The Things We Have Missed

Sao Paulo pleasant traffic!

Like Patrícia wrote on the previous post, a year ago we arrived in Canada! Yeah, time flies... Of course we miss a whole bunch of people like our parents, our brothers, our first niece, our friends, our dogs (yes, they are like human in my opinion)… Classic, eh! And believe it or not, we miss our in-laws too!

But besides the people we miss, there are some “things” that we miss. It may sound weird, but I miss a real rain. Yes, I miss exactly what you have just read: a “real rain”. Come on, Nanaimo’s daily rain is not a real rain. Where are the thunders? And what about the lightning? I really miss those things. People from Nanaimo may not know, but, even though, pouring rains are scary, they produce one of the best melodies for you to sleep. It is true: a pouring rain at night has a great somniferous effect! But I have to acknowledge that a pouring rain in the rush hour is not nice. Especially when you live in Sao Paulo… In January and February it rains hard almost every day down there around 6pm. The problem is that this is the time for everybody to take off their jobs and go home, so: traffic is a mess. It was common for me to leave the bus and walk some kilometres to get home because cars and buses were simply stuck due to the flooded streets or because of some fallen trees in the middle of the way. Well, definitely I do not miss pouring rains in the rush hour! 

Back to the things we miss. I know that is obvious, but we miss our beaches with sand, warm temperatures, and warm water!!! Canadians can say there are sand beaches here and somewhat warm temperatures in some places in the summer. But, if a Canadian tells me that there is a beach with warm water, I will not believe! So, when Patrícia and I have our first vacations here we will fly down to the US or to Central America to relax and dive in warm waters. 

Besides the thunders, lightning, pouring rains, beaches with warm waters, there are other things that we have not seen here and that we do not miss at all, such as: air pollution, messy traffic, social inequality, cars drivers that do not respect pedestrian crossing the streets, and… cockroaches. I think Canada also has cockroaches. I run a quick research and found this. So: if Canada’s Government is concerned about the cockroaches maybe they are here. But we have never seen them in Nanaimo, what is good for us!

Well, that is all for today! Have a good week and see you soon!   

One Year in Canada

The two flags have been with us since the beginning...

June 20, 2010. While our friends were celebrating a 3-1 Brazil's victory over Ivory Coast at World Cup 2010, we went to Guarulhos International Airport. Tears falling from our eyes when we said goodbye to our families, 128kg checked baggage limit, and a lot of anxiety regarding what we would face in Canada.

A year ago we arrived in Canada. Certainly this year abroad was the most intense year of our lives. The balance could not be more positive. Everything has been going fine up to now (despite the Canucks' loss to the Boston Bruins in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final). We rented a nice apartment as soon as we arrived here; we discovered how to use bike as a transportation (under the sun, rain, snow...whatever); we went back to our "student life" and counted every single penny spent, we prepared our first Christmas turkey (away from home); we saw the snow falling; just three weeks after getting our Work Permit Visa, we found two jobs (one on-campus and other off-campus), we made friends from all around the world, and we have been studying, studying, studying!  

We were positively impressed by the high level of the education in Canada. We are studying so hard like we have never studied before!

Today we understand why almost no one who attends the program works at the same time. We do not have time for anything else. We sleep (less than 8 hours a day), we work 25 hours per week, we attend classes, we work in several assignments, and we study for the quizzes, mid-terms, and final exams. After this year, we can say: we are tired! We want our Hawaii vacations! But, on the other hand, we are so happy with everything and there are a lot of surprises happening that give us a boost of energy! All the time, we realized that we are on the right track. 

The good news that happened recently was the fact that we have found great companies to do our internships! To finish the program a four-month internship is mandatory. 

So we thought about what we wanted to do after graduation and we chose the companies that we would like to work for. And... guess what? We both just got the "internship of our dreams"! We are very happy with the quick response of the companies and with the availability of our future bosses!

