Stay far away from Calgary!

The first comment is a big joke I don't know what that guy done wrong but Calgary easyly the friendliest place the most  non-friendly places I have been #1 Montreal 2 Toronto 3 Vancouver ....
Enough said from a European Immigrant here is a blog from this site will tell you more I don't feel like bloating how great it is here but it is better than anything East from here:

https://www.expat.com/en/interview/335_ … berta.html

My friend and I just came back from Calgary and we're both pretty disappointed with our experience there. I understand that there are all types of people every where but I did find that the ones that we did encounter, half of them were quite rude and not very helpful.  We stayed at a hotel casino resort and as workers in the customer service industry, there were gaming staff who were not very friendly. An example would be when my friend sat on an empty chair on the poker table, the dealer said to him very rudely that if he's not playing then he has to get up, that he can't sit there and not play. As if he was kicking my friend out of his store, something to that effect. I was surprised by his tone because I felt like he could have been a little more polite. Another example is when we asked an employee where we can eat besides the pub since it was already midnight, she pointed us to a restaurant that was closed. So my friend and I decided to order take out, but before we ordered I wanted to make sure that we would still be able to make it back before the bar closed. (10 hrs of driving, just wanted to enjoy a drink) I went to ask another dealer what time do they serve alcohol until and he told me 12:30AM. We figured there won't be time and decided to eat at the pub only to find out that by the time we were done eating which was well after 1:00am,  they were still,  serving alcohol. Our time there mainly consist of experiences similar to the examples.
We did meet some locals who were nice but unfortunately there were more upsetting incidents.  Overall, this was not a good experience and most likely won't be returning as we did not feel welcome.

I am new here, ending up at this forum because I was looking for a forum about Calgary. This topic came up as one of the first in Google and I just couldn't let it go. When I noticed it was about being an expat, I signed up, because it's always fun to learn from other expats/immigrants.

But back to this topic. I love Calgary! But that hasn't always been the case. When we arrived here 11 yrs ago we ended up in Canmore, but the high cost of living and the difficulty to find a job that pays well enough to support a family of 6 made us decide to move.

We first ended up renting a home in Cochrane, because I (not the rest of the family) was very against living in a big city and I hated Calgary. However we kept on ending up in Calgary for shopping, our kids went to Mount Royal University and we worked in Calgary. Because we were in Calgary so often I started seeing the different side of Calgary. The nice little neighbourhoods such as Kensington, Marda Loop, Inglewood, Mission, etc. And the beautiful parks such as Fish Creek: the biggest urban park in the world, and what about canoeing on the Glenmore Reservoir!!! Or floating down the rivers. And I love downtown, especially with Prince's Island. And the mountains are an hour away!
And all the festivals, it's so hard to choose what to do in the summer weekends!

Of course there will be rude people, or bad people, it's a big city after all. But most people are polite and very friendly and helpful. Just look back at the flooding in 2003, I have never seen so much spontaneous help initiatives. It made a difficult time into a time where Calgary showed their compassion and turned the whole horrible situation in something I never thought would happen in a big city.

I love the multi-culturality, how people always ask "where are you from?" and not just to say something and move on but out of real interest. I started noticing that I am now also doing the same and it always ends up into a real nice and interesting conversation. "Canadians" often tell you to keep your own identity, they find it very important to keep your culture alive even though or maybe because you live in a new country.

Of course there will be things that you don't like, Calgary or what ever other place in the world, is not Utopia.

I believe there is no paradise on earth. There is and will always be the good and the bad sides to living anywhere on earth. After going through a rough time for 3 years now after moving from Egypt to Calgary, I realized that our perspective and attitude towards life is what makes us miserable or happy. Unfortunately, we do not have control over how people react towards us, but we do have control over our minds and the way we perceive things. The day I stopped picking at the negative things around me, and tried to appreciate and find the beauty in little things, such as short conversations with people, clean streets and pollution free air, beautiful blue sky, amazing rivers and parks is the day I became more content and happy with life in Calgary.

It doesn't matter what race we are or how different we look, we still share the same grounds when it comes to emotions, fears, joy and being accepted. People in Calgary might be reserved, but I believe a smile and a positive attitude can make a big difference when dealing with people.