The 10 friendliest cities in all of Canada

[niwell]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

When I lived in the Cape, I found Anglo South Africans impeccably polite, but not much different from Canadians in terms of friendliness. Afrikaners were perhaps friendlier but I was there at a time when many of them would have viewed Canadians with suspicion, so perhaps I didn't experience them at their best. The Cape Coloureds (their term, not mine) on the other hand were delightfully open and friendly - they responded very positively to non-South African whites in general, I suspect.

That sounds about right. I found a fair bit of a difference between Cape Town and Johannesburg too. The former was much more reserved and did remind me of the way Canadians act. Joburg is a bit more forward and seemed much easier to get into random conversations. Particularly in Braamfontein, which is more or less a mostly black hipster/student neighbourhood, as well as the new Maboneng Arts area downtown. Made friends with a number of black Africans (again, their term) who seemed quite open about everything and insisted on buying drinks, despite the fact everything was absurdly cheap from a Canadian perspective. Probably similar to your experience with Cape Coloured, however CT seemed much more segregated and harder to meet people that weren't, well, white. This was echoed by my friend who lives there and dated a coloured guy for a bit.

The area we stayed in Joburg (Parkhurst) reminded me of going out in Toronto a bit more, and it's about 75% white. People open up but not immediately. At a bar there an Afrikaner who was transferred from the Cape realized we were north American and insisted on getting us to try every type of SA brandy the bar had to offer. Followed by a younger Afrikaner couple inviting us over for a morning Braai the next day prior to our flight at 1pm....

The owner of the place we stayed at in Joburg was Dutch and transferred there about 1.5 years ago. One of the biggest differences from his perspective was that in Joburg if someone says "lets meet for coffee / a drink" they will actually follow up and set a time. It's not just a pleasantry.

[Acajack]

I posted this anecdote on here a few months ago:

This past summer I was taking a leak in the bathroom of a restaurant in the Deep South of the U.S.

Not too far away there was an old guy in his 70s (at least) with a walker. He was washing his hands.

Anyway, right out of the blue he says to me: "You know, buddy, if you shake it more than three times they'll fuckin' say you're playin' with it! Hahahaha..."

And then just like that he walked out of the bathroom, and then gently took the arm of a spiffied-up little old lady that looked like Betty White in Golden Girls, and slowly walked to their car.

I thought to myself: Could you see this happening in, say, Brockville, Ontario? Naaaaaaaaah.

Yeah, of course, in theory this could absolutely happen anywhere in the world there are humans. Vatican City. Djeddah, Saudi Arabia. Pyonyang, North Korea.

On the scale of probabilities though, if the rural American South is a 10 for likelihood of this happening, Quebec is probably a 5 or 6. A place like Listowel, Ontario or Steinbach, Manitoba is probably a 2.

Unfortunately, this thread is constructed as a poll which implies (to some) that there are winners and losers. Ultimately though, we're just trying to have a fun discussion.

In my experience, there *are* rude asshole Newfoundlanders, extremely nice and friendly Parisians, dull homebody Cariocas in Rio de Janeiro, party animals in Tehran...

[esquire]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I posted this anecdote on here a few months ago:

This past summer I was taking a leak in the bathroom of a restaurant in the Deep South of the U.S.

Not too far away there was an old guy in his 70s (at least) with a walker. He was washing his hands.

Anyway, right out of the blue he says to me: "You know, buddy, if you shake it more than three times they'll fuckin' say you're playin' with it! Hahahaha..."

And then just like that he walked out of the bathroom, and then gently took the arm of a spiffied-up little old lady that looked like Betty White in Golden Girls, and slowly walked to their car.

I thought to myself: Could you see this happening in, say, Brockville, Ontario? Naaaaaaaaah.

Yeah, of course, in theory this could absolutely happen anywhere in the world there are humans. Vatican City. Djeddah, Saudi Arabia. Pyonyang, North Korea.

On the scale of probabilities though, if the rural American South is a 10 for likelihood of this happening, Quebec is probably a 5 or 6. A place like Listowel, Ontario or Steinbach, Manitoba is probably a 2.

Unfortunately, this thread is constructed as a poll which implies (to some) that there are winners and losers. Ultimately though, we're just trying to have a fun discussion.

In my experience, there *are* rude asshole Newfoundlanders, extremely nice and friendly Parisians, dull homebody Cariocas in Rio de Janeiro, party animals in Tehran...

OK, my anecdote has nothing to do with anything but I remember after a Jets game a couple of years ago, going to the upper deck washroom at the MTS Centre before heading home. Some old dude who fits the profile of your old dude (except he didn't have a walker) comes into the washroom, walks up to a urinal, looks over to no one in particular and says "I hear this is where all the pricks hang out hahaha"

The mostly twentysomething guys in the washroom are all like LOLWUT

Maybe we're uncovering a trend of old dudes who like to say off the wall things in washrooms?

[biguc]

If you hang out in native bars there's like a 100% chance of that happening in Manitoba.

