As could be expected, I came across plenty of interesting differences between living in the Netherlands and living in Canada. After my initial 6 Things You Learn As A Dutchie Settling Into Vancouver, here’s a selection of Vancouver culture I have experienced.
delivery takes forever
Coming from the Netherlands, a teeny tiny country with rich and impressive infrastructure, I was used to super quick delivery times. Placing an online order before 10 PM often meant receiving your items the next workday, sometimes even on Saturday.
I hadn’t thought about it, but with Canada being ginormous and a little bit more complex in terms of supply chain challenges, you can be waiting quite a long time for your Amazon order to arrive. And by quite a long time, I mean 3 to 6 weeks. A good wake up call to buy local and be more mindful of the impact of online shopping.
identity crisis
The word Dutchie appears to also be slang for a cannabis joint. Guess I gotta stop calling myself a Dutchie. Relatedly, I learned that there’s so much weed here that the city is also referred to as Vansterdam. Ironic, hey?
do you or do you not get a lot of holidays?
Working for a university in the Netherlands comes with a huge perk: 42 days of vacation days. Yes, you heard it right. In other industries, vacation days in the Netherlands average at 25 days.
In Canada, you only get about 15. Yet, several people have asked us: man, do you even work? Two things: 1) Instagram is just Instagram, and 2) You get at least one long weekend almost every month, so in the end it does add up quite nicely! Basically, you get 15 days to freely choose your leave, and on top of that, (almost) everybody is off on stat holidays, which are usually Mondays: New Year’s Day, Family Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Victoria Day, Canada Day, BC Day, Labour Day, National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, Thanksgiving Day, Remembrance Day, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day. That’s another 13 days! The only downside is that everyone has these, so booking a long weekend can get pretty expensive.
Aside from that, I feel like we just put more effort into making the most of weekends. It could be because we are new to Canada, but there’s just such easy access to nature and plenty to do in and around Vancouver. Being out in the mountains for a day will make your weekend feel like it was longer than it actually is!
transit & queueing etiquette
Let’s talk about public transit for a bit. Canada is rather proud of its public transit in Vancouver. So proud that I had pretty high expectations.
Well… Eh.
Don’t want to complain, I commute to work by bus and I’m happy I can get there without it costing me a fortune. And it’s not that bad, it takes me about 45 minutes door to door. Though the Dutch transit network surely also leaves room for improvement, it’s safe to say Vancouver and BC have much more of a ways to go. Getting around the city is fine, but commuting farther outside of the city can get tricky. The country is very car-focused, and I get it, because in many cases taking public transit is just not worth the trouble.
Quality aside, a more cultural difference I noticed is about queueing. Canadians are champions at queueing. When arriving at a bus stop, people will all stand in a neat line, and if it’s a popular stop, this line can get terribly long. When the bus comes, it’s a nice and orderly process of going in one by one. It’s fair. Those who waited the longest go in first and get to pick a seat.
Unless the bus driver decides to open the back doors. In that case, the second they open, the queue breaks and it’s ‘yeah screw this lemme score myself a seat’. Never seen order turn into chaos so quickly.
people hike and hike and hike
Let me go back to leisure time again. A typical Vancouver conversation usually involves asking each other about recent hikes. Some examples I’ve heard (and used): Do you hike? Done any hikes lately? Hey have you done this hike? Any hikes you can recommend me? Hey do you have a car and do you want to go try this hike? Oh wait what you don’t like hiking? Then why do you live here and what on earth do you do with your free time?
Relatedly: people are in active wear all the time. Lululemon is everywhere. I’m just… not used to seeing people wearing their sports outfits all the time. I guess you gotta always be ready to go on a spontaneous hike! I’m happy to be part of the hype though. Hikes here are incredible. And so are my Lululemon leggings.
the big one
The Netherlands is a pretty safe place in terms of nature. Sure, we’ll have storms every now and then. And in the very north, earthquakes are a thing, but I’m a city girl from the west (and lived in Noord Brabant for 5 years), so I never experienced earthquakes.
I never thought about earthquakes. But here, I learned there is a fault line extending from Vancouver Island to Northern California that is bound to cause us some trouble. Historical evidence suggests we’re (over)due for a major earthquake exceeding 9.0 on the Richter scale.
They even named it. We’re waiting for “The Big One” – a threat that is being taken quite seriously, not only by seismologists but also the Canadian and U.S. government. On 19 October at 10:19 AM, there was a big earthquake drill encouraging everyone to practise to “Drop, Cover, and Hold On.”
It sounds like an apocalyptic movie script, but Vancouver is situated right in this seismic zone. There are building codes, emergency response plans, and campaigns like the BC ShakeOut.
If you want to know more about it, check the website of The Great British Columbia Shake Out.
Anyways. I’m just still gradually adjusting to life here. It’s all a little different, and that’s part of the fun of living abroad. As long as I don’t get the essentials mixed up. Like queueing wrong. Or suddenly do a “Drop, Cover, and Hold On” when someone in Lululemon leggings approaches me.
