I start today's post thanking those who participated there by FB and suggested topics for this commemorative post, since it is 8 years in Canadian lands and did not want to write, although totally true, as it went fast so far, while we did so many things that seems like an eternity since we left Brazil. I dug up some pictures from the bottom of the chest for this post, as we change in 8 years! On the day of our departure from Brazil, still in São Paulo… Today, Canada for us no longer has all that mystery when we arrived. The land where we didn't know the people properly,…

I recently learned of the online tool called Navut and what a great discovery! You have access to hundreds of data (if not more) from almost every major Canadian city (Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg), which can make a big difference when choosing a city to live in and the right neighborhood for You. So I thought about what hand on the wheel navut would have been at the time we were in the polls before coming to Canada. We did a very basic survey, I would say, of Edmonton and Ottawa and ended up choosing Ottawa, but I confess that we arrived here very lost, knowing nothing…

Just as I talked about the pros earlier, I couldn't help but quote the cons of immigrating to Canada, because yes, they exist and aren't that few. For some the items below may not bother as much, as for others, they can be decisive points to come or not to come. I believe that most of the most challenging and "less good" things about coming to live in these bands end up weighing more after the person arrives and sees, in fact, that the bixo picks up anywhere in the world. The best thing is to try to imagine these points in a day-to-day and long term future and assess…

I'm going to start by talking today about the pros of immigrating to Canada from a potential immigrant standpoint. I find it super interesting to weigh the pros and cons of this great change, before embarking on an adventure that quietly has nothing. See the post of cons here. I know from experience that changing countries in the long run is not an easy decision. You will move away from everything you know, that you have become accustomed for a long time (if not your whole life so far), career, home, friends and family, to go into the unknown (as much as you know the city you are going to,…

For those who know a little about Canada, you may have seen that here the vast majority of villas are houses, semi-detached houses and small buildings of 2 to 3 floors. High apartment buildings are in the minority, since Canada is immense right people and cities do not actively encourage high population density (which is kind of controversial with sustainability, but ultimately out of topic). Often, apartments are for rent and houses, townhouses, condos etc are the most sought after options for those who will "buy". I say"buy" because the vast majority of homes are financed and individuals will only own the house for real in about 25 years, which…

That Canada is cold, everyone already knows. Some people don't think they're even going to see it here, check it out. Maybe it's the long winters and gray days we have around here. These past few weeks have lived up to Canada's fame. Extreme cold alerts almost daily.  The truth is, life is still around here. Everybody goes to work, goes to the supermarket, to the gym.  This morning, according to a local radio station, around 7am it felt like -41.6ºC, the lowest recorded on February 16 and the lowest temperature since March 6, 2007. Ottawa also took the coldest capital cup in the world this weekend. Even with the…