Greg (Gravel Puzzleworth etc) is MOVING TO TORONTO, probably.

Enjoy!

There's a place in the Kitsilano district of Vancouver called Sushi Sushi where you can get the notorious Veggie Combo #4 which includes a large tempura yam roll, avocado maki, and two pieces of inari -- all very delicious, for $6CAN.

http://www.arthurhungry.com/pictures/jan04/phobichnga2.jpg

Also, Toronto has ABIGAIL LAPEIL who I will marry.

Toronto -- LOTS OF ASSHOLES, but culturally more varied and more vibrant, and it's not even close.

(my "snobby" comment should just fit under the umbrella of "everyone in T.O. is an asshole")

The weather is moderate, true, but that means that instead of really cold weather and lots of snow, it just pisses down with rain for 6 mo. straight.

Culturally, we aren't nearly as diverse as Toronto in terms of the 'old world', as in there's no real greek village, big italian district, etc. but we do have huge asian communities of various sorts, and Pho Bich Nga! It's a tradeoff, of sorts.

My warning is that the olympic games will be held here in 2010, and I'm already sick of hearing about it. There's going to be 5 more years of civic bellyaching in all directions over the stupid thing, so you might want to move here in 2011, and campout in TO for the time being.

It's still fairly easy to get across the border from Canada, but they keep talking about making it harder(biometric passports, retinal scans, whatever). At this point, things are really discretional. The border guards can pull you over and put you through hell if you look at them sideways, but they're just as likely to wave you through with a smile.

I'll add too that the cost of living is absurdly high in Vancouver, and rents are a bitch. Your city experience, as per usual, will really depend on where you live. Yaletown vs. Commercial drive vs. Kitsilano vs. Mt. Pleasant vs. West End vs. Marpole, etc etc.

Vancouver is a lot less about hockey than Toronto, I believe, which may factor into your decision.

(x-post)

The phrase "all you can eat sushi" breaks my brain.

Once upon a time, in a faraway city called Toronto ...

... and they all lived happily ever after in their $900/month bachelor apartment in downtown Toronto.

THE END

Why don't you go to Scotland?

interesting!

Starry you are mental and shall receive postcards.

I am worried about this red tape thing, I'm visiting the canadian embassy in an hour or so I'll know more then.

(Also, how snobby? I'm not clear what "snobby girls" actually means, I don't think we have them in the UK but they are in American songs a lot)

I don't know about Canadians but the following usually applies to me:
my quietness/shyness (and the fact my mouth turns down when not actually smiling) is invariably interpreted in the US as being snobby or stuck-up. In the UK however, people seem to read this as "reserved" and not as the affront that Americans see. But maybe reserved is the polite way of saying snobby or whatever.

One of those 'you are graduate now, we rub off your conscienced edges and make you CORPORATE HO'

I'm not even going to go there.

But what we need is Rob, Julio and Chuck to chime in for ILXors who've down both the UK and Toronto.

Greg, I say you go with your original choice of Toronto. The best part is, though, CAMP COUNSELORING COMING UP!

Hey, I never said it wasn't a great city. Everything I wrote is true. Nobody is refuting the stuff I wrote, and I doubt anybody will. This is Toronto's reputation.

any sushi thats "all you can eat" can't be any good!!

ive only been to toronto and montreal, and all i can say is that montreal has great parties and great drugs. and funny accents

-- rent is ridiculously high
-- the city has a reputation for being unfriendly
-- we have no mountains
-- culturally, we fucking rock

Irrefutable.

re: Vancouver - another great city but there were things that bothered me about the place. The crack heads for starters. The (small variety of) bars close too early there and the public transit really pissed me off. But if you want drugs that's the place to go - I was handed some mdma on the street once just for lending a guy change for the sky train. I spent a lot of time at the coffee/weed shops there but Toronto has one now too. It also rains too much and never gets warm enough in the summer.

re: Montreal - If I could only recommend once city this would be it. I can't get work (in my industry) there because my french is le shit. Awesome girls (hottest in Canada) - cool bars - good bands and films. Low rent and not too far from Toronto (5 hour drive). It snows more there too.

re: Getting into Canada - is a total bitch. My brother's wife went through hell to get into here (from Seattle). It will be much easier if you have a job lined up and the proper credentials to be in whatever industry. Once you're here tho, even if you're not supposed to be, they're very lazy about kicking people out.

