Canadian things that totally shocked my British partner
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- Опубліковано 20 вер 2024
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Recently I took my British partner to visit my family in Canada - and I never realised how weird Canadian culture is! Bagged milk?? Deer everywhere?? Let's chat about all the weird Canadian things that totally shocked my British partner! 🇨🇦 🇬🇧
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Hey! I'm Alanna - a thirty-something documenting my life as a Canadian living in England.
I share the ups and downs of an expat living abroad and what it's really like living in the UK. It's not always easy, but there's been so many wonderful experiences, too. I post a UA-cam video every Tuesday plus an additional video every Saturday on Patreon + YT Memberships. I also livestream every Wednesday and Sunday at 5:30pm GMT/BST on Twitch.
Alanna x
THE BIGGEST THING I REMEMBER ABOUT MY TRIP TO CANADA WAS THE HOW FRIENDLY THE LOCALS WERE AND I MEAN EVERYBODY, THEY WERE WONDERFUL
Perhaps that answers the question… wait staff in Canada is friendly because nothing else would be acceptable locally. In the southern US, unfriendly people usually aren’t hired as wait staff. Not fake, just a cultural expectation.
I'm sure you are among many who discovered that. I found that everyone says good morning to everyone they pass in the mornings. It's as though they feel they've let the side down if they don't. Nothing surprised me about Canadian culture but I had the advantage of being eased into it when I was in the army as I served in a unit that was an even split of British and Canadian. I enjoyed the company of the Canadians.better than the British to the extent that I spent more leisure time with Canadians.
As a Brit living inToronto I would definitely say customer service is not friendly. Humour is not the same !? As for wildlife, Skunks, Cyotes & Possums blew my mind and Dock spiders (!!) Turkey Vutures, Blue Jays & Cardinals.I agree with vast high blue skies.. What about Skycrapers, the Skydeck atop the C.N tower and the enormous highways with huge trucks & zillions of cars , eighteen lanes and nobody abides by any rules, especially when overtaking 😱 Niagagra Falls..Long country roads that go on forever. Lakes as big as oceans and flat countryside that stretches as far as the eye can see.. Giant harvest.moons and Indian summer vivid pink sunset skies..Kids playing street hockey. Brilliant vibrant Fall colours and the first sunny day after a big snowstorm when everything sparkles .Christmas day snow. Kids fearlessly ice skating & tobogganing. Minus 35C day in January.and a first Ice storm 🥶 Oh Canada, the Great North is different to Blighty alright 🩷🇨🇦🍁🏴🇬🇧
People are a LOT nicer when you are north of hwy 9. There's a big difference.
I ate moose chilli whilst out in Ontario. My sisters (who emigrated to Lindsay) had a friend that shot the moose and that meat lasted her all winter without the need for buying any. it was lovely, no fat on it at all.
Was also there on Canada day this year. It is so patriotic out there, everyone is proud to be Canadian. Flags everywhere, great country 👍🏻🇨🇦
Yes... moose is quite lean... need to add pork fat when making sausage.
As the Scot said when he saw a moose, "that'll make a hell of a hole in yer skirting board".
And if there are many of them, would they not be Miice, or maybe Meese?
"There's a Moose loose aboot this hoose"😂
@@stephenlee5929 I thought meese after she said it lol
Yes you can take food home in a restaurant,you only have to ask..
@@stephenlee5929 The plurals of "deer", "elk", and "moose" are "deer", "elk", and "moose", respectively. (However, "pronghorn" pluralizes as "pronghorns", possibly because it is not generally believed to be a type of deer at all.)
Immigrated into Canada 30 years ago from South Africa, not a day goes by that I am not utterly overcome with gratitude and joy of the privilege of living in this magnificent country, and the niceness and good manners are real, I live in the Okanagan British Columbia in a small town on the lake and have seen a moose ! ONCE walking along the road by the lake and off in to the stream, as well as beavers , osprey live here, we also have a bear sighting warning at the moment, and as Alana mentioned this is in the suburbs
I know what you mean about how genuinely nice and friendly Canadians are. I've been to the area you live and I agree it's a beautiful place but I feel that applies to the whole of BC.
I also emigrated from South Africa 30 years ago! I live in Muskoka and like you am grateful every day for the life I have here. People are polite and friendly. The countryside is magnificent. The town is clean and safe. I wouldn't live anywhere else.
You can tell from the little tip-offs in vocabulary that, having lived in the UK for 7 years now, Alanna uses. For instance, she now says "back garden", instead of the Canadian vernacular of backyard. The same goes for "loads" (UK), rather than "lots of" (Canadian). Interesting.
She used motorway instead of highway, also.
Come to Newfoundland and you'd think you were in Ireland. We don't associate with southern onterrible. We would sell it to the US for $1 if we could 😅
Our nanny was from the UK; we were friendly so I would take her grocery shopping in her retirement; she always said, ‘ do you know them? You seem to speak to everyone!’ 🥹
Loved my trip to Canada around Toronto, it’s amazing driving there at night. My wife described Canada as “America if the English did it”, we both loved every minute of it.
Haha! Just returned to Toronto from a trip to the UK and I miss the UK so much. Toronto is so dry and boring in comparison 😢
Eh the English did the US :) But it was a long time ago. But sure Canada does feel more English than the US. Probably because Canada was a British colony and Dominion until relatively recently. So you can still see the influence. Ultimately I feel like Canada is much more similar to the US than the UK.
@@nicktankard1244 Sadly the US was polluted by a load of Europeans :)
Glad you had a great time!
@@AdventuresAndNaps
I love your content. Regarding the flag poles, it actually isn’t a thing in Canada. Sure there might be one here and there, but their not that common. The town I grew up in didn’t have any and now as a 40 year old in Ottawa, there’s not a lot of them.
I’m not saying there aren’t any, just that there aren’t lots of them
I've been on birdwatching holidays in Canada and had a great time. I've been to New Brunswick, travelled from Calgary over the Rockies to Vancouver, and the north coast of some of the Great Lakes ending up at Niagara. But I haven't been anywhere further north. I'll take Canada over the USA any day, you guys are so much closer to British culture than the USA. Much more comfortable. Great birding too.