[1overcosc]

A lot of what you experience in Canada (or at least, Ontario) comes down to what type of person you are, I think.

I'm fairly introverted and reserved even by Canadian standards. I may be a chatterbox on here but in real life I'm incredibly shy. I might fall on the (very mild) side of the autism spectrum, actually, although I've never looked into it. I have my group of close friends and my boyfriend and that's kind of it. I'm not even really that close with my immediate family.

Generally, I leave people alone in public, and they leave me alone. I don't think I've ever had a conversation with anyone while waiting at a bus stop, for example, beyond a "hey, did the #2 bus come yet?" or some such.

My boyfriend, however, is the polar opposite in this respect. He's extremely outgoing and he'll make friends with anyone. People approach him all the time. He gets into random long conversations with everyone from bartenders to bus drivers to the mailman.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by esquire

The mostly twentysomething guys in the washroom are all like LOLWUT

Maybe we're uncovering a trend of old dudes who like to say off the wall things in washrooms?

A few years ago, when I was in university, there was a week where I basically lived on campus studying for an exam. Eat in the caf, shower in the gym, etc. And one time, when I was showering in the gym, there was this one guy who kept walking up to random guys in the shower and just casually small talking with them. It was quite awkward.

[MolsonExport]

extremely nice and friendly Parisians

theoretically-speaking, but I demand to see empirical evidence.

[Dmajackson]

Originally Posted by WharfRat

Hahaha…that is the quintessential SJ response about SJ.

I haven't lived in Saint John for well over twenty years but every trip home I am always amazed at how friendly and pleasant the people are. Perhaps it's more noticeably because one of my parents (or both) have stated at least once "They wouldn't give a cripple a crutch around here!" a standard statement made while merging into traffic!

Yesterday at work a guy walked into the store and without saying "hi" or anything he immediately said "this has been the worst trip down from the valley. The drivers here are almost as bad as Saint John."

I've been back in Halifax for three years now and can count on one hand the number of road rage incidents I've seen. In Calgary you'd see one every time you got on the Deerfoot!

Saint John drivers are reckless, Halifax drivers are stupid and Calgary drivers are angry.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by Dmajackson

Yesterday at work a guy walked into the store and without saying "hi" or anything he immediately said "this has been the worst trip down from the valley. The drivers here are almost as bad as Saint John."

I've been back in Halifax for three years now and can count on one hand the number of road rage incidents I've seen. In Calgary you'd see one every time you got on the Deerfoot!

Saint John drivers are reckless, Halifax drivers are stupid and Calgary drivers are angry.

Sounds like something someone from NS would say.

In SJ everyone rips on Moncton and other Francophone areas for being terrible drivers. Mostly because they're French. Saint John is one of those older cities (similar to Halifax or St. John's) where the city was founded prior to cars so a lot of the streets don't really make a lot of sense, and the layout is difficult to follow for someone not from there. Boston is the same, FWIW.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by JHikka

In SJ everyone rips on Moncton and other Francophone areas for being terrible drivers. Mostly because they're French.

Saint Johnners love to make out that Moncton is some type of French enclave in NB (little Quebec). I think this attitude predominates because it is a form of self justification for the port city (ie- that they are the real Anglophone bastion of New Brunswick).

This ignores the fact of course that 2/3rds of the population of metro Moncton is anglophone. In other words, almost 100,000 greater Monctonians are anglophone, which is not too much shy of the total CMA population of Saint John (128,000).

Saint John loves to make this English/French distinction because it makes it easier to justify (for example) an "English" DNA sequencing lab in SJ if there is already one at the Dumont (French) Hospital in Moncton. This belittles and diminishes the English Hospitals in Moncton (and Fredericton).

It suits SJ's narrative to make the simplistic argument of:
Saint John = English
Moncton = French

It's much more complicated than that........

[rousseau]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I generally agree, although there are some variants within the U.S.

But compared to people in Ontario and Western Canada, Québécois are chatterboxes.

I think it was Rousseau who gave the perfect example a few years ago.

You go into a bar and you're the only patron there.

The bartender will say hi, ask you what you want to drink. But he typically won't talk to you about anything else but your ''transactions'' (want another one?) for the entire time you're there. He'll punch on the electronic billing screen, clean every single glass behind the bar, rearrange the bottles of hard liquor at the back, but he won't make small talk with you.

I don't think things have changed, at least not in smaller towns in southern Ontario.

Haven't been in a bar in a while, but today around 6 pm I went to the "Irish" pub in town to pick up some fish and chips to take home. There weren't that many people in the place, and there was just one customer at the bar nursing a beer.

I placed my order, and then the bartender went back to the other end of the bar and commenced a conversation with one of the servers about a Christmas party, leaving me to sit there in silence for twenty minutes.

Twenty minutes of silence. In a pub.

I turned to the guy two seats down from me and asked if he was ready for all the snow we're going to get.

