Today I will write a bit about the city and their people.
The first thing that nearly every international student noticed is the attitude of the people. In Canada they are very welcoming and outgoing, I’ve had great conversations with random people because they just came up to me. Germans are not rude, but I talk to way less strangers in Germany, also the fact that everyone says “thank you” by leaving the bus is such a nice thing.
All in all there are so many buses driving in Victoria, around the city you can go everywhere by bus, in Germany there are not that many buses but way more people ride their bikes to get anywhere.
Also the streets in Germany are very small compared to the ones in Canada, in small neighborhoods the street is still pretty wide, but without a sidewalk. The first weeks I lived in Canada I thought it was very weird to just walk on the street and not on a sidewalk. I mean there are sidewalks, but definitely not everywhere and also less than in Germany.
Whenever you visit another country you also recognize that there are other types of food or ways to prepare and eat food. Of course I noticed similarities and differences between Germany and Canada and this is the theme for this entry.
The first thing that is not the same are the times to eat. Okay so breakfast is similar, but here in Canada I eat lunch at 11:30am in school and dinner at roundabout 6pm. In Germany I usually eat lunch after school at 2pm and dinner at 8-9pm. What you eat changed for me too, in my German family we eat a warm meal for lunch and something like sandwiches for dinner, here in Canada it is exactly the opposite.
In addition to that there is some typical and common food of Germany like dark bread with lots of grains that you really can’t find here easily. The supermarket is full with white bread and toast, but that’s not the same…
Pretty popular is that there are way more fast food stores in North America, but before I left Germany I didn’t know that Canada has just a few bakeries. In my hometown in Germany there is a bakery at nearly every corner, here there are fast food stores instead.
Then there is something that I think is pretty nice and also very smart. Wherever you go to eat or drink something, you get tap water for free. In Germany you often pay the same price for water as for soft drinks, which is really annoying.
In conclusion I would say that Canadian and German food definitely has similarities, but is not completely the same.
Today I write about the schools in both countries and in this theme there are a lot of differences.
Here in Victoria my Secondary School begins at 8:40am and ends at 2:45pm, I have three classes a day and these are the same on every day in the week. Two classes are before lunch and each goes 1h and 15 min, but because of Covid we have just one class in the afternoon for 2h and 30 min. The only thing that changes is the order of the first two classes and after one quarter the afternoon class switches to another one.
In Germany my school begins at 7:50am and ends between 1:40pm and 3:40pm. In 10th grade I had 12 classes and on one day you have 5-6 classes, each goes 1h. Some classes are three times a week and some just 2 times, through this you have another schedule every day.
Another thing that I noticed is that the learning content is not the same in the grades. An example for that is that Canadians learn something in math in grade 10 what I’ve learned in grade 8 in Germany. In general school in Germany is more difficult than here in Canada. Canadian students can decide more of which classes they want to take and also the variety of classes to choose is bigger.
In addition to that the relation between teachers and students is different in the countries. I would say that in Germany students have to show more respect to the teachers than in Canada, because here they are not disrespectful but it is a bit more on the same level.
For me, school life in Victoria,Canada is definitely more fun than in Germany, but I think that I learn more in my home country.
Hello, my name is Lisanne, I’m 16 years old and I am from Germany near Muenster. Since January 2022 I live in Victoria BC, Canada as an exchange student. I study here for one semester in a secondary school as a 10th grader and will go back to Germany at the end of june. Most of my exchange semester is over and I experienced a lot and noticed many differences between living in Germany and Canada. In this blog I write about this, so if you are interested and wonder how life is in another country, on another continent…Then my blog could be perfect for you.