Truespark

My ideal night in the UK would be to have a few drinks with my mates, have a bit of a laugh and a joke, probably get something to eat, and then go home and chill out, would you say that this is the case in Canada or does the diversity of the place move you to try different things, do people hibernate during the winter months like in the UK, or do it come to life, I know Canada is a big diverse country so i am really narrowing it down to Alberta (Calgary), anybody got any memorable stories that makes ya think yea Canada was a good choice this is my life now?

Piccolo

sorry to interupt your forum but How do I start a new question???

Truespark

Hi Picollo

Just click on the box where it says new thread

Calgal

Hi - and welcome!

Go back to the Canada forum (where you clicked from to read this) and at the top you will see a small blue button with "New Thread" on it. Click, that, and away you go

Steve&Tanya

Stampede, nuff said

Alberta_Rose

Yup! Stampede f'sure!! That evening we spent round the fire-pit with our new friends then watching the Stampede Fireworks then singing back at the fire-pit ..... awesome!

In the winter .... hot chocolate with Baileys and good friends after a hard day at the slopes!

Judy in Calgary

For me Stampede was novel and fun for the first three or so years. Besides, even if you do enjoy Stampede indefinitely, it lasts for only ten days a year (thank God).

Calgary is like most other places in the world. It consists of people who have a variety of tastes. That said, in the summer months it is common for people to get together in each others' back yards and barbeque.

Some people like the outdoors. You might find those people hiking in the summer and skiing in the winter.

Some people like watching sports. Either they'll buy tickets to games (ice hockey, Canadian football or whatever) or they'll watch those sports on television.

Some people like symphony concerts.

You can find a variety of entertainment in Calgary. The one thing you cannot find is a true British-style pub, to which you can bring your children. The liquor laws here don't allow that. I'm not from the UK myself, but other members of this forum have stated disappointment that they have not been able to take their children along when they've gone out to pubs.

Although last night was not a typical night out for me, it was a typical night out for the people with whom I interacted. I volunteered as a cashier at Deerfoot Casino. I volunteered on behalf of Weaselhead Glenmore Park Preservation Society, which is a non-profit organization that strives to protect a wetland wilderness park on the southwestern boundary of Calgary.

When a non-profit organization provides volunteers to perform the functions of bankers, cashiers and chip runners at a casino, the organization receives a cut of the casino's profits. When an organization applies to volunteer at a casino, it has to line up behind the many other organizations that have applied for the same thing. Typically an organization is assigned a slot once every 18 months.

I have not yet heard what the Weaselhead got out of the casino this past weekend, but our earnings were in the order of C$70,000 on each of the previous occasions on which I did this. C$70,000 may sound like a lot, but when you realise the scope of the education program that the Weaselhead Society runs for school groups that visit the wetland park, etc., it's not much at all.

The Weaselhead Society is the only organization for which I do casino volunteer work. For several of my volunteers, however, this was one of four or five casinos they worked a year. Some of them worked casinos for the neighbourhood public (that is, government-[under]funded) school, some of them worked casinos for their children's ice hockey and soccer teams, and so on.

The man who was my shift manager last night and whose kids attend the local Catholic (government-[under]funded) school, recently worked a casino to raise money to replace the school's old and dangerous playground equipment. He told me that, on top of working a casino to raise money for the playground equipment, he also was going to participate in work bees in which he would do grunt labour that would help to keep the cost of the new playground somewhat reasonable.

That is the other side of the much lauded "Alberta Advantage" (low taxes).

The Pembina Institute, a respected and independent research organization, has determined that, while Alberta's GDP rose by 483% from 1961 to 2003, its Genuine Progress Index (GPI) decreased by 19% during that period. (The GPI measures not only economic progress but also quality of life issues such as the health of society and the environment.)

God help you if you get injured at work and if, as a result of that injury, you are disabled. Then you'll find out more about the Alberta Advantage than you care to know.

Sometimes people come on here and blame the members of this forum for being too negative. Other times they blame us for having rose coloured spectacles, extolling the virtues of Canada, and not providing a realistic picture of Canadian life that could have helped them to be better prepared for what they encountered once they got here.

I think the best thing you can do for yourself is to read through old discussion threads. Also use the forum's search feature if you want to find out about specific topics. There is heaps of information stored in previous threads. You will find a wide variety of opinions. I suggest you also read the Moving back to the UK forum. Finding out the reasons that people returned to the UK from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the USA, etc., is very instructive.

