Living together with Kanamericans

04/15/2018 We have been living with Canadian students in a shared apartment for 1 1/2 months now. We have had the opportunity to get to know the quirks of our roommates. As we noticed at the beginning of our work and travel stay, Canadians always have to talk loudly, always. Whether in the park or on the street, you can always hear their conversations from 10 meters away. They usually use their hands-free devices so that you can understand the entire conversation. Exciting! Privacy is really not a thing for Canadians. It's even more fun when your roommates do the same in the house and are louder than our laptop. Even more exciting.

Living together with our roommates is usually more difficult than expected. After all, there are 6 people plus potential overnight guests. To give you a closer look at our roommate situation, here's a brief overview of our roommates: the two siblings of Rulon (who rented us the room) live above and below us. We have Hannah (19). She is almost always up at 7:00, even on weekends. Hannah shares our concern for cleanliness (which is lacking in this household) and is overall the most sensible person in this house. Her brother, Rowen (24), works at a nearby pharmacy, is usually quite calm, talks little, and is often moody. And then we have our Indian princesses Sartaj (20) and Sonali. Sartaj is somehow always at home, even though she is still studying, and her boyfriend Shane is usually with her. Sonali (19) is also still studying and often comes home around 11:00 PM. Usually, there are more than six people in the house when friends or girlfriends stay over. It's spread across four floors. The kitchen is quite close to our rooms. In a way, we are right in the middle of all the hustle and bustle. It's totally normal in this shared apartment to have loud conversations about this and that when you come home, whether it's 4:00 PM or 11:00 PM. Two of our roommates (Hannah & Sartaj) go to the gym every day (really every day), but not at normal times, but between 7:00 and 11:00 PM. And after that, the party starts, at least in terms of the volume of the conversations or the music, it feels like a house party. It's just too bad that Bella goes to bed at 10:00 PM because she has to get up at 6:00 AM. That's how inconsiderate Canadians can be. Unfortunately, no one takes care of each other here. Of course, everyone asks how you are when you meet, but they don't really care. That's why we are already annoyed by the typical 'How are you'.

Cooking in our household can be difficult from time to time. We have an induction stove (which struggles when three burners are on at the same time), so only certain pots and pans are compatible. This sometimes leads to a fight over the best pot or pan. When our roommates do cook, it can happen that the leftover food just stays in one of the three pots (usually in the large one, which is not really large but bigger than the other two) and is put in the fridge. Never mind that other people also want to eat. What, you wanted to cook? No, I wanted to put all the ingredients for the Bolognese sauce in my hands and wait for the body heat to cook the food. Since there is only one bowl (which has been at Sartaj's friend's place for 3 weeks now), it can also happen - when it's in use - that roommates help themselves to one of our bowls from our cupboard. Everything's fine, there are just our personal belongings in it. One day, the dishwasher broke down, a total catastrophe for our cleaning-muffle roommates. I was so kind to wash all the dishes from the broken part. Hannah was so thrilled about it that she brought me some ice cream. Finally, something positive.

Our first week using the kitchen was also very interesting. Suddenly, there were notes on the countertop. The first note said: 'Please clean up the mess on the countertop.' Just so you know, there was a Tupperware container and our homemade bread (which needs to cool down after baking). The other note said not to put hot pots on the countertop... well, I accidentally did that on the same day. But instead of talking about it, notes seem to be the better alternative. We thought it was quite childish. In the same week, a meeting was called. Two of the roommates (Sartaj & Sonali) didn't even show up. We were already prepared for the worst, but in the end, it was only about the most important things. For example, about separating the trash, which seems quite illogical to us and has little to do with the way it's done in Germany. The biggest topic was cleaning and tidying up. We are asked to wash the dishes immediately if we make a mess in the kitchen. Oh, and leaving wet dishes to dry in the drying rack is also not allowed. Sorry that I want to eat my cooked meal while it's still warm. Well, in the past few weeks, we haven't received any more notes about our behavior (not washing the dishes immediately after eating)... lucky us.

In addition, we have noticed in the past few weeks that our roommates don't engage much with other things after work. They don't go for a coffee or something to eat or a small city trip or excursion on the weekends. It's pretty boring, for them it's all about university, work, and sports. That's absolutely not for us, we are happy when we can leave this house and meet our colleagues or do something together in Victoria or the surrounding area.

Last week, we stooped to kindergarten level and also wrote a note. Because for 3 weeks, nothing has happened or been cleaned in the bathroom cleaning affair. In the 5 weeks that we have been here, both of us have vacuumed the entire house 3 times and cleaned the bathrooms twice. Hannah has vacuumed once and cleaned the big bathroom once in the same period of time. And what about the rest of the residents here? Well, they seem to have no interest in contributing to cleanliness at all. Maybe vacuuming or wiping off countertops is no longer really trendy. They seem to be more inclined to act counterproductively, with the mirrors in the two bathrooms being dirty with water and saliva stains. I caught Rowen using his dental floss right in front of the mirror the other day, mmmhhh - that's why the mirror looks like a Dalmatian. Anyway, we kindly asked in our note who would take care of cleaning the bathroom next, and since Hannah and we are out of the rotation since we were in Mr. Proper mood the last few times. Our note was disposed of as soon as possible and Hannah created a cleaning schedule. Finally, something should change in the cleanliness of this pretty dirty shared apartment. And I can tell you: Something actually happened - at least Rowen cleaned both bathrooms (maybe he will be more considerate to the mirror now). It wasn't on the same day, but it's checked off and now we can finally shower without fear of getting foot fungus.

The next morning after our cleaning schedule affair (I think not everyone was happy to participate in cleaning the house), there was another note on the refrigerator. Sonali complained that apparently our food was in her compartment (which was not true) and that she should actually still have one compartment in the refrigerator, which we seem to have occupied. Sorry that we have two stomachs... I can only say kindergarten. In the past few weeks, her food has been in our compartment on occasion, and she was supposed to move back to her mother's place at the end of the week. As the good roommates that we are, we of course cleared our compartment and made space for her. Until her move, she didn't even use this empty compartment. Well, the main thing is to create some stress. On Friday, there suddenly was cheese and yogurt in our compartment, probably from Sonali - unfortunately, we should have quickly eaten it (at least the cheese, because it's expensive). Her move back to her mother in Vancouver was also very long and chaotic. There were piles of clothes and boxes everywhere in the kitchen. Laundry was still being done and boxes were being moved late into the night. We wondered if she couldn't wash her laundry at her mother's place. Well, on Sunday, she finally left and an hour later the next roommate moved in - much more organized. All her things were in her room in under 20 minutes without much noise. This gives us hope that it will be quieter and less exhausting now. Anyway, we are really looking forward to moving back to our own apartment, having more peace, less kindergarten, and having all our friends and family around us again.