. They will have a little Canadian baby soon, whooohoo 🍁🌈.

Canadian Fall Colours

Emile, Vinz & Felix

As if it weren’t enough to just be there with my folks, I was even invited to attend the 30th anniversary, celebrating the marriage of my second pair of parents, Bertier and Marise. When word got out that I would be visiting exactly on that weekend, I was a bit cautious not to butt in or crash a family and friends party. However, I hadn’t counted on the “Canada Nice”. For them it was so natural to have me with them on their anniversary that I felt like I was coming home even more. Luckily I had sent two parcels ahead to thank them for hosting me again: a fondue set for Marise and Bertier and a bottle of the good old Pfeffi for Emile (although it is not permitted to import alcohol to Canada, my guess was right that nobody would check the parcel if I indicated that it was just mint juice 😉).

The rest of the week I was there, flew by like a flash. Between good talks, evenings out, Marie’s fantastic cooking skills and cozy evenings on the couch watching sports, the days just blew by. The coziness and relaxed lifestyle my friends have adopted and that pertains in Canada, as compared to my life in Europe, were a real treat to witness. That being said, I might return again very soon, to ring in spring 2023. Who knows…

A Real Treat for the Close

Back in 2015 I was completely broke and didn’t know what to get my family for christmas. So I made a video about my life in Québec City of the sunrise, some places I frequently visited and the friends I made and spent time with at our favorite bar: “la barricade”. Watching it in hindsights gives me cringe vibes. Nevertheless, it is colossal proof of my life in Québec. I invited you to watch it and have yourself a laugh and maybe even get a glimpse at how beautiful the region is. You will need a password to watch the video, which is Quebec.

If you want to get right to the crazy fun at la barricade, just skip forward to about 20:30 min. 😉

https://vimeo.com/150118629 My account of life in Québec