Canada vs. Finland
We’ve been here now for 9 days and so far it’s been excellent! I started work this week, which has been really fun. I still haven’t got my ID or access cards sorted but hopefully I’ll get that all figured out by the end of the week. Our group works at the chemical engineering department and a whole bunch of us are in the same office – I’m not actually officially seated in that office but have taken up camp there until HR sorts out a more permanent solution. Seating space at the department is sorely lacking so getting asigned a spot is not as easy as you would think. My first couple of days at work felt like I had maybe taken on more than I can handle, but as the week has gone by I’ve realised that although the working culture is different than it was at Aalto it’s just a case of learning the ways of the lab and jumping in head first. I’m looking forward to getting into the lab and starting up on our project. One thing here that is a bit of a shame is that there is no common lunch break or coffee breaks. Most of the people will quickly heat up their lunch that they have brought from home in the microwave in our office and then sit at their desks and eat while watching an episode of some show or other. Coffee breaks are just as random as lunch, they aren’t really breaks at all since people will just go to the coffee shop and grab a take-away coffee and go back to their desks. One of the other girls in our group and I are going to try and implement a coffee break at least once a week!
We’ve noticed some other things which are weirdly different here compared to back home:
1. Coffee – If you think Finnish people drink alot of coffee, we have nothing on the Canadians! It’s incredible how many coffee places are on the McMaster University campus alone. But the staple of the Canadian coffee culture is Tim Horton’s, it’s virtually impossible to pass a group of people on the street without at least a third of them holding a red, take-away coffee cup. The coffee is super good though and they also sell doughnuts, so I am really happy there is a Tim Horton’s across the street from the chemical engineering building. Also, during certain times of the year they have a ’roll up the rim’ compaign where you literally roll up the rim of your take away mug to see if you have won a prize!
2. Beds – The day after we got here, the first thing on our agenda was a trip to Ikea to buy some proper blankets! To our utter horror, the blanket provided by the apartment we’re staying in was one which was meant for both of us, and as you can probably all imagine a single blanket for the two of us is an absolute nightmare! But not only do they sleep here with only one blanket per bed, the bed is made up of the sheet covering the mattress, then a second sheet under which you are supposed to sleep and then a throw blanket on top of that! So yeah, that wasn’t going to happen! So we bought two real blankets and made the bed with our Moomin sheets and we were good to go! Apparently though the second sheet is not to every Canadian’s taste, so there’s still hope 🙂
3. Milk – This is probably the weirdest thing here! You buy milk in sets of four milk bags and each bag has a liter of milk in it. Then you get a hole in the corner of the bag and place it into a pitcher, which is specially designed for the bags. Otherwise we find the bags really handy, but we had to buy a pitcher with a lid because we didn’t want fridge smells getting into it.
4. Cheese – Cheese here is ridiculously expensive and the cheese that isn’t, looks like it might actually glow in the dark!
5. Sorry – Canadians apologize for everything! If you’re having a bad day or have a bad experience and you tell someone here about it, they will apologize. If you’re in the shop and someone passes you in the aisle, even if they haven’t gotten in your way or even close to you, they will apologize. But it’s not as annoying as you would think, it actually comes off as very polite! But in general people here so really polite. Everyone says hello and smiles when they walk past, everyone thanks the bus driver when they get off the bus, cashiers will make conversation along with strangers in shops. It’s been a bit of a culture shock, but in a way it’s nice since we don’t know that many people here yet having someone to talk to other than each other is kind of nice!
6. Traffic rules – There are some cool things here that we don’t have in Finland. Here, when you’re at a red light you can turn right as long as you check that it’s safe to go. This one took us a while to figure out! There’s also intersections where every direction has a stop sign, and the first to be allowed to go is the first to have stopped – this was kind of confusing to start with as well! But then you have the school buses that you have to watch our for and never overtake or drive past when it’s lights are flashing because the kids are getting out.
7. Size does matter – Here, the more you buy, the less you pay. It’s the same everywhere in a way, but here it’s really obvious, for example a two pack of soap cost almost the same as a four pack. Hopefully our apartment will have a big pantry so we can buy everything in bulk!
It’s getting late so that’s all for today.. We’re going to see a couple of apartments on Friday and hopefully we will become new residents of Port Credit, Ontario as soon as possible!
-Elli