Hope that helps.

Edited to add some detail regarding the way in which casino volunteering works. When a volunteer organization is granted an opportunity to work at a casino, it provides about a dozen volunteers for each of four shifts over two days. On each day of the casino there is a day shift that runs from about 9.30 a.m. to about 6.30 p.m. and a night shift that runs from about 6.00 p.m. to about 2.30 a.m. So, over the two day period, the organization provides about 48 volunteers.

That is not counting the efforts of the people who do advanced work, such as submitting an application for a casino volunteer slot, phoning members of the organization and asking them to work a casino, asking for people to be on a standby list in case one or more of the volunteers cannot make it at the last minute, etc.

I would guess that, all in all, it takes about 60 volunteers to run a casino. If you divide the typical take amongst the number of people who did the work, you find that each person effectively earned between C$1,100 and C$1,200 on behalf of the organization. That is a lot more money than they could have earned from bake sales and the like. But still, when you break down the C$70,000 or so that an organization can expect to earn from volunteering at a casino, the earnings rate per person per hour is not as impressive as it first sounds.

Another thing to be aware of is that we are not always assigned Friday and Saturday slots as we were this time. There have been times when I've worked a full day at the office, worked a casino from 6.00 p.m. to 2.30 a.m., and then gone back to the office for a full day's work the next day. I did that for my son's ice hockey team when he was younger. That knackered me. If you think that some parents are doing that sort of thing four and five times a year to support their children's schools and sports teams, that's quite a big ask -- at least I believe it is.

windward

It's difficult to compare 'ideal' nights out but the best times I've had in Canada have run along similar lines to what you have written here. Stories to share come from Atlantic Canada though I'm afraid!!!

Spent one of my most memorable nights in Montreal beginning at a bar called Le Pistol (British, sometimes continental footie piped in to several TVs, great music) chatting with my g/f's mates/fellow uni students sipping Cheval Blanc (pale lager, like Hoegaarten if you've tried that) then heading out to the former Museum of Civilisation - now a casino (!) - and blowing $60 betting on mechanical horse races, drinking overpriced cocktails, and then entering into an argument with the coat check lady over whether or not it's appropriate to put pennies in the tip jar. Followed this up with a 2am stopover in an all night corner café just off Rue St Catherine, and between us had fried cheese n ham sarnies, hot chocolate, a decent burger and what purported to be the best Poutine in the city before heading off to bed.

It's certainly not my experience that in winter Canadians hibernate. I don't know how it goes out in the 'burbs or rural areas but downtown Montreal was always full of people through September, into November December time even in feet of snow. You have to bear in mind that they deal with snow a lot better than we do, gritters and snowploughs seem much more efficient, and in your major cities you'll often find they've built the amenities to counteract the inclement climate somewhat (vast underground malls, covered plazas with restaurants and bars etc etc).

Not the main reason I'm going out there but I've never failed to have a good night out. Always seem to bump into some underage Yank kids over the border to get smashed or find a great little pub/bar with its own microbrewery and great live music playing...

I will say that on your nights out, though you may end up missing the traditional helping of 'elephant leg' smothered in chili sauce, in general takeaway food over there is superior by several degrees of magnitude. You'll end up eating falafel, sushi, great and cheap oriental food, even better mexican, and maybe come across the odd faux 'british' establishment where you can sample their idea of what we eat. This is Fish and Chips mainly, so you won't dip out on your fish suppers at least

hot wasabi peas

I'm Canadian so I didn't really have a choice (though I'm choosing to move back from England). To me, my ideal night out is waaaay out, in the boonies where you can't hear any traffic, sirens, music, etc... and there's no light pollution so the stars are plentiful and clear. Lay back in the snow, in the grass, in the back of a truck... whatever, smoke a joint, share a bottle of vino or a few beers with someone you like and stare up into a million miles of wonderment and be 'wowed'.

--- sorry that is ideal, not typical!

koogar

Hey!! I went out for a night with you and I didn't get snow, a joint or even a truck to lie in. All I got was butch bloody cassidy flashin his tackle at our ethnic cousins.
Actually, it was a great night, but I just had to mention butchs exhibitionism again

Butch Cassidy

Can I just mention the rescuing of the runaway Cellphone?

hot wasabi peas

I'm trying decide which one of you scares me the most.