Of course the city we chose to work “helped” us. While everyone wants to live in Vancouver because of the proximity to the sea and the better weather during the winter months, we will re-start our life in Calgary, Alberta. The province of Alberta is the richest in Canada because of the huge oil reserves discovered in the early 1950s. The winter is severe though. In other words, many job opportunities and few resources available. That is what everybody says! Let's see... Calgary: here we go! Now we are going to live in the real Canadian winter.

We are moving in August. Now, a new cycle of anxiety starts. A different province, a different and larger city (Calgary has 1 million people), a life under - 40° C, working in different areas of expertise. I am going to work in the Investor Relations area for a mining company: TVI Pacific. Renato is going to work in a well-known university (in the International Centre) in a project to bring more Latin American students to the school: SAIT Polytechnic.

To sum up, we are very happy, especially because Renato and I worked on this Canadian project together and, so far, everything is going pretty well for both. It could not be better. See you!

What can you Buy with a Dollar?

Take care of your Loonie

As everybody knows the purchase power is something relative, it depends of a lot of factors and, mainly, it is related to how much you can earn “selling your labor force”. We also know that everybody likes to say: “Oh! The cost of living is increasing! The price of everything is getting more and more expensive”. But for us, almost everything here is much cheaper in comparison to Sao Paulo, the city we lived in Brazil. 

There are three things here that are complete different for us. First, the coupons to save money! We do not have coupons to clip in Brazil and here we love it! Every week we check at the newspaper to see how we can save our precious money! This weekend I used a coupon and get 5 dollars OFF to buy three bottles of shampoo! Without the coupon I would pay $11.31 and I paid $6.311! Good deal, eh!?! 

The second is the promotions. Here the promotions are really promotions! This weekend we also bought a 2 liter bottle of Coke for $1.09, and the regular price is in general $2.38. It is also pretty common to find some products with a label “Quick Sale (50% off regular price)” and the other one is “Pay One, Get Two”! Of course, we loved all types of promotion!

Last but not least: it is possible to buy something with one dollar. For example, fruits: more than one pound of banana or apple; vegetables: more than one pound of cabbage, eggplant or yucca; canned fruits and vegetable; two liters of soda; donuts; danishes, cookies, etc, etc, etc… I can guarantee that the list is pretty big! 

Our summer semester ends next week so we have no time for anything, no time for spending one dollar! LOL So the blog post will be short tonight… but we have cool news, and  we will share them soon! See you soon!

Nouvellement Marié, Nouvellement Immatriculés

Brand names in English: President's Choice® and no name® 

Brand names in French: le Choix du President® and sans nom®…

One of the things that I really love about Canada is the fact that the country has two official languages. I do not know why I like that, but I really do it. Maybe because it is so fancy J! Or because in my opinion it is very cool to see two different nations living relatively harmonically within a country like it happens here in Canada with Quebecois and the other Canadians.

I think that it is fair enough to have the anthem in French and English (the French version is better than the English one in my opinion, by the way), it is also fair enough that the politicians in campaign have to debate their ideas in English and French, it is also fair enough to provide general information to the population in English and French. Quebecois people have the right to receive the same information that English speaker Canadians receive.

However (there is always a “however”), some things are so weird… Example: some brands have their name in English and French!! Whaaaaaaaat? Yeah, unbelievable, at least for me! I can imagine some marketing teachers crying, having horrible nightmares, or in more extreme cases, trying to kill themselves when they see stuff like that. Well, at least brand managers can make more money here in Canada than in any other country in the world. Of course they can: if I were a brand manager here I would ask my company to double my salary.

For me, having two brand names is like having two names: one in English and another one in French. So, if my name is Peter in any country, when I am here in Canada you can call me Peter-Pierre. If you are John in your country of origin, you would be John-Jean in Canada and so on.

Hmmm, now that I am thinking about this, I think that maybe I am in trouble… My last name “Coelho” means “rabbit”, in English. So, in this case, as long as I am in Canada, should I change my last name to “Coelho-Rabbit-Lapin”? I will think about that…Rendez-vous la semaine prochaine!

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!

Banks in Canada... Weird!

Look at this: it is like a cheque to play Monopoly…

There are a lot of things here that make us proud to live in Canada. We thought: WOW! Now are really in a developed country. But there are some things that are on the list "we expected more" (LOL), and among these things are the Canadian banks. 

