christmasoompa

I did that earlier today, took the dog for a 7 mile walk in torrential rain but 28 degrees! Shorts and welly boots are a good look.

christmasoompa

No thunder and lightning here yet but it's on it's way, can feel it in the air. So hot and muggy. Cue the dog trying to hide underneath my feet all evening. *sigh*

Gozit

This and the one above. When I tell people that in Malta, no matter what job I am working, I am entitled to 3 weeks break, even if i'm just working a measly min. wage job, they usually respond with something like "oh well no wonder the economy there is so shite" or "well won't you lose pay for those holidays?"

Yeah more like 5-6 months mate. Last lick of snow wasn't gone til the first week of may this year. Considering the first bit of it was end November. Man I hate winter. I'm through with it the day it starts!

Oh well to answer the OPs question .....

Me? I didn't choose Canada, I was born here.

Before you come, you really need to make sure that you can survive 5-6 months of shitty, cold, and snowy weather as well as shovelling snow multiple times daily. And as outlined, when we're supposed to have summer it isn't even summer. It was 17 today. 7 years ago we would have had a proper 30+ degree day guaranteed every day through July and August. No more i'm afraid, due to global warming. It may sound trivial but weather is one of my driving forces to get out of here. If you prefer snowy to gloomy and rainy then by all means, come. Tbh I don't think either of them sound very good but i'd take the UK one over this. At least there isn't any shovelling to do there, or snow dealing in general.

The other thing - the work breaks. You won't get 6 weeks holiday here, you just won't. IMO the jobs here are a lot more fast paced, and they expect you to be fully dedicated to work, rather than your life outside work. The expression "We live to work, not work to live" comes to mind when looking at certain jobs and their absurd requirements.

There are positives to coming out here - and a lot of people really like it. There is lots of open spaces, things are cheaper, there is in general nice people, I could go on.

You just have to make sure you can handle the negatives - or maybe they aren't negatives for you...

scrubbedexpat091

I didn't really choose Canada, it chose me by sending down someone whom I liked and didn't want to move to the US, so I moved here. Now that is long done and over, but I stayed for a variety of reasons, the big ones being:

1. Wages are higher then the US for those like me in the lower end of the wage spectrum.

2. Healthcare is significantly cheaper.

3. It rains which was not a common occurrence in San Diego.


If I could actually choose a country to live in, it would have been Australia.

scrubbedexpat091

I want to learn another language but without having the ability to be immersed into it and using it daily, so far learning new ones has been a failure with only retaining a few random words.

But I didn't learn English well either, took me a good chunk of my childhood to grasp language. I think some people are just not able to learn and retain a 2nd language.

JamesM

Where are you located?

JamesM

They are far better off seeing if they can get into Canada or the US before wasting their time and that of others.

As mentioned immigration is no stroll in the park and some realism needs to be applied rather than people fanning a dream.

The choice of words is direct because when people are discussing moving for their children's sake they need to get real.

Jimbo2012

Yes I know. You must be totally Canadian to take it so literally.

MarylandNed

I always imagined you being sent to Coventry.

Crazyhorse1

Ottawa

Cedar3

We came for many reasons and despite only recently arriving I've not yet come up with a good answer for 'why Canada?' (many previous posters have outlined the biggest pros and cons) but it just feels like a good fit for who we are and what we want out of life - adventure, the outdoors, decent education and experiences for kids, opportunities to work, more space in every respect, not too far from UK family and friends. We felt an affinity with how things are in Canada when we holidayed here in AB and BC and that played into our decision a lot.

Having made the decision though I think the key for us was being certain that this is where we want to be and that has carried us through hours of paperwork, the massive upheaval and risks of leaving the UK and the ups and downs of settling into a new country where we didn't know a soul when we arrived. We're in it for the long haul and hope to become permanent and that is carrying us along the bumps in the road.

Sounds like the OP has read up on people's experiences and hopefully you'll have a chance to make a visit here as part of the decision-making process. In which case, given the fantastic diversity of the country it would be great to visit where you think you may look to move or do a roadtrip to cover a couple of options if that's feasible / more useful. Best of luck!

Howefamily

outdoorsy here too, had horses, used to compete and ride LOTS in the rain. Theres nothing like a wet horse, wet slippery reins, wet jods and rain dripping down the back of your neck and off the bottom of your waxed jacket straight down your legs.
You can then get all the hay from the hay net stuck to you along with all the mud from the horse.

Personally I prefer cold and sunny to rain and overcast... diff strokes for diff folks. You don't have to be an indoors person to dislike rain.
I man up constantly in the minus 26 walking my dogs in the morning before work now.

DandNHill

Was thinking about that today actually. It was 30 degrees here and I was enjoying walking the dogs and was trying to remember how much I enjoyed or disliked walking them last winter! lol

DandNHill

Canada for me was a way of combining the two parts of my upbringing...or at least that's how I saw it initially.
I grew up in both the UK and France and so am a bit of a mix just like many Canadians!!

Obviously when I got here and realized that Acadian French is nothing like European French I had to have a bit of a rethink!

But I still feel it was a great choice for me. I had been wanting to make the move since the 80s when Quebec was advertising in France for people to move over... Ex hubby wouldn't consider it although he was French (still is actually) so I put it on the back burner...

It won't suit everybody for sure, some people won't like it and will either move to another country or maybe go back to the UK but right now for me I like it here, I forget I'm not Canadian and can't really see myself going anywhere else... although when it's - 24 out there I do dream of a relocation to the Bahamas!!!

BristolUK

What do you dream of when it gets proper cold?