I've never heard a bad word about Halifax, either (but I've never been there, or anywhere in Canada east of Quebec for that matter).

Thanks in large part to the province of British Columbia, the Canadian weed industry is larger than the Canadian beef industry (about $7B vsv $4B). So if you want to be in the thick of the weed industry, Vancouver's your place.

Halifax and Montreal are great cities. The weather is a bit harsh but the major draw back is jobs can be a bit hard to come by if your an anglophone in Montreal or anyone in Halifax.

any sushi thats "all you can eat" can't be any good!!

But it was. In the middle of the Agincourt. Our host could have been the talk show host from Lost in Translation. You ordered things off a subset of the menu and they may or may not show up in a few minutes.

Seattle is maybe 3 hours away, Portland closer to 8. It's a really easy trip to make.

Yeah, Vancouver is swimming in pot, it's an open secret everywhere, and we've got a mayor now who couldn't care less, which is really nice. We've had a few pot cafes, too, incl. one that lasted for almost 6 months, openly selling pot over the counter. We've got a real crackhead problem in the downtown eastside(and spreading, with gentrification), but they'll mind their own business if you mind yours. We've got a safe-injection site, finally.

The best and cheapest place to live in Vancouver is Hastings-Sunrise, where you can get a decent one-bedroom for as low as 540 per month, with great bus routes and wonderful grocieries, etc. To live in the West End(with gay guys and korean students) will be closer to 900, on Commercial(with the hippies) will be between 600-800 probably. Kitsilano is about 900 too.

Our transit isn't great, and is downright embarrasing compared to Toronto's. If you live on a transit corridor, though, such as Hastings or Main or along the Skytrain line, you'll be fine.

But you should totally go to Canada, if you can (gay marriage with Rob B perhaps for handy visa fast-tracking??). And (with my newly restored relationship with my sister equalling free trips to Toronto), I can visit you whenever! Yay! Win win for me.

why i am asking: i have been wanting to move to a city [prolly chicago] but HOW DO POOR PPL PAY THE RENT. where do all the waiters and construction workers and other mystery-ppl live? some ghetto someplace? sorry not trying to hijack the thread its just that I DONT GIT THE REAL WORLD/"THE REAL WORLD". are wages just exorbitantly high (ie what might pass for humane, anywhere else in the world)? or is the keyword here "roomates"? because ew.

sry if that's all already been answered.

re driving: you don't have to wrry about it right? there is magic mass transit to fulfill all your a-b needs! plus driving around in cities...i don't know how ppl do it.

#1: Get a job beforehand. (I have no idea how I would do this and also I would have to choose a locale so this seems out, really) AND
#2: Turn up with yr Brit six-month visa, find a job and apply for a permit from there. The woman at the bureau sort of implied that this was something humans often did pretty succesfully, I think this is Plan A for now.

"Oh, I wasn't saying 'knock knock' to start a joke. I was saying it as a call to the Other". (This neatly summarizes everything awesome and awful about current roomie)

I hear this a lot about the handsome women of Montreal. What makes it so?
I've wondered myself. I think it could be from the orgy of genetics that resides there.

several xpost

#844398593: rest of the world
#3: Montreal (much with the beautiful)
#2: Toronto (not quite as much with the beautiful but more with the cute which latter over former, for me, personally)
#1: Georgia (I am not sure what to make of this)

#1: They seem less reserved about showing LUV than Londoners, though I guess that's true of almost anywhere?
#2: IN EIGHTEEN MONTHS I WILL PROBABLY HAVE SEEN NEKO CASE LIVE OMG

I'm not into noise, really, Dog Latin played me some BOREDOMS and I liked it but that's it. Will the canadian frailindiepop/singersongwriter thing still be going in a year? Right now it is very awesome.

why roomates suck: i am crazy and they get inthe way.

i only look ppl in the eye when i am staring them down, transfixed by them or lusting after them. well isn't that normal?

Yeah, #2/Plan A was how I'd expect this sort of thing to work.

We've got some super-good bands here, just not enough good venues :(

when the Bosnian refugee my family had living with us when I was a kid emigrated to Canada, she didn't have a job before they let her in. And she was a sullen goth, too. Maybe they just have lower standards if you're going to Québec, also it was like nine years ago.