The thing about when we cheer and clap when (particularly staff) break a glass, we know they may not be having a great time of it and it is embarrassing so it's a way to make them feel better about it. it's hard to explain, it's like trying to get them to smile and know we are not all judging them harshly. The more people doing it the funnier and less awkward, it's all about getting through the situation with a bit of camaraderie WITH the person who did it.
Yeah, it's bad sitting in complete silence, knowing everyone's thinking you're a clumsy jerk.
I think this might be due, at least in part, to a perception of classism. Clapping at a server who drops something feels a little condescending and most Canadians don't want to be seen as intolerant, even if that's not why they clapped, so they avoid the behaviour to avoid being judged.
I was lucky enough to travel across Canada last year and I found the customer service really nice, it never felt fake, as in general everyone I met and interacted with in Canada were friendly and polite. And cannot wait to go back x
I am glad that you had a good time & I hope that you DO have a return visit with us in Canada.
To clarify the Milk in Bag story, milk sold in Ontario Canada are available in 1 litre and 2 litre sizes and are packaged in a wax/cardboard container if your family drinks a lot of milk it is more economical to buy the 4L in bags packaging
In the US lots of people know that they are buying two meals; one to eat in the restaurant and the other to take home to eat later. However, for people travelling this is indeed just a waste as you have no intention of eating the remainder for lunch the next day.
When I worked in a shop my philosophy was to smile at the customer ( especially if they are being a pain ) it confuses them and in confusion there is profit.
We used to have bagged milk delivered in England in the early 1970s; the company provided a blue jug to place the bag into, and it was very popular. Not sure when it was discontinued but it was available for at least five years.
@Hayleymo You can put the remaining milk bags in the Freezer......to save space in the fridge and to last,....take it out to thaw when your 'Jugged' milk is 1/3rd.....
As an immigrant from the UK, I lived in Saskatchewan for a few years. When I first came on to the Prairies, I was staggered by how flat it was in the South around Moose Jaw and the huge sky above me! Coming from the London Suburbs the difference was just phenomenal. It seemed as though you could see forever.
When I worked in Russia for Cadburys, the only other person who felt at home there was from Cadbury Toronto. The next hill being 2,000 miles to the East wasn't unusual for him.
As we say in Saskatchewan, Mountains are lovely, but they sure do block the view.
@georgedyson9754 Absolutely
My grandma was from the prairies and she said she felt claustrophobic whenever she visited us in BC. She couldn't see anything because the mountains were in the way. 😂
The friendliness of customer service people in Canada isn't always fake. It's a way to make the job more pleasant because otherwise we'd just be bored out of our trees.
This is becoming a meme at this point but people in general, are more friendly the further away from London, you get. This includes the customer service you get in shops, restaurants, cafes, petrol stations etc. While it's not in every case, it does seem quite noticeable, away from every big city, it's just nicer and friendlier.
I've worked in cafés, restaurants, retails and my smile wasn't fake. I liked talking to costumer. I liked helping them with the menu. How miserable one must be if they are in the serving industry and they never smile or have fun at their job? What's the point? Of course having a big tip is great! But smiling for 8 straight hours instead of being moody is way better imo.
I'm Canadian and my experience is that most of the waiters are not faking.
I live in Yorkshire and we have all those animals in our garden, apart from moose and racoons plus we have ducks, hedgehogs, herons, pigeons and a whole lot of other wildlife.
Yes we do. I have had deer roaming about in the garden here too.
There are many parks in London which have wild deer.
Same here, north of Salisbury Plain - plus buzzards, red kites and smaller birds of prey. The downside is the massive populations of gulls, driving out the ducks, herons and natural birds.
If you’re at a restaurant you can usually ask the waitstaff for a takeaway container. A restaurant will have it. Just not out in the open
Really? This is a Canadian thing? Can't get a 'doggy bag' in the States?
You can definitely get a l to go container at any restaurant in the US. It's only called a doggy bag because when restaurants 60 years ago began giving patrons something to put their leftovers in, many patrons would take it home and give their leftovers to their dogs.
The idea that bagged milk was introduced to adjust to the metric system is wrong. Bagged milk existed for several years before Canada went metric. Some people were upset when it changed to metric because a 4L bag contained less milk than a 1 gallon bag but cost the same, which was an example of shrinkflation.
The outer bag and the three internal bags are also recyclable. They all melt down to about one cubic centimeter of plastic, which is much less than a plastic jug. Jug milk and milk in waxed cardboard cartons are also available almost anywhere that milk is sold.
Bag milk is also packaged in virgin plastic, where as, Jugs are recycled by washing and refilling the jug again with milk by the dairy.
Not a problem unless the last owner of the milk jug used it to transport motor oil, anti-freeze, or some other noxious chemical.
Yes, we DID have bagged milk BEFORE metric. I forgot about that until you brought it up. Everybody goes around saying that it BECAME bagged BECAUSE of metric & I never mentioned anything because I had forgotten until you mentioned it.
About us getting less milk though...THAT was the WORRY, I remember. However when it came out, many people were relieved because we ended up getting a little MORE milk instead of less. (1 gallon = 3.78541 litres, so 4 litres therefore is MORE.) It is NICE when you end up getting a little MORE from a company instead of less. (It also is good public relations for a company & creates more satisfaction & loyalty to a brand too. Although when it comes to milk, MOST stores only carry 1 brand so it doesn't apply here & THESE days I think we have another fixing scandal yet to break, like with our breads, but that would be the grocery stores' fault & NOT the milk producers.)
@@Carrie-so3ro I'm in the countryside and my local grocery store carries at least 3 brands of milk so we can't complain about variety!
@@Carrie-so3ro Your right. Bagged milk became 4 litres, rather than 1 gallon, which is 3.78 litres. Bagged milk became the cheapest way to buy milk. Cheaper than buying the plastic jug (which also had a 25 cent refundable recycling charge) and cheaper than 4 X 1 litre, or 2 X 2 litre waxed cardboard cartons.
