I’m Not Moving To Canada

June 3rd, 2007

In the last post, Avery made a comment about me moving to Canada. I’m not. I’m simply in Toronto for a hockey tournament. I don’t think I could live here.

For those of you familiar with Detroit… Imagine Detroit but with a few million more people. Heck, I don’t even think Detroit has 1 million anymore. Toronto has over 2.5 million.
I stayed in Mississagua… which is like the local town of Taylor but with over 1 million people.

I was lucky enough to be here during a smog alert. If you haven’t experienced smog it’s like a grey cloud that stinks and limits visibility. I was less than 1/2 mile from the CN tower (the world’s tallest building) and I still couldn’t see it. That’s how bad the smog was.

What surprised me the most though was how expensive things have gotten. I remember when you could exchange $100 American for almost $150 Canadian.

Now that same $100 will get you $105 Canadian. It still sounds like a good deal - until you realize that prices haven’t been updated to reflect the actual value of the Canadian dollar.

A 5 piece nugget at Wendys, for example, cost me $1.29. After taxes and exchange rate (which are much higher) I paid 25 cents more than I would in the states.

A coke in a vending machine ($1.25 here) was $2 in Canada. Again, I paid well over 50 cents more than I should have for that Coke.

All of these little things add up. My $100 hotel room came to $119 after taxes. (compared to $106 in the US) Some of you may say that you can get your taxes back at the border, but I asked at the border and they said they discontinued that policy.

So while I enjoy being able to go to non smoking bars and play against top hockey competition, I don’t think I could afford to live in Canada.

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