Yes tacklehappy, absolutely.. Pertaining to me being here, and I truly don't want to hurt anybodies feelings, I lived in Vancouver for 7 years prior to departure and swore I will never come back here. Vancouver just doesn't agree with me. But circumstances brought me back a few times for a short period of time, and the last recent arrival which was supposed to be a very short passing by, turned into sort of forced stay. Just five days after arriving from one of the safest country in the world, I went to a pub for dinner and a few pints. Someone slipped 'something' in my drink and I lost not just all my documents, but also thousands of photos including those from my first visit to see my country and place of birth, and my extended family after 27 years. If I told you how long and how difficult is to get even a simple ID again here you wouldn't believe, and you can't even find a place to live or work without one.
There is a happy twist to this though - my motorcycle license once taken away from me by the government because I was two weeks late to pay the stupid 40 bucks at the time, I got it back when issuing a new one after having all my ID's back! Anyway, I've had some great times here, but overall the bad outweighs the good. It's difficult to express your opinion here and make friends. People seems to live away from each other. There is no community feeling unless superficial screaming together at a hockey, football or a baseball game, and I have zero interest in all of them. The overall attitude is to shut up or leave. Not much space for constructive criticism and growth. It's not favored here to express your emotions, people seem to not know how to deal with it. Except for aggression when it explodes, often alcohol inebriated, in the most inappropriate places and times because of being bottled up for too long. Too much about the money grab here. But, unmistakenly, despite the rain the weather is the best here in comparison! Little snow says it all to me! And, the second point in the top three is - fresh cheap sushi! Now, I have to think hard of the third one... hahaha Well, enough before I'll be accused of being a Vancouver basher and told yet again to get the F out of here. So, for the weather, winter bike riding and sushi, despite the high gasoline prices - I am willing to compromise for now.
It's hard though not to be political and it could easily start with these outrageous gas prices! And they were supposed to go down because of the crude oil price drop, with food prices along it due to the cheaper cost of transport. That lasted about a week. Lots of food prices are 20-30% higher then three years ago. The price of gas is just the top of the mountain, followed by cellphone plan prices and so on..
I will stop it here though ending for now with a screen-shot of someone's comment on the internet (which I just read this morning).