Unlike the paint industry that simply relabeled the 1 gallon paint can as a 3.78 litre can. Canadians still say; "I need to by a gallon of paint". LOL
The oddest thing in Toronto to me was that you have to go to a special government shop to buy alcohol, but you can get cannabis in pretty much every third shop.
The alcohol thing got me in Salt Lake City, Utah back in the 1980s - you buy your spirits in a miniature bottle from a government store and take it to a hotel where you order a glass and ice! And the miniature holds just a bit more than the legal drink/drive limit - go figure. Also, you can't transport bottles of booze if the cap has been opened.
That's just changed in Toronto and all of Ontario. Beer, wine and coolers are now available at corner convenience stores and gas stations. The LCBO (Liquor Control Board of Ontario) is still the only place to buy spirits, like whiskey, vodca, rum..etc.
@@chrisgraham2904 it hasn't really changed. All alcohol is bought from the gov't. The convenience and grocery stores have to buy it from the LCBO and Beer Store before selling to you.
My Wife and I spent just over a week at Niagara Falls in 2012 and loved it,
The people were very pleasant saying "good morning" as they passed you on the street, I always made a point of saying "thank you" to shop workers just so I could here them reply "your welcome",
I remember while travelling on a minibus in to town my wife developed a sneezing fit where she sneezed about 6 or 7 times and each time everyone on the bus responded with a "bless you",
A man in our hotel performed a perfect Dick Van Dyke impression for us to probably try and make us feel at home, it was a bit cringe really!
And even though we come from South London UK we got asked many times if we were Australian.
Just get away from London and go for a walk in or near a village or small town and you will generally get the same friendly approach from Brits.
@Thurgosh_OG Oh i don't doubt it, but I've been to many countries where this is not the case so it was refreshing to witness it in Canada, whether it was genuine I don't know, I suspect not really, just robot mode responses I suspect.
We just returned from a wonderful holiday in Canada - what struck me so surprisingly was that everyone seemed so friendly and helpful.
Ahh I'm so glad!! ☺️
@@AdventuresAndNaps Most Canadian reply 😊
The sky thing might have something to do with sight lines, in the UK it’s a small and consequently crowded country, there are always things in your sight line. In places like North America this is generally less so and consequently might feel overall larger giving the impression the sky is higher. There is also the inevitable low grey clouds in the UK!
Sorry Alanna, but I am Canadian and I find the performative niceties of service workers to be annoy as all hell. I've moved to the UK for nearly a year now and it is so much better to have people who will actually leave me alone unless I have a question. I don't need a server coming over after I've had one bite of food to ask if everything is okay. Either I'll eat the damn food or I'll get you attention to send it back.
There's always a balance. The guy who runs my local corner shop used to be morose to the point of ignoring me, barely muttering the amount for the stuff I was buying. Then a couple of months ago he changed dramatically. Now he greets me as I enter the shop, and even smiles. God knows what happened - maybe he went on some customer service course!
@@rogink Perhaps his wife had left him and that explained his behaviour?
The cheerful part, I mean.
@@rogink Small lottery win that helped his business?
I find in most UK restaurants they also ask if everything is okay while you're having your meal
@@koninkrijkc8559 Yes but only once during the meal.
Not all of Canada has milk available in bags. Anywhere west of Ontario does not. When I lived in Nova Scotia, we bought bagged milk. If it was on sale, we would freeze the bags. Then you took out one bag at a time, so you really can keep it much longer.
I have lived in 3 provinces, as well as 3 countries - USA and Switzerland. The best thing about Canada is the variety - many different places, many different peoples, cultures, languages, foods to try, and cultural festivals to enjoy all those things from every corner of the world. We really celebrate multiculturalism in Canada.
My sister married a Canadian and she moved to Hamilton, Ontario. The biggest surprise when I visited her there was seeing black squirrels. I had no idea there even was such a thing but it turns out they exist and there are loads of them in Ontario.
My home town. Black squirrels are the norm here I think, at least in my neighbourhood they are.
Billboards: Here in BC the rule is that billboards are not allowed within 300m of a roadway and the government reserves the right to remove any sign it deems unsafe, but First Nations land is federal so BC law doesn't apply. The result is that when you're driving near tribe-owned land there are billboards along the highway since it's good income for them, but everywhere else is clear.
There's usually no problem in the UK asking to take away the leftover food. But, as you say, we usually eat it all at the restaurant.
I think you might ask at an Indian or Chinese restaurant - but would you ask at one of those Beefeater style chain places?
@@roginksure, if you couldn’t eat it all. I’ve got a doggy bag from TGI Friday before. The reason it’s uncommon here is the portion size is sensible and it’s considered rude to not finish everything. When you are in North America they serve you a gutbuster.
The change to metric in Canada took place in the 1970's, not the 1960's. I remember as a kid in the mid-70's my mom would buy a large bag of 4 one quart smaller bags of milk, which equalled a gallon. I think the change to litres for milk was likely in the late 1970's. Just checked, milk switched from gallons to litres in 1980.
I'll mention that while the '70s is the official date, there was some movement before that. My father mentioned once that when he went to university he had to learn SI dating (YYYY-MM-DD) since it was the standard for the business program. I'm not sure if that was his undergrad (1957) or Master's (1961) though.
On the other side, I was born in the '70s and remember teaching myself most metric conversions in the early '80s because my school was still teaching Imperial and I was science-oriented and figured metric would be more useful.
@@cmlemmus494 I was born in 1964. We had a teacher in grade 6 (11 yrs old) who taught us the metric system, so that was in 1975-76. Different aspects of metric were implemented in different years. For example, highway and road speed limits and mileage distance signs were converted from miles and MPH to kilometers and KM/H in 1977, yet gas sales didn't change from price per gallon to price per litre in 1979. I believe temperatures given on radio and TV news converted from Fahrenheit to Celsius in 1983-84. It was a gradual evolution, one which, to be honest, I wish they'd never done.
I’m surprised how you repeated that customer service friendliness is fake. Workers are encouraged to be friendly but genuinely salespeople etc are nice because it makes the whole exchange more pleasant. It isn’t fake , it’s just extending courtesy.
