Riddle Me This, Nova Scotia

The first thing I did was go to Tim Hortons.

After an early-morning flight from Toronto to our new home in Atlantic Canada, I was eager to start this new chapter with a cup of the old, familiar sugar-water. Being that the nearest location is within two downhill blocks of the new place (I believe there is a bylaw in Dartmouth requiring that there be a Timmy's within spitting distance of each resident), this should have taken only a couple of minutes.

But as those minutes passed, I found myself progressing no further than a nearby stoplight, where I stared, mystified, at a flashing orange hand that never seemed to give way to the white glow of the "walk" signal no matter what the colour of the streetlights. If I wasn't supposed to walk on green, red or yellow lights, when was I supposed to walk? Was the Timmy's, its sign visible above a row of houses, permanently out of my reach despite its palpable proximity? And what were these curious buttons with arrows above them on the pole beside me?

This traumatic experience made it clear that adjusting to Dartmouth after a lifetime encased in the friendly concrete of Toronto was going to be difficult. The entire Halifax Regional Municipality area, it turns out, is a land of riddles seemingly designed to confuse innocent, vulnerable Torontonians.

The ever-present, admonishing traffic hand is just one of these. After nearly two weeks on the East Coast, I have made several similar observations, which I shall list here:

1) Garbage, recycling and composting here is complicated. Apparently, the residents of HRM are clever enough to understand and execute instructions that call for organic materials, solid waste and two different kinds of recyclable materials to be dropped in entirely separate bins. I noticed while at the mall that most people were able to do this without crying, even though tears were welling up in my own eyes as I stood helplessly in front of all those options, wondering whether my crumpled-up napkins belonged in the paper recyling or organics bin.

2) In Toronto, one can be reasonably certain that climbing aboard a streetcar marked "Queen Street" will result in a steady progression in the same direction down said street. Not so in HRM. The buses here dip and dive down streets with no regard for their passengers' equilibrium, making sudden, unpredictable cuts and switches as if they're following an especially complex offensive scheme designed by an NBA coach. Yet the locals register little to no alarm as all this goes on, their knowledge of the bus' number and eventual destination inexplicably filling them with confidence.

3) The people here have a habit of speaking to you. Even those who have never met you or friended you on Facebook tend to say hello without warning. Despite their clear violation of my personal-space bubble, they respond to my aggrieved grunts as though I'm the one who's committed the social faux-pas.

There are, and will be, more such revelations as life here proceeds. Reporting them may be the only thing that keeps me sane in this insane town.

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