Photo: lucasinacio.com/Shutterstock

13 Dead Giveaways You're From Vancouver

Travel
by Shannon Lythgoe Oct 29, 2014
1. You make sure everyone knows you’re not from that other BC city that starts with ‘V’.

Because you’re neither newlywed or nearly dead. You live in the trendiest city north of the 49th, and you make sure everyone you meet while travelling knows it.

“Me? Oh I’m just from Vancouver. Yes it’s all very beautiful and whatnot, but after you’ve seen one snow-covered peak below a brilliant blue sky while tanning beachside and drinking the latest craft beer sensation, you’ve seen them all…”

2. You know that blackened-out windows and security cameras on your neighbour’s house are not necessarily an indication of paranoid behaviour.

You’re perfectly aware that the shuttered windows, huge ventilation system, and mouldy smell coming from next door doesn’t mean your neighbours need a checkup from the neck up. Rather, it’s merely another sign of Vancouver’s multi-million dollar industry at work. You actually admire them for their enterprising way of making a living, but you really would prefer if they’d stop parking their Caddies and Humvees in your spot at the curb.

3. Asian or not, you handle chopsticks like a pro.

You feel as comfortable snarfing down chow mein as you do cramming in the nanaimo bars. Ordering your sushi in perfect Japanese is no big deal, and you’d NEVER stuff pickled ginger down the middle of your California roll before putting it in your mouth.

4. You pay as much in rent for a dump of a studio apartment in East Vancouver as your sister does for her lakeside manor in Kelowna.

For the privilege of paying a mere $2000 per month for zero bedrooms and a half bath, you get to look out at the garbage bin across the alley and put up with a seemingly non-existent landlord who collects the rent through Paypal from the other side of the world. It’s a good thing the city itself is so damn good-looking, because it’s practically the only return on your hard-earned and ridiculously easily-spent money. That, and the cheap sushi.

5. You’re pretty sure you still own a bedraggled Cowichan sweater.

Somewhere in the back of your closet is that beloved woolly that smells like wood smoke and the perfume of the crush you locked lips with in your teens. The one with the eagle pattern on the back has been used by your dog as a snuggly for the past fifteen years.

6. You know the difference between the Georgia Strait and the Georgia Straight.

One is a body of water and the other one isn’t.

7. You’ll never appear on What Not To Wear.

Because, Stacey and Clinton, slinging your Gucci bag over your Canucks jersey is not a fashion faux pas, it’s fashion statement.

8. You have no trouble with your conscience in regards to global warming.

After all, you buy all your 100-mile diet fruits and veggies from your local farmers’ market on Saturday morning, and you take your organic bamboo cloth shopping bag with you to carry them…Which you then place in the back of your shiny new, gas-guzzling SUV that gets 15 mpg. Ahem.

9. Sunday mornings are still sacred…

Sundays are about getting all spiritual and like, one with nature. To accomplish this, you religiously jog or bike around the Stanley Park Seawall, or through Pacific Spirit Park, and then you join in quiet contemplation with your fellow worshippers over a newspaper, coffee, and a biscotti at your chosen temple of worship — the local beanery. (But really, the only reason you don’t worship at home is because they haven’t yet figured out a way to make coffee come out of the sink tap.)

10. You’re a culture vulture.

But only when the sun doesn’t shine. That’s why you never buy your ticket to anything until you know the 7-day forecast a week out from your chosen event. Those golden rays are too precious and rare to be wasted by sitting inside some darkened theatre…unless the event is outside, and then it might rain, which is another reason not to be too hasty about buying a ticket in advance.

11. You have an umbrella and a pair of designer rubber ducky boots to match every outfit in your closet.

Okay, admit it. True Vancouverites all require a wee dram of piscine DNA to survive a Canadian West Coast winter. But at least you’re doing it in style.

12. On the other hand, you shamelessly mock Eastern Canadians about their weather.

Sorry, got distracted by the sweetest little crocus poking up in my garden. You were saying? Can’t find your car under the snow? Aw shucks!

13. Because you totally know that a main course of yoga with a chaser of beer is the only civilized way to live.

You thoroughly endorse the trend of mixing it up a bit. After all, no one should be so zen-centric as to deny the logic of signing up for a yoga class that includes brunch with waffles and beer to balance out all that holy karmic downward doggy energy thingy. Right?

Discover Matador