Think Visibility: Why I Traveled 15,272 Kms For My First Conference — Part 5
A Guide For Canadians Moving To the UK or Brits Moving To Canda
There are some huge, notable differences between our two cultures. They might not seem like much, but boy do you notice them when they’re gone! (SarahCarling, this post was inspired by you. In it, I’ve included all the big things you’ll need to know.)
All Those Dang Buttons! AKA “Y’all Are Nuts”
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First of all, Brits have buttons for everything! If you want to enter a business, you simply walk in like you normally would. If you want to get out, however, well good luck buddy! It’s got to be a marketing ploy to keep us Canadians in the store longer. You press the button for the door and nothing ever happens…nothing opens, there’s no sound, nothing. Odd. To make matters worse, they seem to get some sort of perverse pleasure out of making you look for the stupid button. It’s almost like a treasure hunt fetish.
In Canada, the only time you have to press a button is if you’re in a wheelchair, and even then, we reward you for finding and using the button by automatically opening the door for you. We don’t want to stress you out too badly though, so we usually make them jumbo and in a shiny silver colour, or we make them a bright shiny red. Some of them even light up!
If this sounds like a minor detail to you, let me tell you my story…
During ThinkVis, I had snuck back to the flat to have a shower and wake myself up. I got into the flat just fine. (Their door handles are all funky too, now that I’m thinking about it. You can’t tell whether you should push or pull.) I had a shower, and I was feeling a lot more awake, so I figured I’d better hurry back to the casino.
I called the cab, gather my stuff, and headed to the elevator. I got down to the main floor, and I nearly killed myself by running into the door. First, it was a pull door, not a push like it looks. Secondly, I forgot about the stupid button on the wall, so I went to push and it didn’t move.
I eventually get myself out of the building without anyone too many people noticing and managed to find my way out to the waiting cab. I get in, tell him I need to go to the Alea Casino. When he asked where that was, I knew I was in for an interesting evening.
Never fear, however, he did manage to get me to the casino, albeit the back. Rather than walking all the way around this big building, I figure I’m going to be smart and get in the exact same way we had gotten in earlier that morning.
No big deal, right? Go in the door, take the elevator to the second floor, and go straight over to the double doors where everyone would be gathering and enjoying a few drinks.
Well, I get in the building no problem, get into the elevator, go to the second floor, and just before I got out I thought ‘gee, I wonder if I can remember which direction the double doors were in.’ I was so proud of myself when I managed to find them right off! Score for me! (This will make sense when I get to my next story.) Push on the door and nothing happens. Well! What the hell?!?
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Ok, stay cool. Maybe you were wrong ‘chuk. Maybe you got off on the next floor up last time? Get back into the elevator, go up a floor, get out, and score! I find the double doors leading to the conference. Imagine the bad words that came out of my mouth when I realized that door didn’t open. Let’s just say the words sounded a lot like ‘what the firetruck’.
I’m starting to panic a little, but I figure there were 2 more floors I could try…and I did. Imagine my stupidity when I realized after 5 or 6 trips in the elevator that I wasn’t pressing the freaking button all the way over on the right side of the doors! Like, waaaaayyyy over there. How the hell am I supposed to know that I have to look for a stupid button to open the door?!?! I composed myself and pretended nothing happened.
You’ll be glad to know that I eventually started to remember to look for a button, but part of me always took a deep breath each time I pushed one. You just never know if you’re pushing the button for the door or if a trap door is going to open up underneath you and you’ll be transported to Australia or something. Besides, why the heck would you try to keep me IN? I promise you that’s the first time someone has tried to keep me indoors.
Y’all are nuts.
I Just Want Food!
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You’ll notice there’s a huge difference in the menus in our respective countries. As a Canuck, I go into a restaurant, order what I want, and the food magically appears. The UK was a very different story. I wasn’t sure what most of the concoctions were, although I’m sure they were all mouth-wateringly tasty. In most instances, I couldn’t figure out how to say them even if I was going to try them!
I figured it wouldn’t matter what I chose to eat because it was all new to me, so I either closed my eyes and picked a spot on the menu or ordered whatever someone else was having. Besides, some of them might have been saying cheeseburger, but because they have such a heavy accent, it was virtually impossible for my simple Canadian brain to translate.
Let’s Take a Drive
Once you arrive in Canada, you’ll quickly understand how much land we have and how small our population is. This also means that my idea of a quick three-hour drive to the city is very, very different for a Brit. To them, 3 hrs is like going clear across the country. It IS going across the country in some instances, and it’s just far too busy, complicated, and downright expensive to do on a regular basis.
