I’ve been getting out and meeting new friends. There are the Webloggers Meet-Ups, where I recently met Jan Karlsbjerg (who was kind enough to blog about me), Heather, and Will Pâté, as well as Ianiv Schweber and his fiancé, Arieanna. I’ve also met several people though the BC Gamelan, as well as the VanUE (Vancouver User Experience group), who also hold monthly meetings, beginning this month. Pam continues to meet people through the STC (Society for Technical Communications).
My general impression is that there are lots of newcomers to Vancouver — a good sign, I think. When people want to move to a place, for whatever reason, it usually means that it’s a good place to be. We always felt that way when we were in Vermont (I remember our times in Waitsfield, where we were surprised when we actually did meet a native Vermonter). For Canada, it has such a high rate of immigration that there’s actually a magazine for new immigrants to Canada (mostly from Asia, as one would expect, but also from Africa, Europe and Australia).
When there are lots of people moving to a place, people and organizations (and even public venues) tend to be a bit better about not assuming you know what to do or where to go. In Boston, signage was seen as a silly add-on, or maybe even an admission of weakness. After all, why point out what everybody should already know, haven’t you been here long enough? Or as they say in the vernacular, ‘Whaddaya retAHded?’ Here in Vancouver, one not only has signs and maps, but also orientation guides, brochures and tons of information booths and people offering help and directions (the bus drivers are even polite about offering advice about where to transfer to get to a certain area!). Maybe it takes a critical mass of newbies to make society in general aware that not everyone knows everything about where you live and how to get from point A to point B. I’ve taken some pleasure in giving out directions to a few people. Must mean I don’t look like I’m a fish out of water here, if ever I did.
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