I think I must have introduced my Yorkshire British husband to the most quintessentially Canadian life ever. He's a teacher and and we've lived on Baffin Island and seen polar bears, slept in an igloo when out on the land camping and had a skidoo instead of a car. After 6 years of that, we moved west to the Yukon and lived in a log house with occasional bears (yep even a grizzley)and sometimes moose, on the lawn! We've moved to the suburbs in the capital city of Yukon now and this week alone we had a beaver walk down our street, a bear on a neighbours lawn looking for berries, and always foxes.
Over our 40 years together we have lived for a few years in England...and never did I see the elusive hedgehog. But lots of ginormous slugs!😅
You just did another very Canadian thing too. We call it a skidoo no matter which company it was made by. Well, we used to, not so much anymore.
I normally have a pair of hedgehogs in my garden on a regular basis but not seen them this year.
@@NeilmacRory ha,ha...yes guilty if that. It was actually a Skandik.😉
The milk bags are a great idea tbh, always liked it. Reminds me when we used glass bottles that we used to have, they'd get picked up, sterelised and reused. You could take the empty glass pop bottles back to the shop ang get 10p back per bottle and they'd get re-used. Am sure many brits rememember the 'pop van' coming round too.
A 25yo friend of mine gets milk delivered daily in glass bottles today, no idea how it's profitable and affordable but fair play as it's great for the environment and for convenience
@@TheYorkRose some places have started again aye. local dairy farm does it and collects the bottles back, think they do 1l bottles rather than pints.
When I was a kid I lived in Sutton, Surrey. The school organised a trip to the dairy that I was really looking forward to because I thought we were going to the countryside but we ended up just around the corner from where I lived at the milk bottling plant, I was so deflated!
@@TheYorkRose I could get milk delivered in glass pint bottles, but it costs £1.25 per pint, they only deliver 3 days a week, and you have to do a subscription thing.
In Tesco, you get 4 pints for £1.45, or if you only want a single pint, it is 85p. If you want delivery, that costs extra, but you can get all your stuff in the same delivery, and they deliver 7 days a week.
@@TheYorkRose It's debatable whether glass bottles are really any more environmentally friendly. Apart from the cost of producing them, there's a cost involved in sterilising them for re-use, there's a high attrition rate, and they are also much heavier than a plastic bottle. This means you have to transport more dead weight for any given quantity of milk, which means less bottles on a lorry, ergo more lorries on the road, more fuel burnt, and more pollution. Properly recycled, plastic bottles may actually be the better option.
I’m a Canadian in Ontario have you tried describing how Canadians measure almost everything. Like how we tend to use both metric and imperial depending what we are trying to measure
I get what Alanna was saying about the feeling of the sky being bigger in Southern Ontario. I'm not Canadian but I had the same feeling when in 2017 , I went to Dallas, Tx for the first time to visit family friends for the first time. Yes though it's a cliché that everything is bigger in Tx , it goes beyond that. North Texas where Dallas/Forth is flat and closer to Oklahoma than El Paso. With Nor. Texas being flat, it does make the sky appear ever bigger
I sometimes get a visit from red deer in my garden. Foxes, badgers, rabbits, hedgehogs and all sorts of birds. I like the green woodpecker that announces his presence in early summer.
I'm in Ontario (eastern) and I've never heard of a table with take out containers. Sure, if you tell the server you want one, they'll bring one to your table.
In Calgary back in 1974, I saw a dragonfly that must have been about 8 inches (200mm) long with a wingspan about 1 foot (300mm). Sounded like a helicopter coming in to land. It was HUGE.
I have been to Canada once, Toronto in fact. I've been to a few places in the US, Australia, Europe and West Africa. Like all the places I have visited,loved every bit of exploring and seeing new places. I love the new experience and going somewhere new 😀👍😘
Spent a couple of months in Vancouver in the early 90s. I knew it would be new, but was surprised how much I noticed the lack of historical buildings, which I was just so used to, growing up in the UK. At the time I was struck by how many limousines there were (presumably for hire), the skunks, raccoons in Stanley Park. It was great experience, enjoyed the beach (despite the cop making us pour away our beer), the mountains, the crisp pine filled air. On a subsequent visit to Canada also went up into the Rockies, saw lots of Elk.
I'm British living in Alberta, but I spent many years in Ontario and I do miss the bags of milk. When you spoke about the sky I had to laugh, I always say the sky is so big and I always get the strangest looks from my British friends and family, I tell them I can't explain it and when I visit England I can certainly tell the difference lol.
Me too and I can honestly say I have not seen bagged milk in Alberta
Yeah it seems like this vlogger hasn't seen much of Canada. Almost everything described here is very southern Ontario specific.
I spent a couple of years in Canada in my ill-spent youth and the most shocking thing I discovered was Orange Cheese - and I'm not just talking about the Red Leicester. That's right, in Canada the cheese is orange coloured. The whole damn lot of it is a frightening glow-in-the-dark luminous orange. And they don't even have the decency to be a little bit ashamed. Oh the humanity!
They did sell bagged milk in the uk for a while. It didn’t really take off.
Still on sale so it did
@@chrisdorrell1 Still being on sale and taking off are two drastically different things :P
My local Costa get some of their milk delivered in bags, but you're right, I've never seen it on shelves.
@@billyhills9933 Cafes (in the UK) often get bags of milk but also often the bag is in an easy to open box for transport.
I remember bagged milk in the UK in the 1960's. It wasn't common and was usually milk sold from a vending machine, whereas milk delivered to the door was in glass bottles.
Glass bottles that had their content freeze and expand in winter making pretty shapes or the foil caps being punctured by birds looking for a free meal.
Jumpers for goalposts....
I remember bagged milk being delivered in the UK by the milkman around 1980. After a week or so that stopped presumably because so many were bursting on the doorsteps.
I was in Southampton & Portsmouth for 4 days last June. It was a week before the general election but I saw a total of 4 election signs. In Canada about 15% of homes would have a lawn sign and public areas would be festooned with signs.