I have relatives in Vancouver, it was lovely when I was there but apparently it rains 300 days a year.

i should clarify, Vancouver itself is only about 600,000 people, but the suburbs of North Van., Burnaby, Richmond, Surrey, Coquitlam, New West, and Delta bring the pop. up.

My grandmother claims that French Canadians universally hate Brits, hm.

And you're basically otm about Camden vs. the rest of London imo.

http://users.ox.ac.uk/~wadh1786/picture095.jpg

I really need to go and see the careers advice people at uni when I get back up there, apparently they're really really good so hopefully it'll be all "Canada, eh? Hm, old Alfie Wilkinson-Symthe went out there, knew him at Harrow, he might like the cut of your jib", etc. Can someone here shout at me if I haven't done this in the next couple days?

There seems to be some sort of BUNAC Work Canada that I should possibly look into as well, I'll ask them about that too.

Yeah, Toronto is the Canadian version of NYC or LA in that way. Everybody from those cities thinks they're the best thing ever, and everyone else wants them to fuck off.

I think the French Canadians merely hate everybody who isn't French Canadian. Including the French French (the dislike certainly exists in the reverse direction).

Yes, I think the Canadian *perception* about Toronto is like the American *perception* about New Yorkers. But New Yorker spend a lot more time bragging about how great NYC is than Torontonians brag about their city.

Goose Bay, actually.

Gander is in Newfoundland.

Pretty much. If you grow up in Labrador, you move to either Goose Bay or Lab City before you go anywhere else in the country.

sooooo, you wanna move to toronto, eh? hmmm. interesting. i've gone the opposite direction (toronto -> london), and having just spent a month there (my longest visit in over 2 years) i've come to some conclusions about my former home and canada:

1. i still love toronto, but i'm not sure i would live there again. now keep in mind this is coming from someone who felt like he had seen everything the city had to offer, and had personal-change/lust-for-adventure reasons for leaving town as well. anyway, being back in the city again was really weird. granted, december isn't the ideal month to absorb lasting impressions of toronto... anyway, it felt like the city was just one giant condo market for yuppies, with every store being geared towards condo-lifestyle accessories. if you're not a condo-yuppie, you're some sort of on-the-fringe hipster with big pants, tattoos, and can do wicked graf. (stupid gross generalisation, sorry). i know i have the option of going back there, and i won't feel bad if i do, but right now it's lower on the list. i actually noticed the no-eye-contact thing for the first time! but personally speaking, the city didn't really blow my skirt up. HOWEVER, since you've never lived there, this might be mostly irrelevant (same goes for other random belly-aching upthread). you will probably love all the different ethnic parts of the city, and love the fact that pretty much anything you want from any possible scene is there in some form or another, and it's a helluva lot easier to navigate around than london. yes, it's still a big city, but the 'cool stuff' is much more centralised. you really can't go wrong there - it's a 'safe' option, since there is the widest variety of possibilities, both for work and social opportunities. just stay away from the suburbs, kid. this whole thread is a pretty good guide, although i'm personally feeling thermo's comments are the most OTM.

2. montreal is pretty cool. my folks lived there for 8 years and i spent some time there, so i have some authority on this, but not a lot. i can honestly say this would be my primary canadian 'city' recommendation to outsiders, provided they are willing to learn some french, or at least embrace the french. there is a great vibe there, and from what i'm led to believe, the city is starting to pick up a bit (it has typically sufferred from a poor economy/bad unemployment/etc). there is a great bar/restaurant scene, and all the gigs are generally better than in toronto (people actually dance and have fun - probably due to the fact that all the music 'industry' types, i.e. fun-haters, are in toronto). the attitude is much more laid-back, and generally speaking, the city is more 'interesting'.

3. i don't know much about vancouver, but that would be your best bet if you want a more postcard-canadian existence - the mountains, outdoor activites, etc. if you don't give a rat's ass about that stuff and want a cool 'scene', van is OK, but you'll find more options on MTL/TOR.