Of course customer services are really good and there is not a metal detector to stop us when we are in a hurry. Here some customers go the bank with their pets and this is normal! It is not necessary to wait for a long time in line, since customers are always served quickly.

But there is one thing that for us was “really weird”.  The first time we received our mobile phone bill to pay the due date was day 25^th. But in the same bill it was written this message: please pay by 16^th.  Whaaaat? Nine days before the due date? When we tried to understand that, the company explained us that it is better to pay in advance to avoid problems with payment processing. Ok, no problems!

Another note: if you are not a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident here, it is not quite simple to get a credit card, even if you have a work permit visa and make good money. Here it is not enough. Everybody who wants can have a credit card, but it is necessary to open an account named GIC and put in an amount of money, like a guarantee. This amount is, in general, the same of the card’s limit.

Cheques here in Canada also deserve a paragraph. For us, the cheques here are like toys, like the cheques used to play Monopoly. Here, to receive a job payment, to receive reimbursement from the health insurance company, or even to receive the refund of income tax from the government, if the person wants, it is possible to receive a cheque at home. The company and the government can send by mail. If you like this idea, that is OK, but I prefer a direct deposit in my bank account. But it is not so easy to get paid directly in the bank account! In Brazil, if you want to get paid that way, you just need to write down you bank data in a piece of paper and hand to the company or whatever. In Canada, it is necessary to go to the bank branch and ask for a document called VOID with all the bank information and hand this paper to the company or the government. But it is necessary to do it just once. Better than wait the post office bring our money, eh?

Despite the oddities we are proud customers of our Canadian bank, even more because we never paid a penny to keep our account there. See you soon!
 

We are Back!

It is Nice to be Back! 

Welcome back, dear readers! First of all, we would like to apologize for the long time without updating our blog. As everybody probably knows, we had a five week strike here at VIU, and during this time we decided not to write. When the strike ended, oh… When the strike ended, we did not have time for anything!

The semester was over last Friday (and we are alive, thank God!) and the new one will start tomorrow, May 2nd. But since we received some messages from international students with concerns about VIU and the strike, we would like to restart with the blog, sharing our experience related to this. 

First of all, when you grow up in a third world country, you use to deal with strikes at high school, university, public transportation, health services, security services, etc. But when you decide to study in a first world country, like Canada, and pay for your education, you probably do not expect a strike. But things like this can happen everywhere. We figured out that other well-known universities in Canada, like Dalhousie University and York University, already dealt with it recently.

In comparison to other strikes we had in Brazil, we can say that VIU was better prepared to keep students informed; updates were posted on a regular basis at the university website. In Brazil, on the other hand, the two sides involved in the strike use to have some open meetings, which is good for us to understand better what is going on. Here, it seemed that both parties were disconnected and that nobody was trying their best to find a solution considering us: the students.

When the strike ended on April 10th, one thing was really interesting. It was a Sunday night and almost all the professors e-mailed us explaining what would happen with the course schedules. Also, it was nice to see that the professors were really happy to be back.

Another difference that we noted here: in Brazil, it does not matter how long the strike takes, the semester is extended anyway, according to the length of the strike. Here it was different: the strike lasted 5 weeks and we finished the semester in 3 weeks. It was hard! But, again, our professors were really helpful; they considered the whole situation and made adjustments in the original course outlines. We were really sorry for missing some classes, like Michael O´Shea’s, who was the best one this semester in our opinion. We should have 4 classes more with him, he will cover really important materials, but, because of the situation, we had only 1 class more.

However, there are some situations in which there is nothing else you can do, just try to do your best! That was what we did in the last 3 weeks. Oh, besides, we have worked 20 hours per week too... Those were crazy days and we are still so tired. Renato has just turned 30 working on a hard finance project. But tomorrow will be another day, with a new semester and a lot of things to be learned. We are excited for being back to class and for being back to the blog writing in a weekly basis again! Happy new semester everyone! Let´s keep in touch again!