The change to metric milk bags was awhile after the bags came out
We lived in Canada when I was 8. (Toronto & Stratford) Sadly Mum didn’t like it but I loved the short time we were there. People were very friendly and welcoming & I still remember much about it now, 57 years later! Learned to ice skate & played ice hockey & baseball at school, everything was so different to England in the 1960s. I really must go back. 😊
Yes, please come to visit/stay with us again. I am glad that you enjoyed it the first time around & learned some typical Canadian activities while you were here. Maybe you will have to come in winter & have another go at ice skating (if you don't do it in the UK)! You can rent them in some places.
While we would be happy to have you come back to Toronto - there certainly are changes, maybe you would also like to go to Ottawa & try your ice-skating feet on our longest ice rink - the Rideau Canal when it freezes over (& have a Beaver Tail [a PASTRY, NOT an actual beaver's tail, to anyone who I am about to make sick without clarification] at the original location next to the Canal.)
FYI, bagged milk was originally across Canada ( late 60's/70's) but only remains in eastern Canada. Mainly Ontario and Quebec, ( some north eastern US states apparently also), but.... the highest concentration of Canadians live IN eastern Canada, sooooo the majourity of Canadians are familiar with/ do use bagged milk!!!😊
I believe bagged milk is also something that happens in at least SOME of Atlantic Canada too from some Canadian comments I had seen from there before.
We were walking beside the St. Lawrence River near Montr with my Canadian cousin. There was, what we thought was a bicycle lane. My cousin suggested we sat on a bench and watch for a short time. After a while two ladies, who looked like pensioners came flying by at high speed, loaded with shopping, on roller-blades. Because so many people learnt to ice-skate they adapted that skill to roller-blading in the summer. Both amazing and hilarious to watch at the same time.
I agree about the sky being so high and wide. My brother did have a chipmunk climb up his leg on a trip into the woods. We did realise how small they were.
Great holiday though.
In the UK, milk is mostly sold in fairly firm plastic bottles with a screw-on cap with varying sizes (500ml, 1L, 2L, 4L). This begs the question - won't opened bagged milk go off faster than capped (but previously opened) milk?
With different sizes of bottles available in the UK, you can buy the sizes you need so you use it all before it goes off. With fixed-sized bagged milk, it feels like you're more likely to have it go off before you finish it, especially if you're not a heavy user (e.g. don't have cereal or drink a lot of tea/coffee).
Yes, the only benefit of bagged milk would be if you refilled a permanent container. I'm not sure even then if a plastic bag is any better for the environment - can it be recycled?
Those fricken bags always leaked! So no time go bad.
The individual bags are only 1⅓L, so they don't tend to be around for too long, even for a single person. It's also not like the full volume of the bag remains filled with air once some milk is poured out: they sort of collapse on themselves somewhat as you're pouring out the milk.
The 1⅓L bags are made of a quite durable plastic so they're quite useful for other things once cleaned out. In fact they're so durable (and factory-filled with the right amount of air in addition to milk) that you can drop one on the floor and most of the time it will survive... they sort of bounce and flop around a bit as the energy is dissipated. That's not something that's likely to happen with jugs or cartons.
@@rogink I remember quite a few years ago, Sainsbury's started selling milk in bags and then sold a plastic fridge jug you had to buy for £3 that came with a lid where the whole top part came off so that you could put the unopened bag inside the jug and then put the lid back on.
There was a smaller circular lid within the larger lid that you could lift to pour the milk from, after an internal sharp-edged tube on the underside of the lid would piece the bag once the main lid was snapped into place, allowing you to pour the milk.
This was handy because bar a little bit of milk making contact with the internal tubing, the milk was generally still inside the bag at all times and so when it was empty, you could just change bags and give the tube a wipe if need be and so it was very easy to clean.
It never really took off though, probably because people did not want to pay the £3 for the jug and maybe kept an old used container from milk that they had previously bought and would rinse and then pour the milk from the bag into it, so Sainsbury's suddenly stopped selling the milk bags.
Milk only comes in bags when you buy it four litres at a time (1.3l per bag). If you're buying that much it generally means you go through it far too quickly for it to have any chance to go bad. If you go through milk more slowly then you can buy it in 1- and 2-litre resealable cartons.
People in England talk about the 'big skies' in Norfolk because it's very flat and open there, so maybe that has a bearing?
As someone who was born in Norfolk & lived quite a while in the Netherlands, I LOVE big skies (especially at night). Down side with big skies is bitter cold winds in winter.
When we arrived here in Wellington NZ 50 years ago we thought the sky was higher too but Welly is owt but flat. Happen it was all the wind that blew it upwards.😂
"High Density Area" with a large backyard and pool. 🤣
My uncle lived in Toronto for most of is life and I did visit him there in about 1976. The one bit of exciting wildlife I saw was hummingbirds. I knew they only inhabit the Americas so it was great to see some in Scarborough.
We also lived in Strasbourg, France in the 60s and early 70s and I recall that we had milk in bags back then. I don’t think they still do though.
Great videos Alana -thanks!
Toronto is also known as the raccoon capital of the world. The raccoon population of Toronto fluctuates between 60,000 to 100,000.
Toronto raccoon can be giant size compared to their woodland cousins. Can weigh in up to 50 lbs. The raccoon scourge was bad enough that the City of Toronto spent CA$31 million on "raccoon-resistant" organic green-colored waste bins in 2016. Within 2 weeks, the first raccoon who mastered opening the new bins was recorded. They told all their friends how the bins open and now no bin is safe. LOL
Some things might be local to Ontario. Last year I was in Vancouver and Vancouver Island and I didn't think the sky was higher, and no-one ever brought or offered a doggy bag after lunch or dinner. I was told by others in my group that a difference is that Tim Hortons there puts 2 spoons sugar in your coffee automatically, whereas here they apparently don't - the first time I saw all the coffees going back and that was why. Well, that was one particular TH on the island, after, that they always asked for no or one sugar, so don't know what the default would have been in others. Several years back in Newfoundland, I noticed how many people had their state flags out - I think for the same reason as many people here fly Saltires. True story - in Newfoundland I was offered French Toast for breakfast and I said, "Yes, but without sugar, please". My fellow travellers looked at me like I was mad but I said, "In America, they sprinkle icing sugar on their French Toast", to their horror. The hostess however was not amused, looked at me over her glasses and said, "THIS is CANADA!". I found it quite intriguing to see what things Canadians do more in the American way and which are more in the British way.