Now, you wouldn’t think this would be an issue, but it does really mess with your planning and internal scale. You’re never quite sure what Brits see as reasonable and what they don’t. I drive three hours to go to the nearest major city for a break. Over there, it’s just not done.
(Credit — Funny enough, if you follow the credit for this photo, you’ll discover the photographer noticed the same things I did about driving in the UK in an earlier post.)
Their road systems are all screwed up too, and I don’t just mean driving on the wrong side of the road or their odd infatuation with roundabouts. In Canada, most communities and roads are divided into a general straight line, which then makes square parcels of land. Of course, we still have rivers and all sorts of other things to contend with, but they usually work the same way.
In the UK, it’s just wherever they happened to fall. Walking around Leeds, it was instantly apparent that I’m going to need GPS and a map if I’m ever going to find my way around. Roads change names at will; they stop and start it the oddest of places and sometimes they’re for cars, sometimes they’re not for cars. How can you tell?!? It’s like giving me a strawberry cheesecake blizzard, walking away for an hour and telling me I wasn’t supposed to eat it when you get back. It’s cruel!
My personal favourite is the narrow little road that looks like the right one until you get past the point of no return. They put up large pillars that look wide enough for you to go through, but aren’t. If you did think you could make it between those posts, don’t worry. You can tell from the dark BMW paint on either side that you weren’t the only one who tried.
Every time I turned around, I wasn’t sure where I was. Everyone else seemed to know though, so I just went with that. I figured worst case scenario I’d have to phone Tim and Carolyn to come pick me up. You can totally hear that phone call coming right?
Me: I’m lost. Come find me?
Carolyn: Where are you?
Tim (in the background, of course): You mean to tell me she’s lost AGAIN?
Me: I don’t know! There’s stone buildings and a big ol vine over there.
Carolyn: What’s the street name?
Me: I don’t know! You guys don’t have normal street signs. They’re always hidden on a building somewhe…Oh hey! Look! A Starbucks! I’ll just have one of those till you find me.
Say What?
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My other issue, and one I KNOW Sarah is going to have, is accents. As soon as I open my mouth, it’s like saying ‘She’s an idiot. She’s Canadian’. Of course, I prove them right when I do something stupid or am simply not aware of seemingly common things, but that’s not the point.
My personal favourite situation: they speak quickly, using strange words you’ve never heard in normal conversation, while facing the opposite direction. There is a solution, but it doesn’t always work. It also requires the help of a local.
You see, Tim and I had this worked out. As soon as he’d see that blank ‘huh?’ look on my face or I’d get that ‘Are you serious’ look, he’d jump in with some sort of explanation or just repeat it so I could translate it back into Canuckian. It wasn’t foolproof because sometimes our blank look makes us look like we’re deep in thought, but it helped 9/10 times.
The next little thing I noticed occurred to me after visiting the grocery store.
The Trick To Getting In a Grocery Store With a Cart
In the UK, they have huge revolving doors that look a lot like old-people flingers. If you close your eyes and imagine an elderly lady about to be flung by a slingshot laying on its side, you’ll get an idea of what these are like.
So Sarah, I’ll give you one of the most valuable pieces of information you’ll need while buying food:
- Get your grocery cart first. (You might better know them as a ‘trolley’, which over here means a car that runs on roads, but looks like a train. San Francisco is famous for them…Is it San Francisco? Well, never mind. The US is a different country, fyi
) - You’ll find that you’ll either need to insert a quarter or looney into the slot at the front and push the giant key thing in the front.
- When you get to the door, use the cart to push open the door, if the doors don’t automatically slide open. There’s none of this Macgyver diving out the door before it closes on you so you don’t have to make another revolution.
All goofing around and oddities aside, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. My unique, natural ability to demonstrate my freakishness made it feel like home…or rather ‘home’ with enough surprises to ensure your day is going to be interesting.
Dealing with everything really isn’t so bad.
Sarah: If I could give you one piece of advice, I’d tell you to pay attention to all the little things around you and embrace the differences. See it as an adventure exploration and you’ll do fine. Wishing you all the best!
Other Posts In the Series:
A Canadian in the UK: An Introduction (Part 1)
The Official “Think Visibility” Conference Coverage (Part 2)
A Day Spent In Leeds (Part 3)
Visiting Harrogate and York (Part 4)
September 23, 2010 at 6:45 am | Lighter Side | 2 comments
Thanks! I will be bookmarking this and using it for reference lol, not to mention pinging you regularly when I can’t find or do something!
lol I’ll do the same with you when I get back over. We’ll have this figured out and beaten down in no time