I've never lived in a small town. The kind of place where people say "The second I turn 18 I'm outta here!" All the places I lived in Quebec were suburbs of Montreal, so you get all the specialists, the big name concerts, the stores. Today I said to a woman "You can buy a cabinet like that at Ikea" and then remembered there's no Ikea on the island.
Nanaimo is the kind of place where people split. (Population: 83 810)*. I've had a few people tell me "The minute I turned 18 I was gone!" (Probably more like 16. Guess they came back.) If I had my little fambly here with me, then I'd have no complaints. But without their added charms, I'm still of two minds.
* You can get everywhere in under 30 minutes. By car. The bus connections are so bad it takes 1:30 - 2 hours to get anywhere. So far my dad has pity and drives me a lot!
* The downtown is quaint and picturesque, especially by the harbor. The housing/rent in the surrounding neighborhood is cheap, and pretty safe. But the downtown itself consists of two streets. ...And I still can't find my way around cause the streets fan out from the harbor.
* There are a lot of Asians, many not born here; and waaaay more aboriginal people than in Montreal (in terms of how often you run into them.) So it's not all white people. But it's sort of tri-racial. Though I have seen a Sikh temple and a mosque, and a few black people--often with accents from, I think, Africa. (In Quebec it tends to be Caribbean.)
* The vegetarian/vegan options are about the same as Montreal.
* There are deer always crossing the roads. Nice to have the deer, but if I ever hit one I will die.
* I should add that in one month I've served, I think, two (male to female) transsexuals--one a young woman with her mother. That's nice.
To Be Continued tomorrow...
I watch people leavin' and come right back...
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* This may not be a small town to you guys. lol. The island of Montreal is about 5 000 000. My nabe back home is 30 000.
Yeah, 83,810 just doesn't seem that small to me. But Seattle is like 500,000 now and I lived there when it was much smaller. And the town in Oregon where I lived was 7,000, except during tourist season in the summer when it could swell to 25,000-30,000. Of course, Houston is 4 or 5 million and I don't mind not living in the city. This probably 30-40,000 suburb and the other similarly sized suburbs nearby are fine with me. Maybe that's why I haven't moved into the city: too many people!
ReplyDeleteHa ha ha. Small town. Where I live there are 2 restaurants, 1 Dollar Store and 199 churches.
ReplyDeleteOf course, not too far down the road is a touristy place and there are a few more things there but Ikea - uh, no.
I would not live here if my family were not here.
30-something-thousand peeps here ... and one thing that stood out like a sore thumb was the numbers of white folks. Way lots more than Vancouver. No Ikea though :(
ReplyDelete@Skye - 7000 and then 25 000... wow. Talk about townies vs the summer people.
ReplyDelete@JJJ - I knew you'd be unimpressed, lol.
@widders - If it's all white people they should at least make up for it with an Ikea! I always end up recommending JYSK to people, though it's way smaller.