I find it interesting as a Canadian to see our "in-between culture" too. I have witnessed Americans being completely flummoxed by some UK things that are COMPLETELY understandable or even done here as well in Canada. We do many things like the U.K., many things like the U.S., then we throw in some French things - OUTSIDE of Quebec even, the odd Indigenous thing & a little from other cultures here & there that have come here. Sometimes, we just make something up all our own - although mixing all of these things altogether I guess is a bit our own. (Ask us how we measure/weigh things/people & discuss temperature & you will find most Canadians are happy about our own unique mix of styles.)
Visiting Vancouver from England, me and my partner decided to walk from our hotel to the park. The was easy, and there were pedestrian crossings, but holy hell the width of the 6-lane road to get there was insane! Also black squirrels, wolves (nature reserve) Grouse Mountain ski lift, lumberjacks, giant trees (Vancouver Island) giant burgers (no complaints -1 meal a day is fine) having a party in a 'common room' at an apartment block, huge flat areas of land on the drive from Seattle (not me driving luckily) and yes...big sky...
A few things, I'm from Ohio and I've been living in Toronto for over three years now. I think the billboard thing you mentioned is actually unique to the drive south to Florida. When we would drive from Ohio down to South Carolina and Florida the number of billboards would go through the roof once you got to the interstate highways that service all of those beach vacation towns.
On the topic of people who work in various retail and service positions being friendly, I don't think it has so much to do with pay as it has to do with a broader cultural expectation of being cheerful, gregarious, etc. I've been told by British people that I have a sensibility about me that comes off as a little more British than most Americans (I'm a bit negative, dry, and sarcastic). But as I've gotten older I've consciously started behaving more like my North American peers and consciously started engaging in the broader culture of cheerfulness. It actually had the effect of making me happier, I think. Now I think the British are inflicting harm on themselves by overindulging in a culture of negativity, although... I guess it would be impossible for any one individual British person to change the nature of British culture at large.
A lot of Brits don't fly the UK or even the English flag because they're made to feel ashamed for doing so, or labelled racists for doing so. It's more common to see flags flying in Wales or Scotland, as they're not made to feel bad about it.
"Moose", like "sheep", is its own plural. The furthest south I have seen moose in Ontario is just north of Orillia.
I’ve worked customer service and have to say, the day goes a lot faster when everybody is having a good time. I grew up in the UK, largely assuming that North American ‘hospitality' was all fake, but it really isn’t. Some days workers might have problems or worries that are weighing them down, so they may have to flick a bit of a switch there, but really, whose people genuinely want everyone to be happy and have a good time, they take pride in it and enjoy a lot of the interaction themselves.
Food is relatively cheap, giving people more than they need is a good way of making customers not feel that the restaurant is skimping on them. And excessively large servings are often a way to bring in customers. When deciding whether to go out and eat or not, the deciding factor is quite often that you won’t have to cook the next day, or you won’t have to make lunch for work. In towns with Universities, there are always restaurants that use this as their business model. Often selling cheaper food like pasta, they will have lines running down the block, because students budget for one meal out and bringing enough home for two more meals in the week from what they bring home with them.
There is actually a small chain of Italian 'family restaurants' where I live that do some take out, but will not sell individual items. You can get pizza to go or delivered, but you have to buy two. Same with their pasta dishes, they do very well and I believe they manage the 'two item limit' because people just associate eating there with not having to cook the next day.
It's a show of camaraderie. Everyone feels flustered when they accidentally break something. It helps when others cheer, as it reminds you that it's just a bit of broken glass and it's no big deal. When it happens, and you look at the culprit, he/she usually 'breaks' into a smile as soon as the cheering starts.
"Sack the juggler!"
Judging by that thumbnail, Alanna seems to have got her boyfriend from Minecraft.
After a trip to Orangeville Ontario last month:
The price you see is not the price you pay.
Tips start at 15%
Beer stores have walk in fridge rooms so I froze picking up supplies.
Sheer amount of space, as Southern Ontario is actually empty.
Buying made in Britain wine gums that are not sold in the UK
Shops dedicated to selling British food.
Cars overtake in either lane of a dual carriageway.
Lack of courtesy from other car drivers.
Turning right on a red light.
Size of houses.
Houses come with basements.
Garages that cars actually fit into.
Roofs that only last 15 to 20 years before they need replacing.
How similar Canada is to America apart from the gun culture.
I lived in the town of the blue mountains and I can tell you Canadians aren't as friendly as they portray and as for getting paid spent so many hours in small claims court prizing money out of the cheap skates.
I have a Canadian partner & have visited many times. The bit about dining that I found weird was the different use of cutlery. Canadians would happily tuck into hot food like pizza, burgers, wings with their bare hands but then eat finger food like cake with a fork! I had a couple of times where I was sat in a restaurant with either a burger or bowl of wings & after several minutes the server came to ask what was wrong & I had to explain that I was waiting for the cutlery!
Glass milk bottles delivered daily by a milkman was the best way to have fresh milk and it's making a comeback in some parts of the uk.
A regular milkman in your neighbourhood reduces crime.
I’m a duel national (British Canadian) as such I find nothing weird about either country.
I also happen to live in the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire, we have all the wildlife you mentioned and wild boar. While on a trip to Newfoundland we saw plenty of moose.
I don't buy bagged milk anymore so I just use the old bag holder to water plants. :)
Just as well there are no moose - "Mynd you, møøse bites Kan be pretti nasti... " [Monty Python and the Holy Grail credits]
You didn’t have to explain it for me (but I’m old).
@@robertpearson8798A møøse ønce bit my sister...
@@rthompsn2007 Careful or you’re going to get sacked.
