Canada: August 17th – September 12th
“French for beginners”
My journey started in the second biggest country of the world: Canada. I needed five days at least to realize the huge size of this land. Jilian – a Canadian girl I met in Prague five years ago – had to drive one and a half hour to pick me up from the airport. Starting from Vienna, I could have visited four different countries in this time – for Jilian, it’s the way to the closest supermarket. When Matthias – who is also a couch surfer – and I have been on the road in a rental car, we were always surprised by the large distance to our next stop. It always seemed to be so much closer on Google Maps. “One hour and a half to Gaspesie” we thought. Our current host Bruno just smiled and told us “Three hours at least! And you want to come back today!? Have fun on this sunny day…” The next three days a six hours travel was standard. We drove 1.662,8 kilometers (1.033,2 miles) and spent 22 hours and 36 minutes in the car. As we were already in the district of Quebec, the official language was French. Without knowing the vocabulary, it was difficult for me to read the menu in restaurants. But there was one advantage: The English level of the locals was the same as mine. Only the English of the waitress was worse: She couldn’t even count to seven…
As Matthias and I had different travel routes and soon went our separate ways, I suddenly realized how hard it is to travel without a rental car in a small town like Tadoussac. So I decided to try hitchhiking. I wrote “Quebec” on a panel and I learned that the kindness of the Canadians is no cliché: It was already the fifth car which stopped for me. Unfortunately, my driver Thomas couldn’t speak English and I didn’t speak French, so I rejoiced in talking with his wife on the phone to tell her, where her husband should drop me off.
Since I slept the last two weeks every night on another couch, I decided to spend more time in Montreal. I really liked the atmosphere of the city because it was partly American – partly European and the people spoke English. Nothing against the French language, but I was surprised by the bad English of even the Canadian youth. The first nights in the city I stayed at the place of Jess, a couch surfing pro. Because of the big number of her couch surfers (more than 80) she could convey the feeling of being at home really well. That’s why I enjoyed staying there for four nights.
From Montreal, I drove with a self-propelled Tesla to Kingston. It was the first day of my journey, on which I didn’t know where to spend the night. Also, the two following nights I had this feeling of uncertainty. Luckily, in the first two nights two couch surfers spontaneously decided to host me. On the third day, I was still standing in front of a supermarket at 11 PM, trying to angle for the locals’ attention. Unfortunately, it didn’t work and my accommodation search on Tinder was also without success. A hotel room would have cost me 80 €, so I tried my luck in the district of students. As we know it from the Hollywood films, in almost every house was a party going on. A guitar player sitting alone on a balcony invited me to a friend’s house. With my two big backpacks I entered and all people were looking at me like they wanted to ask “Who are you? What are you doing here? Do you want to move in?” After a rather difficult start, two students could be convinced to host me for the night.
My last day in Canada I spent in Toronto and after that I went to the Niagara Falls. I can’t imagine a more beautiful border crossing. But a good friend of mine knows one: all border crossings in Europe!
