I just spent two weeks in Canada for this. I didn’t see Drake. But Canada was still interesting.
People
People are friendly but different than Southern-friendly — more like if they started pumping lexapro into the water in Northhampton, MA, or what I imagine somewhere like Durham to be like. At the train station the guy saw me fumbling with coins to pay for bag storage said, “eh, don’t worry about it and go buy yourself a Molson!” Everyone waits for the light to change before crossing the street. All across the world I’ve never seen so many 5 star Uber drivers, and it’s not because they’re that much better.
Toronto
Toronto is really diverse but different than US-diverse. There are fewer Hispanics and more British-empire (Caribbean, South Asian) folks. You also see it in the food. Fish and chips is a thing. Way more British than Irish pubs as well.
The food is very trendy. Waffles are in, as are aggressive ice cream flavors (miso cherry, pad thai…).
I spent a day walking around feeling like I hadn’t left Brooklyn. It hits all the different stages of bk gentrification from Bed Stuy houses to Williamsburg apartment complexes.
Sports
I went to Game 4 of the Jays Indians ALCS. Domes don’t really work for baseball — it makes you feel like you’re watching a videogame on the moon. One friendly professional-looking white guy in his 40s who I let drain my mobile charger told me that he was a Political Science major who studied the US. He thought the Illuminati and Bilderburg were having Trump and Clinton work on the same side. In general though, folks can’t get enough of the election. I overheard a few conversations with people referencing the Atlantic endorsement, tax policy minutiae, and NATO.
At a Marlies (minor league hockey) game in Toronto, Black Skinhead played every time they scored. Everyone on the ice was white. No fights!
The ‘fan experience’ at the Raptors v. Cavs game was the best I’ve had for a regular season game. I got there an hour early and spent the first half four rows from courtside. They walked out to ‘Summer 16 and dropped t-shirts from the rafters in little parachutes. By the end of the third the crowd was as loud as a playoff game.
Drake
I spent all week listening to nothing but Views and a smidgen of If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late. Feel No Ways is the best track on the album. The Toronto vibe only made sense once the weather turned cold. Someone needs to write the piece comparing Philip Roth protagonists to Drizzy, but otherwise there’s not alot of there there.
In the club, they played a ton of Bieber and Drake. Also guys wore t shirts. The best one I saw was worn by a guy working in a poutine place — it said “KALE [font like YALE] and Cocaine.”
And in Conclusion…
I realized I’d spent too long in Canada when in a dream, I got into an argument, and then the other person apologized and said, “no I actually think you’re right Jordan.”
Not that I’d ever move to Canada for politics (I’d go to Israel first if pogroms came back), but with Trump’s rise I was really looking forward to seeing a functioning cosmopolitan citizenry. And I did! So that was reassuring for the fate of liberal democracies.
Would I live here? Probably not.
It’s basically the same as America but I have friends and family here. It’s not ‘different’ enough to give it comparative advantage over nyc (I guess the manageable feel and niceness but I’d get over that) and it doesn’t have DC’s policy world. But I really did enjoy the vibe and would take Toronto over Boston as a warm weather east coast long weekend.