I went to Canada last year and explored Toronto and surrounding areas. I was surprised by the variety and size of the trees. There were so many Black Walnut trees and the squirrels are black in Ontario.
Hiya Alanna, we've put a bird feeder on our kitchen window, we've got all kinds of birds living in our bush at the end of the garden, its great to see when its feeding time, sometimes I put bread on the conservatory they feed the seagulls, that's pretty good fun aswel, when my sisters dogs are here, they go crazy, this is Choppy
Travelled through Ontario from Niagara Falls to Walpole island/Algonac a couple of years ago. We stopped at a Taco Belle where another customer kindly pointed out that I’d dropped my wallet! And then when we stopped at a gas station, two strangers were engaged in the friendliest conversation, of the like I’ve not seen in the UK or The USA. We only really spent a day travelling through with a few stops but we were struck by the overwhelming goodwill and friendliness we encountered. The border guard at the Detroit side of the crossing from Walpole island was brash, rude and seemed angry, it was such a contrast, really felt the difference between the two countries in the people we met along the way. I’ll certainly go back to Canada for a lengthier visit one day!
I hope that you do have another return visit with us - AT LEAST one more. 😊
Also, is it really? unusual for strangers to have a bit of a friendly conversation standing in a line with each other in the U.K. & the U.S.? I am surprised by this. In Canada we do it to help pass the time waiting for our turn, unless we have other things on our mind or are not up to a conversation at that point. While not EVERY Canadian is going to have a conversation EVERY time with others in line, it is a VERY normal situation.
Doggy bags are perfectly normal in the UK. You paid for it, it's yours!
I must be totally out of touch, because I have never seen it here.
I asked for a doggy bag just recently in my local Holiday Inn restaurant and I've had them from other places in the past. The staff have been only too happy to give me one. Maybe the problem is that British people are too embarrassed to ask for one. Either that or they're fussy about eating stale food. A friend recently told me that her daughter never eats leftovers. It all goes in the bin if it's not eaten during the meal, whereas her parents are happy to eat the same thing three days running rather than waste food.
@@bethel1019 I think maybe part of it is also here you go to a restaurant and pay for an evening's experience, not just the food. If people want to get food to eat at home, they get a takeaway.
@@rubysoffner4557 It's not going to be pushed, but ask any of the waitstaff at any restaurant and I guarantee they'll be straight on it. I always encourage people I'm with to ask for a doggy bag if they don't finish.
@@Ashley6100 Iam not that fussed because I never have any leftovers. but seriously, the only reason I would ask for a doggy bag is to give food to a homeless person
I used to live in a rural part of England, and it wasn't unusual at all to see loads of wildlife in and around the garden.
I am from England and now live in Australia but lived in Canada for a while. Having a dinner with a family in small community in BC. We had roast moose. I thought I put gravy on it. But all the locals asked did I normally eat it with chocolate sauce😂 Also they wanted to show me how to use a rifle. The telescopic site was too close so cut my head with lots of blood. Hence I was the Limey who shot himself and had chocolate on moose.😂😂 To buy alcohol to take home you had to go to a special liquor store and carry it home in the boot of your car. Loved the country and people. Ah how could one forget the enormous mosquitos. Locals said they could carry off a person.🤔
I have lived and worked in Canada for almost 17 years and seen lots of moose, even in my neighbourhood, also bears, beavers and bison and had a skunk in my back yard once. Growing up in the UK we had foxes and badgers in the back yard and definitely rabbits and hedgehogs. My Canadian partner hates all of the TV screens in Canadian bars and much prefers the British pub culture and the fact that most pubs allow dogs in. The other noticeable thing is eggs that are refrigerated in Canada and eggs on shelves in the UK
Bagged milk used to be available pretty much all across Canada way back when. These days it seems to just be available in Ontario and Quebec for some reason. Have no idea why the rest of the country stopped the practice. I still have my bag milk pitcher from the 80's and 90's when I lived in Alberta.
Bagged milk existed at this time and is still used in cafeteria styled establishments; like those in some hospitals. Adopting the size of the bags for the metric system was easy as the size of the bags could very easily be changed; much easier than the cost of changing the size of a carton or glass bottle.
Great shot of you and Pierre Poilievre at the mall, Alanna. 😂 My biggest culture shock my first extended stay in Canada (for med school) was the monthly bill for "hydro"!?!?
I’m wondering why that shocked you. Surely you pay for electricity in England - or was it the word hydro that puzzled you ?
In Toronto we also see coyotes. Like a lot of coyotes walking down the street, sunning on a neighbor's lawn, etc. Moose? Just go a little north to Algonquin, you'll see one.
Milk in bags is available, but really most people use cartons. We used bags a lot as a kid in New Brunswick in the 70s/80s, not sure about now.
The doggy bag thing is weird because generally restaurants, pubs etc. in the UK are more than happy to provide a container for takeaway if you don't finish your food, but for whatever reason(s) there's just this odd lingering stigma or reservation to do so among a large share of the public.
You're right though, definitely more common/pretty much ubiquitous to get a 'doggy bag' in North America and a bit of an oddity over here. I remember reading an article about it some years ago where the author was perplexed at our reluctance to take leftover food home from a meal out and I agree tbh.
I would encourage any Brits to just ask the waiter or staff for a takeaway container if they don't finish their meal, as on the odd occasion where I've done it they were happy to oblige and seemed quite pleased to see the food going to a good home haha
I now often get a container to carry out anything unused from a meal. Normally it is when we have been Dim Sum where there always seems to be leftovers.
Nova scotia has bagged milk with jugs being more recently becoming more common. Not sure why everyone thinks it is just Ontario and Quebec.
From Nova Scotia here -- yes, we have bagged milk here in NS. Taking home left-overs from a restaurant is very common (I often do it) and I guess I take friendly customer service for granted --of course servers want that good tip. Sometimes they can be over zealous in their service. PEI has tight restrictions on highway billboards -- they don't want the scenery to be spoiled. Nova Scotia is trying to follow suit. I would like to hear more of your partner's impressions of Canada. It's always fun to compare!
