Reminders of What Once Was Home

In the beginning when I first moved here, I felt quite out of place. Everything was different even though the language was the same. Everyone talked differently, dressed differently, thought differently, drove differently. They didn't step on the gas when the light turned yellow or cut in front of you rudely, but actually drove like civilized people. It felt as though everyone here was Canadian except for me. I felt dumb when I couldn't tell the difference between a loonie and a toonie. Everytime I went to buy something at the store I'd be trying to convert the prices in my head. I no longer could find all the things I used to buy. I now had to buy other brands, deposit quarters into boxes attached to shopping carts in order to use them, try to guess what a flashing green traffic light meant and avoid scraping my car against pillars when parking in really tight spaces. Everything that was different was a reminder of the physical and psychological distance from the familiar.

So whenever a reminder of what used to be home would pop up, I would be so surprised. And usually these occurrences tend to show up right in front of my face. 

When I was searching for places to live in the beginning, I called a number of people and one person I spoke with happened to have friends in Green Bay. What are the chances of that happening?! Of all the people I contacted that were renting in the Vancouver area, a city of about two million, this one person had friends in Green Bay, a city of about 300,000 over 2,000 miles away. From time to time I spot people wearing Packers apparel at the mall or on the Skytrain, but I don't really find that surprising since it is a well-known NFL team. But calling up a random person and discovering they have friends in Green Bay is a different story.

Once, while driving around town, I spotted a large white van with Wisconsin plates. That made me look twice. Another time I was driving back home from the Capilano Suspension Bridge when I spotted an suv in  front of me with Illinois plates. I pulled up next to them and almost rolled down my window shouting and waving at them just to let them know I had just moved from there. Then I thought about how crazy that would have been and decided not to. Just recently, I was driving right behind an old Jeep in a daze and staring at the wheel cover for a while until I realized the large letters sprawled across the cover said Schaumburg and below it the location on Golf Road with the 847 number of the dealership, although the plates were from Ontario. 

For me I find it's quite amazing to see reminders of home appear in unexpected places far away when you least expect them to.

Now I am quite comfortable living here and have accustomed to the ways of the Vancouverites. I find life to be much more comfortable and enjoyable here. The laid back, easy-going style fits more with my personality than the fast-paced, in-a-hurry lifestyle that I was once surrounded by. Sure, you may have to wait in line longer or drive a little slower, but what's the rush? Life's more enjoyable when you can live in the moment and soak up the sun while it's out from behind the clouds. One thing I've learned since I've been here is to not take the sunny days for granted, literally and figuratively.