Re: Is Canada Home?
 

[QUOTEWhat about those of you that have moved a lot in your lives?[/QUOTE]

We've been in Canada for nearly 3 years now. At first I wanted to get straight back on a flight to the UK which is strange as I thought it would be a love at first sight kind of thing! Now I can't imagine going back. For me, it just took time to adjust and for the place to become familiar, make friends etc. (just like anywhere else).

I moved around a lot as a kid and as an adult throughout the UK and abroad so I don't come from a large extended family and don't have any particular place that I would call home anymore (although I really liked Reading where we moved from). I think that must make it easier. I don't know. When I was a teenager I always wanted to live abroad but that was maybe because I had lived abroad as a kid!

We are very happy being here and where we are is home to us. Our kids can barely remember the UK and my son is hockey mad so he would be devasted if we moved back. I prefer the climate and the culture here although I do find Canadians to be fairly ignorant of the world and other cultures around them. I've never met one who hates living in Canada yet so at least they're happy - ignorance is bliss!!

Anyway, I'm rambling on now but I don't see us ever moving back. If I moved again, I would still live abroad - maybe Australia or somewhere in Europe, but not the UK. I prefer sunshine and open spaces. For now though, we're staying put and applying for citizenship in April.

Chris

Re: Is Canada Home?
 

Hmm yeah its funny what you forget in such a short space of time.

Re: Is Canada Home?
 

:lol:

Are you sure about that? Do you not want to phone a friend, ask the audience or 50/50. ;)

Re: Is Canada Home?
 

Absolutely 100% totally YES! And I knew that before the plane touched down the first time I went to Toronto in 1983.

Returning to Europe 4 months later was HELL. I always wanted to make it back, never thought. It took me 20 years to get back and I have been back home another 3 times. With each trip I am even more determined that it is my home.

It's like the line in the end of the movie "Memoire's of a geisha"

'Every step I have taken is to bring me closer to you.' Just exchange "you" with "home".

I'm not home yet but I'm working on it.

Re: Is Canada Home?
 

Nah, you gotta save those option for the hard questions, such as "has your spending time abroad worked out for the best?"

Re: Is Canada Home?
 

So I will take that as a no then ;)

Re: Is Canada Home?
 

I don't believe I think of the UK as home now. My home is here, and though one day (not atm) I can see that I might want to go back to visit, that day has not yet come.

I think maybe life is a journey .... you have to move on, you really can't go back.

Hmmmmm .......... :huh:

Re: Is Canada Home?
 

Its a difficult one ....... I dont belong where I grew up thats for sure, probably dont belong in London these days as things move on......so where? ....... you must be right life is a journey, maybe for those roaming spirits "home" is for the here and now.

Re: Is Canada Home?
 

When you have spent more of your life in Canada than you have in the UK, then it becomes your home.

Re: Is Canada Home?
 

It ain't necessarily so - Home can be defined as the place where one lives permanently, but also as a place where something flourishes or from which it originated - as well as various other dictionary definitions. "Home" can be an emotional thing - it's an emotive word, and it's different for everybody. Canada will never be "home" for me, as there are no emtional ties, and is unlikely to provide them..... :(

Re: Is Canada Home?
 

That's fair enough for us immigrants; we chose to move away from home. I wonder though if it was right to have children while abroad; mine have grown up with no attachment to anywhere, they're horrified by the idea of being Canadian, not really British, only nominally Swiss and not yet American. The children of our closest friends are similarly disaffected, not Indian, not Swedish, grudgingly Canadian. One might argue that an attachment to a nation state is outdated in the era of globalisation but I think there's something to be said for a feeling of belonging.

Re: Is Canada Home?
 

Good point. Nationalism seems outmoded when you consider the challenges facing the earth like pollution, warming, resource depletion etc.

Re: Is Canada Home?
 

Does it seem likely that their lack of attachment could at least partly be due to their fathers lack of enthusiasm?

Re: Is Canada Home?
 

or perhaps their mother's active hatred. Or my partner's nostalgia for the desert or her predecessor's wanting to be down home on da rock. On their teachers waiting for various revolutions to end so they could leave.

Yes, there are factors specific to us but I think it goes beyond that. We don't know people who identify Canada (save Newfoundland) as home, conversations are peppered with 'in my country....", a relentless stream of comparisons good and bad to the nations where people feel they belong. It's interesting to live here and one can learn a lot (on a trivial level I had no idea Korea gets colder than here until the bagel lady told me about the weather in her country) but it's like one of those oil compounds in the Middle East, everyone's ok with being here for a while but they all ultimately want out.

Re: Is Canada Home?
 

I feel pretty much the same way. When I go to Brighton now I like the architecture, I like the pubs, I like the Sussex countryside and villages. I like the coach back to Heathrow even more. As a rule, I hate flying but I'm always eager to get aboard AC889.