Fifteen Degrees, Haunted Houses, etc

OK, Vancouver looks good, but what is going on with the prices of the houses???

Next month we are going to complete one year in Canada. It has been interesting and weird to notice how our parameters have changed over this period here.

Moving from Brazil to Canada resulted on a big change on our temperature parameter first of all. In our home country, when it was 15 degrees, we used to think “oh my God, it is getting cold, let’s take a movie and stay in home”. Now, if it is 15 degrees, we celebrate “whoohoo, let’s wear our shorts, sandal and go outside to have some fun”.

In Brazil, when we saw an apartment for sale for CAD 150,000 we imagined “wow, this must be a really really good one, this is for rich people, not for us”, especially when we put the ridiculous Brazilian interest rates into the account… No way! Here, if we see a house for sale for CAD 150,000, we use to think “hmmm, there is something wrong with this house: leaks, weird neighbours, haunted house, whatever”. Houses here are a way more expensive than in Brazil, especially in Southern BC: totally out of our league! Vancouver? What is going on with that city? Is there any gold mine or an oil reserve underneath?

Our parameters also changed in regards to sports. When we were in Brazil, it was impossible to imagine Sunday and Wednesday without watching a soccer game. Now, I am sad because the 2010-2011 hockey season is heading to its end and I will not have any single game to watch over the weeks… Our Moroccan friend Ali Bouharrak cannot believe that Brazilian guys are comparing the excitement of a soccer game to the excitement of a hockey game!

Clothes? Electronic stuff? Food? Here we have all of those much cheaper than in Brazil. We use to spend twice more money in food than we spend here! And now we understand why, in Brazil, a job opportunity to make CAD 3,000/month would not be so good and why, in Canada, a job opportunity to make that amount would be good. With that and with all the economic background that professors Daniel Simons, Rosmy Jean Louis, and Raimo Martalla provided us, it has been impossible not to think about the huge differences between Canada and Brazil in regards to income distribution. But, well, this is a big topic and we can talk about that on another post in the near future!

See you soon!