the best place to be isn't here with me

Someone had forwarded me a link to an article about the recently published Economist Intelligence Unit’s ‘best place to live survey’. The results? Need you even guess?

1) Vancouver
2) Melbourne
3) Vienna
4) Geneva
5) Perth
6) Adelaide
7) Sydney
8) Zurich
9) Toronto
10) Calgary

So much for Toronto’s ‘center of the universe’ complex. Maybe that's why I failed geography. As for Vancouver, I approve the fact that it has a great climate. Weather is arbitrary. Best place to live? I'm still thinking about that one. It seems to me to be more of a subjective than objective exercise. You could choose any city in Canada, and devise a set of criteria that assure it of being the most desirable or best place to live. I've lived here in Ottawa all my life, only having been able to dibble dabble from the east to the west. Whenever I'm asked about how Vancouver was, I would respond by saying it is a city of extremes. Extreme stretches of inclement weather, extreme stretches of stellar weather, extreme natural beauty, extreme organized crime, extreme traffic jams, extreme politics, extreme activism, extreme sports, extreme wealth, extreme poverty etc., with very little middle ground. But that’s just my little take on things.

Another thing, Vancouver was also chosen for the Dalai Lama Centre for Peace and Education by, obviously, the Dalai Lama. That’s pretty neat. Back to work it is. Cheerio.