"Yep," he said. Then nothing. So I looked at my phone. For twenty minutes. In a pub.

I had to laugh.

(Incidentally, that acerbic comment I made originally is here: http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...&postcount=232).

[Pinus]

Bloody hell. It's pretty sad when Canadians can't even spell the names of major Canadian cities properly

[FrAnKs]

Originally Posted by Pinus

Bloody hell. It's pretty sad when Canadians can't even spell the names of major Canadian cities properly

Ah they finally fixed ''Winnepeg'' above ?

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Pinus

Bloody hell. It's pretty sad when Canadians can't even spell the names of major Canadian cities properly

EDIT: Now I get it.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by rousseau

I don't think things have changed, at least not in smaller towns in southern Ontario.

Haven't been in a bar in a while, but today around 6 pm I went to the "Irish" pub in town to pick up some fish and chips to take home. There weren't that many people in the place, and there was just one customer at the bar nursing a beer.

I placed my order, and then the bartender went back to the other end of the bar and commenced a conversation with one of the servers about a Christmas party, leaving me to sit there in silence for twenty minutes.

Twenty minutes of silence. In a pub.

I turned to the guy two seats down from me and asked if he was ready for all the snow we're going to get.

"Yep," he said. Then nothing. So I looked at my phone. For twenty minutes. In a pub.

I had to laugh.

(Incidentally, that acerbic comment I made originally is here: http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...&postcount=232).

I literally laughed out loud when I read this. My wife and kids asked "What's so funny?".

Anyway, lots of people obviously still think we're full of shit on this one. So be it.

[niwell]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I literally laughed out loud when I read this. My wife and kids asked "What's so funny?".

Anyway, lots of people obviously still think we're full of shit on this one. So be it.

It's not that you're full of shit, it's just a generalization that isn't as, I dunno, universal anymore. In Toronto you can still find a few old school bars where a certain type of person will drink in silence and the (usually older) bartender doesn't talk to you. There's a few in Parkdale that I would never go to. I can only assume that this is more common in smaller places.

But it's the minority here now. I go to bars a fair amount - usually at least once or twice a week. If I am there by myself or with no more than two friends we always sit at the bar. Never once recently has there not been a conversation with the bartender and/or other patrons at the bar. There are a few bartenders I've met through going out that I consider friends now and will meet up with occasionally outside of that setting. Knowing people in the industry it's very difficult to be hired these days without being sociable.

Not sure when this changed and I have no doubt it's relatively new, but that's become the norm now.

Interestingly enough I found that last time I was in Montreal people have an aversion to sitting at the bar. As in the bar seats would be the last to be taken. It's usually the opposite in a similar type of place in Toronto now - the bar is full with empty tables. Not what I expected at all.

[WhipperSnapper]

Yep, I don't remember the last time I saw an older gent tending bar over some push up bra wearing 20 something. It's a win win; better to look/talk at and a better bartender.

[rousseau]

Originally Posted by niwell

It's not that you're full of shit, it's just a generalization that isn't as, I dunno, universal anymore. In Toronto you can still find a few old school bars where a certain type of person will drink in silence and the (usually older) bartender doesn't talk to you. There's a few in Parkdale that I would never go to. I can only assume that this is more common in smaller places.

But it's the minority here now. I go to bars a fair amount - usually at least once or twice a week. If I am there by myself or with no more than two friends we always sit at the bar. Never once recently has there not been a conversation with the bartender and/or other patrons at the bar. There are a few bartenders I've met through going out that I consider friends now and will meet up with occasionally outside of that setting. Knowing people in the industry it's very difficult to be hired these days without being sociable.

Not sure when this changed and I have no doubt it's relatively new, but that's become the norm now.

Interestingly enough I found that last time I was in Montreal people have an aversion to sitting at the bar. As in the bar seats would be the last to be taken. It's usually the opposite in a similar type of place in Toronto now - the bar is full with empty tables. Not what I expected at all.

I think Toronto is probably different. Probably always has been.

I've lived in Stratford for over a decade now, and in that time have visited just about all of the bars and restaurants here, and it's the same everywhere. I've either seen it or experienced it myself. Walk in by yourself, sit at the bar, and you'll be ignored by the bartender and fellow patrons.

You really have to make a genuine effort to have any sort of conversation at a bar here if you're alone. You have to be persistent, friendly, non-threatening and not too wacky. It's like approaching an abandoned dog who's scared and doesn't trust strangers. There's an art to it.

You have to remember that smaller cities and towns outside of Toronto aren't as transient. That stranger sitting down at the bar might be someone in town you haven't seen before, so you need to be a little wary. What happens if you get all friendly with him, but then your friends come in and you don't want to deal with the stranger anymore? What happens if you see him the next time and he wants to be just as friendly, but you're with your friends and don't want to feel awkward and uncomfortable with the stranger?

After all, you have your own friends in your town. You don't just let strangers into your inner circle that easily. In a bigger city like Toronto inner circles aren't so fragile.