Hello everyone!
So last semester (september till January) I studied in East-side Canada. It was my first time traveling that far. I've never been outside Europe (except Marocco) before so it was definetly a new experience that I would like to share with you.
Small disclaimer: These were my experiences living in Canada. Yours could be different and you can disagree with me and that's okay. Leave your experiences in a comment so we can discuss. I'm not trying to offend anyone, so I'm sorry if I did accidentally offend you.
1. Strangers talk to you everywhere about anything. Public transport, supermarket etc.
So I remember I first arrived and I was still in an Airbnb and we just went to the supermarket to get a salad. There was this guy randomly saying to us when walking to the exit: 'A salad is so healthy for you!!'. In the Netherlands, that NEVER happens, except if the person is on drugs or kinda crazy so at first I thought 'wtf weirdo', but soon enough I learned it happens a lot in this country. It was both really nice since sometimes you get to know some cool people, however, sometimes you just wanted to listen to music alone and not talk to people and do your thing and these people don't really get that.
2. The recycling system doesn't make sense and nobody understood it
So in the Netherlands, you have different bins for everything. Plastic, cartboard, glass, batteries, PET bottles (handed in at the supermarket), textile etc. In Canada, you have 1 bin for all recycling material, however, NOBODY knows what is supposed to go in there. Should I put my beer bottles in there? Isn't there a special bin for glass? Where am I supposed to hand in the batteries? I lived in Canada for 5 months and still didn't get it. Maybe I'm an idiot, but everytime I asked a Canadian, they couldn't answer me either. Also, if it's all not seperated, when will it be seperated? Isn't everything contaminated then?
3. Canadians are friendly and sometimes extraordinary helpful, but sometimes not at all and won't tell you if they don't want to help you
So this is something I found quite frustrating. A lot of things they say, they don't actually mean in the end. So if someone says 'Let's hang out sometime!' and you grab your agenda to pick a date, people will look weird at you and if you have picked a date, they'll often cancel last minute. Now about the helpfulness, sometimes a person will offer you ride and help you with everything, but sometimes they don't even want to answer a question. Very strange. Also if they don't want to help you, they don't tell you, so for example I had this classmate and was talking about a course she used to be taking. She offered me her book at the time, but didn't think I would need it so I refused. Later I did found out I needed it, so I asked her again and she was like 'I don't have it anymore, but my friend in another class does have a pdf, so look up her first name in the class register of this particular class, send her an email and ask for the pdf'. For me this was so strange, because normally in the Netherlands we either say 'sorry I don't have time' or help you until we are sure you get what you need.
4. Clubbing was really fun and house parties everywhere, but everything started so early!
There were so many house parties and I really enjoyed them. I normally study in Amsterdam and the student housing in Amsterdam is just somewhere within the city and often very small, so house parties are not very common, however, in Canada there were whole student neighbourhood and people living in an actual house together, so it was perfect for house parties. Sometimes it got stretched out to the streets and a whole party was going on in the neighbourhoods. Unimaginable in Amsterdam. The clubs were also super fun. You had all types of clubs like western clubs or karaoke, however, everything closed at 2 am, so you had to start predrinking at 10pm or so. It was really awkward at times, because I tend to take a nap before clubbing normally and now it was not really possible without rushing. In the Netherlands, clubs close around 4/5 am so you enter the club at 12/1 am, which gives you enough time, but makes you very exhausted the next morning.
5. University was very school-like with a lot of little rules and obligatory hours
In the Netherlands, there are not a lot of obligatory hours in uni. Normally it's your responsibility to know the stuff you need to know for exam. In Canada however, you have a lot of tutorials where you have to self-reflect and all that type of bullshit. You have to write these essays about absolutely nothing. It all felt kinda useless to me, but it might just be what I'm used to. Something that was really fun about the uni there were all the sport teams and the solidarity between the students. Everyone was proud to study there and showed it off by wearing the merchandise of the university. While in Amsterdam, you're kinda lame if you actually wear university merchandise. We also don't have university sport clubs. Only sport clubs if you belong to a student club.
6. Canadian fashion (at least from what I've seen) is particularly bad
So when my parents came to visit me in Canada, Canadian fashion kinda became an inside joke. Canadian fashion consists of wearing leggings, hoodies, sweatshirts and sweatpants. Kinda like you're having a very lazy day at home or going to sleep. I even saw some people wearing a onesie or fluffy slippers to uni. In the Netherlands, that's not really considered very acceptable to wear to uni. You're allowed to wear it ofcourse, but you will be considered sloppy and people might ask you if you had a rough night or something. If I wear a sweatshirt to uni, my mom asks me if I should really wear that lol. This resulted in me being always overdressed at uni, because I normally wear pantalons with a woolen sweater in winter or something. In contrast, when going clubbing the Canadians normally go ALL OUT. They wear anything braless, lacey and showing lots of skin with hours of doing makeup before. In the Netherlands, you normally wear something you were already wearing, but with a top instead of a sweater. So jeans with nice top.
7. SO MUCH BEAUTIFUL NATURE
So coming from a country where it's flat for the majority and the density of people so large, there's hardly any nature to be seen. Thus going to a country like Canada was a bit of a shock of how much beautiful nature there was to be seen. For my introduction camp, we went canoeing in Algonquin park. It was a lot of fun, seen so many beautiful sceneries and wild animals.
8. The men were very direct in their flirting and also very courteous
When clubbing, at 1 night I could have at least 5 men asking for my number. Normally it was done by walking up to you, having a little small talk and asking directly for a number. This was a big shock for me and at first I didn't even know how to respond so I just gave all these men my number, because I felt intimidated and then just never text them (sorry guys). In the Netherlands, for me it's very uncommon to have any guy just walking up to me and take initiative while clubbing. stand alone asking for my number. Maybe it's because I might look a bit more exotic in Canada (although I don't think I looked that off there), but I think it's also because in the Netherlands guys are a bit more reserved when it comes to flirting and more done by indirect communication like looking and touching. When going on a date it's also very different. In Canada the guy will pick you up with their car, no matter how far, and pay for everything. They make your life easy for you. While in the Netherlands, most guys will ask you to travel by yourself or invite you to their house (even if it's the othr side of the country) and split the bill. I don't mind it that much, but it was an interesting change to see a guy put so much effort in the first date already.
So these were the things I could come up with. Maybe I'll add more later if this was fun to read for ya. Ask me anything, leave your experiences of exchange/living in another country/Canada below. Please keep everything polite since this was just a bit of fun and not ill-intended.
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