I am from Prince Edward Island and grew up drinking bagged milk. We had milkmen that delivered it twice per week to our door (1970s into late '90s). We put a sign in our window if we wanted to buy milk that day, and we could pay cash, or buy sheets of tickets all at once to pay with in the future. The only time we had a carton of milk is if we ran out of bagged milk before the next delivery day and had to buy some at a convenience store. It felt fancy, but cartons were also annoying because you could see how low you were getting on milk without opening the carton and looking in. The clear bags made it obvious. We did have bags leak occasionally and even managed to burst a few over the 25+ years we had home delivery. Bagged milk could be bought in store also but I am not sure if any is still being sold that way. I don't know why cartons eventually became the norm here.
For me, the thing that really sets Canadians apart from other nationalities is that, for the most part, they sound exactly like Americans. No-one else does that in such a unique way.
You should also mention that milk is also available in various sized cartons and only the largest sizes are bags rather than plastic jugs.
Weirdest thing I saw in Canada - ahead of us was a huge intersection with traffic lights and no other vehicle around, but patiently waiting at a red light was a Mountie and his horse.
FYI bagged milk is quite popular for a very long time in Nova Scotia and the rest of the Maritimes.
In the east of England where it's largely flat it's often referred to as big sky country.
I can remember having bags of milk here when on holiday in the late 60's & early 70's in the UK.
The amount of billboards depends on the state in the US and the province in Canada. Each one has different regulations as these regulations are NOT national!
I drove through Toronto in the early to mid70s on the 401 Expressway. I had never been on a road with so many lanes. I’m from the US Midwest, but had driven in many metropolitan areas. Loved Canada bye the way.
Toronto has changed a LOT since then! Where there used to be open fields and farms, are now houses and factories everywhere. The 401 used to have set busy times, now it's almost non stop. It is also bigger and wider! Toronto itself is attached to all the smaller towns and cities, referred to as the GTA (Greater Toronto Area).
When we were on holiday in Vancouver this summer, we saw a skunk in our friends' back yard - we took a few photos of it!
I'm from SW Ontario, like you. I have never been to the UK (yet, hopefully) but have friends from there who have come over. A shop was really busy and my English friend was offended that they didn't check people out faster and still made chit chat even though there was a queue. It was weird because I think for most of us, even when busy, if they rang us through without chatting a little we would think they were being rude. I know a lot of folks feel like the customer service thing is fake, but I don't think so, not always. Like for example, I know the names of all the local variety store owners and basic info about their families, kids etc. Are we close friends? No. But would I help them out if they needed something? 100%. They were super kind to my family when one of my relatives was very ill. Another example would be at Shopper's a lot of the Beauty Boutique staff work on commission. So are they trying to sell me stuff? Yeah absolutely. But if I get to know them and we like each other, I'll go out of my way to shop on days when they work so that person can get that extra, if I need something. All that is to say, for us like the niceness is very often real, we mean it.
I agree with what you say. Its the same in the US - customer service staff really are being friendly, and not because they want tips, because most of the jobs aren't on commission. Like you say, it is real.
I'm from Ontario too and I personally can't stand when people start socializing while there's a line of people waiting for them to pay and move on. I don't say anything to them, but I do think it's a bit inconsiderate, unless there's nobody behind them to be inconvenienced.
I recall Sainsbury's experimenting with bagged milk for awhile some years ago, didn't last, and at least one bag leaked when I tried it.
Yes, I remember this too and did it for a while. They also provided plastic reusable jugs (for free)... in the lid there was a stopper which pierced the bag as you closed it, such that it was easy to pour. As you say however the idea really didn't catch on.
@@marcelwiszowaty1751 yeah, the jug also had a clip to hold the bag up iirc.
In the early 80s we used to go on holiday to Guernsey every summer. They used to sell milk in bags there. They used the same sort of jugs that Alana showed to keep it in. I have been back to Guernsey in recent years, but I didn't notice whether they still sell milk in bags.
@@timidwolf Yes indeed!
When my English grandparents came to visit us for the summer for the first time, my grandfather remarked that he will always remember Canada as "The Land of Wires". He was blown away by the number of telephone and electrical service poles and transmission lines. In London and most of England, it's normal to bury all phone, cable, internet and electrical power lines.
In our neighbourhood, everything is buried. We purchased the home in 1985 and moved in 1986,
@@pgbrandon Newer neighbourhoods developed by a single builder/developer now mostly bury these service cables. Everything in cities like Toronto, string everything on poles. High tension/high voltage power lines always deliver power through towers across the landscape.
Canadian here.... I petted a killer whale once. (Not at Marineland) currently have issues with black bears and deer in the yard. Deer are particularly fond of eating our rose bushes.
I appreciate that you mentioned the bagged milk isn't across Canada! I'm in BC, and we definitely had it when I was a child in the 80s, but it was phased out.
Toronto at least tends to have high cloud, and tends to only have low cloud when it's raining, it gets around the same amount as the UK, but ours tends to be spread out more and we spend a long time overcast with low cloud, and no rain or just drizzle ...
You’re so right about the doggy bag thing - I can’t believe I’ve never noticed it before! I’m actually from South Africa, but we also do doggy bags. I don’t think I’ve ever done it in the UK. I wonder if it’s something to do with car culture too . I’d probably feel quite awkward carrying my leftovers home on the tube for example😂 We also used to do the bagged milk thing. I remember it from my childhood, it was cheaper than cartons. But I haven’t seen it in years, not sure if it’s still a thing in South Africa.
Garden animals in the UK really depends on location, size and accesability. The garden where i work is quite large and borders the countryside but it's only a few miles from Leeds city centre. We have hundreds of rabbits, squirrels and all kinds of birds + i often see hedgehogs, foxes, small rodents and i've seen a phesant and a few owls too. I also see deer in the field behind but they can't easily access the actual garden
Edit: Also doggy bags are normal in the UK, just ask
I returned from visiting relatives in Mississauga a couple of weeks ago and I do love the place.
I also noticed the vastness but it could probably be that Britain is an island and clouds rolling off the sea.