Otzi
23-year-old student and travel-junkie from Suffolk, UK. Now resident in London after stints in Durham, France and Italy.Otzi
Travel Blog Posts
Shame about the Falls, but give me a glass of Canadian wine any day
Published: November 29th 2009North America » Canada » Ontario » Niagara Falls
November 29th 2009
Have a nice day? Another thing that strikes the first time European visitor across the Atlantic is just how amazing the customer service is. We were expecting this: a plastic smile from a have-a-nice-day automat that you see in the movies. But actually I thought that Canadian version of this was that they really gave the impression that they really cared. It didn't seem plastic at all. I'm sure some of this has something to do with the tipping: 15-20 per cent in restaurants is standard; at bars you leave a dollar a drink. At one bar in Montreal we forgot ourselves and without leaving a penny we ordered a second round of beers. Shame! We were politely but firmly ordered that we'd better pay the pourboire this time or we weren't getting anything! But just ... read more
November 28th 2009
Forget the maple leaf. I think Canada's national symbol might be a coffee shop. On queueing at Canadian immigration, we got talking to a young couple from London (Ontario, not English capital). They were just returning to Canada after two years of living in Ireland. Having absolutely no idea of what to do and see in Toronto, this was the obvious query that we very quickly piped up with. I was hoping that they'd share a favourite arty neighbourhood with us, a quirky studenty cafe, that elusive club where you could stomp the night away to French drum n' bass or something. The girl, dressed head to toe in fleece (on second thoughts maybe she wasn't the best person to ask for such places...), thought for an extended period of time. Finally: "Err... d'you guys know ... read more
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