It's the Little Differences: The Umbrella Bag

Speaking of rain...

This is what I am used to seeing in the lobby of my office building in mid-October.


This is what I came to this morning.

It's the Little Differences: Laundry & Parking

In a city where the average square foot is $27.17 to rent (that’s $2,265/monthly for a two bedroom apartment) or $620 to buy (that’s $620,000 for the same two bedroom apartment), having space for your own washer/dryer is a luxury.

The pain of not having our own washer/dryer is compensated by the fact that Missing Sock Laundry is so conveniently located next to Bacchus, a trendy wine bar.

Here's a trivia question. How much do you think a parking spot costs in San Francisco? Here's a clue, it's about $27,000 downtown Ottawa.

... $100,000!

It's the Little Differences: Maple Syrup

Crepes A-Go-Go is a little restaurant down our street. The crêpes there are succulent but something is missing: the maple syrup!!! To be fair, it's buried somewhere in their menu, but it's certainely not on the table, between the ketchup and the salt.

It's the Little Differences: Garbage Day

Waste collection is privately run in SF which means that "garbage day" is different for everyone. The entire street is never full of garbage!

It's the Little Differences: Trust Fund Babies

Defined in the urban dictionary as a “young person whose parents are wealthy and have set up a trust for their son or daughter. The trust fund ensures that the child will be taken care of financially for life.” Paris Hilton is a prime example.

I am sure trust fund babies are everywhere, but the abundance in San Francisco is beyond belief.

It's the Little Differences: Clothing Size

America's obesity problem is not just a myth. In fact, the US obesity rate (31%) is twice as high as Canada’s (14%).

To cater to their costumers, stores carry larger sizes more than smaller sizes. In order words, the bell curve one finds is Canada (relatively normal: few XS, some S, lots of M, some L, few XL) is skewed to the right in the US (No XS, few S, some M, lots of L, lots of XL, some XXL). When you oscillate between 0 and 4, it’s frustrating.

I’ve had some luck at Banana Republic. Banana Republic usually carries my size and it’s often on sale because no one else wants to buy it!

It's the Little Differences: Promotional cup sleeves

San Francisco is full of independent coffee shops. To help them reduce costs and increase profitability, BriteVision invented ad-sleeves. The sleeves are paid for by the advertisers and free to BriteVision customers who no longer have to purchase their own cup sleeves. Although I have only seen them in SF, they are available in other states.

It's the Little Differences

“It's the little differences. A lotta the same shit we got here, they got there, but there they're a little different.”

Inspired from Pulp Fiction, here's the “It's the Little Differences” series.

It’s going to be a mish-mash of observations on how life in the US is different than in Canada. Even though most people would agree that the Canadian and American cultures are very similar, I’ve been noticing little differences since I arrived...