4. i don't shit about the rest of canada. except kingston, which is nice. and flin flon. but you don't want to go there.

soooooo... there ya go. i think overall you'd be fine in toronto. yes, there are a lot of snobby hipsters there, and many of the complaints upthread are valid, but you have one huge advantage - YOU ARE A FOREIGNER! you will have a funny accent and therefore people will be more likely to open up to you and you will probably have a lot easier time meeting cute girls (you bastard).

i'm happy to offer more bull-headed, potentially useless or misleading advice if you want - just shoot me an email. or better yet we can talk shit at the next FAP (i'll be having a farwell-to-london one soon).

jn wllmz is graduating i think. i'm not. we're the only noize dudes in rochester, though. it's not nice here, don't visit.

Caitlin :( I wanna play MTG and win lotteries :(

Tomorrow less coffee and careers dudes and mail Rob.

Kim - indeed, I heard the sad news about Lino's. I was quite a patron of theirs. Late-night drunkeness will never be the same... And even though it was not as good as Bubba's, I loved their poutine!

Gravel - sure, email me! I'm online sporadically, so I might be a little slow to reply...

They were useless when I went to see them. I always thought they were only good for PPEists who are going into the city for high ranking jobs when they graduate.

I told the guy what I was studying (engineering), some vague ideas about what I want to do (trying to promote science to the general public, maybe teaching) and the bloke suggested that I might be interested in Logistics! It's like he didn't hear what I had to say..

Things I learnt:
#1: Yr best hope of finding stuff here is to e-mail alums who've moved there (this was said to be in a SECRET VOICE, like "TELL NO-ONE ABOUT THE MASONIC OXBRIDGE CONSPIRACY" etc), I now have a page to do this from. Applying for stuff is gonna be really tricky because of the "no Canadain can do this" blah.
#2: There is a funky test where you answer QUESTIONS about yr Canada-worthiness and you get a permanent visa if you pass it! Also the test got easier in 2003. However it is all "do you have family there" rather than "how many players on a CFL team" unfortunately. HOWEVER, there IS a section on "do you have a vaguely posh degree" apparently, so she said I can hopefully pass this if in a year's time I can ace the "so, your working-in-Canada experience, then" section.
#3: Going over there would be a good way to show employers I am SERIOUS, which is important. Also getting them to apply for a permit if I was the best candidate is something that'd work in like 75% of cases. Although she ws all "you might have to do casual work until you find something" which I don't really understand, surely it'll be harder to get a temporary visa for something more casual?
#4: "If you want to do training-type stuff, you could think about a summer job in teaching, maybe even Camp America or something?" Sweeeet, I feel almost competant.
#5: This could totally work.

You can't loose.

1 CAD is around 2 pounds.

It's actually the other way around: 1 pound is about 2 Canadian dollars. $2.2675 to be exact, at the moment. So things just got a lot cheaper.

a note of warning: the city gets really small really fast, and i think this is true of toronto moreso than other cities from what i see/hear.

welcome! (Soon)

Hm. How much do hostels cost? How possible is it to live in one for however long it'd take to find work, without turning up to interviews looking like a hobo?

I still need to e-mail Rob.

my partner, whose parents are british and travel back frequently, wanted me to let you know that in comparison, consumer goods are SO CHEAP in canada, even beyond the exchange rate.

i'm an american thinking of moving there. will i like it? should i go? will i find jobs? will i get bored? etc.

Knowing nothing at all about you I'd take a wild guess and say: Yes. Sure. Probably. And most certainly not.

for jobs i'd like to be in the cultural/non-profit sector, but i am flexible. it seems like there are lots of youngish people in toronto who do music related things and work part-time in not so serious jobs, and that seems like it might be nice to do for awhile too.

really though, i have heard they got tremendously better from where they started out w/r/t playing their instruments.

big time xpost!

Oh, The Weakerthans are playing for free at Habourfront on July 29 at 9:30pm. Show up around noon if you want seats.

I think the balance is currently tipping in favour of her moving to London rather than me moving to Toronto.

Whether she likes it in London is another matter entirely, of course. She's coming over for a week or so next month. I'm going to do my best to make it a happy experience for her, of course, but I suppose in the end it'll all come down to what work is available over here, cost of living etc. We'll see how it goes.

But if I have to move there so that we can be together then I will. Nothing matters more to me than that.

I do have an Oxford degree but am unaware of its "posh" quotient.

Also, I'm teaching a class while there - should I bring Tim Horton donuts or is there some other local preferred?