7 posts tagged “canada”

I've just bought one-way plane tickets from San Jose to Vancouver and Vancouver to Dunedin.  We're really doing it - emigrating to New Zealand.  I'm a bit nervous about the whole thing, but excited as well.

We're leaving here in mid-September, spending a month in Vancouver (I got a really good monthly rate for our accommodation - we're staying in an apartment right on Denman Street, in our old neighbourhood), then flying to New Zealand in mid-October.

We're taking the long way round because we need to deal with all the stuff we left behind when we moved to San Jose, and we want to spend some time with friends before we disappear off to the other side of the world.   I'm also planning to visit all my old haunts to say goodbye - sentimental type that I am.  Flying's gotten so horribly expensive that we might not get back to Canada any time soon, so I plan to soak up as much of the Vancouver experience as I can while we're there.

We're off to Canada tomorrow for three weeks.  It's my first time travelling with Petra.  I'm nervous about the whole airport/airplane thing, although Petra's usually pretty mellow when we're out.  She's very curious and spends her time looking and looking at everything and everyone.

We have an appalling amount of luggage.  I'm used to travelling pretty light, but this time we look like we're planning an assault on Everest or some such epic endeavour.  We have two big suitcases, a laptop (Travis has to work while we're away), assorted other carry-on bits and pieces, as well as the pram and carseat.  Scary.

I am very much looking forward to being in Vancouver though.

Quebec City Man Accused of Brandishing Shotgun in Snow Rage Case

What decision changed the course of your life? 
Submitted by Ally.

Deciding to move to Vancouver in 1999.  Before that, the decisions I made, even the big ones like ending a seven year relationship, didn't change the basic tenor of my life.  I lived in the same town, studied and worked at the same university, knew the same core group of people.  It was a good life and I enjoyed it - I remember my last few years in Dunedin very fondly because they were so much fun - but it was a life with not much that was unknown about it.

I wanted the unknown, wanted to check out the big wide world, and wanted to try living somewhere other than New Zealand.  And Canada with its working holiday programme provided the perfect opportunity.

So I left home and went to the other side of the world.  I knew very little about Vancouver except that friends had spent a couple of years there going to school at UBC and really liked it.  The X-Files was shot there and I loved the X-Files in the mid-90's.  And it was warmer than the rest of Canada - an important point since I arrived at the end of January.  I had no job and only a vague plan to find work, save some money, and use it to travel around Europe before going back to the southern hemisphere (I liked the idea of Melbourne). 

Looking back, this seems like a really drastic move, but the OE (Overseas Experience) is an accepted part of New Zealand culture and my leap wasn't that unusual except that I was a bit older than many of the travellers.  Hordes of people leave every year, most bound for London, to spend a year or two seeing the world before they knuckle down to adult life.

And the plan mostly worked out (except for the returning to the southern hemisphere part).  I had the good fortune to arrive in the middle of the dotcom boom and duly acquired the job and the money.  I also met Travis.   The rest as they say is history.  Now, here I am in Costa Rica with a lovely husband, and a baby on the way, living a life I never could have expected before I left New Zealand.

1)  Have you ever been out of your country?
Yes. 

I'm a New Zealander and a Canadian, so I have two countries to choose from here, but when I think of "my country" I think of New Zealand.  I spent my first 29 years living in and around Dunedin, which is in the South Island of New Zealand.  My only travel outside the country during those years was a couple of visits to Australia.  In 1999, I moved to Vancouver so that I could see some of the big wide world and began travelling as hard as I could.  I went to the US a few times, to Morocco, and all over Western Europe (Holland, England, France, Italy, Spain, Austria, Switzerland, Andorra, Liechtenstein, and Greece).  Now, I'm living in Costa Rica and have been to the Dominican Republic and Columbia from here.

2)  What is your mode of transportation?
The work van when we can get it; red Costa Rican taxis when we can’t.

3)  Have you ever eaten anything straight from nature? (caught a fish, had a garden, or picked an apple off a tree).
Yes, Dad always had a garden when I was a kid and I used to pull up carrots and pick peas.  We also caught and cooked fish as a family - something I didn't enjoy because I was squeamish about killing the fish. 

Some friends and I once raided the garden of a neighbouring farmer – we sat in the rows of vegetables and ate small, sweet, slightly dirt-tasting carrots until we couldn’t eat any more.  Then we surveyed the mess we’d made and slunk off expecting to be caught and told off at any second.

4)  Tell us about some of the places you have lived.
I’ve lived in Costa Rica for the last six months.  Travis came down first and his descriptions weren’t inspiring.  He talked about the abrupt tropical sunset – it’s dark here by 6 every evening – and about guards with semi-automatic weapons, and bars across the houses.  He had me imagining a hot, dark, armed camp.  His repeated, “but it’s really nice here,” comments didn’t convince me. But he was right – when I arrived, I found out what he meant.  There’s something very appealing about San Jose, something that I can’t quite explain.  Maybe it’s the ever-present possibility of adventures, maybe it’s the openness of Latin American culture, maybe it’s the cheap beer, and maybe it’s just the fabulous weather.
 
5)  Show us a photo from a place...Any place!

How have people mispronounced your name?  How is it supposed to sound? 
Submitted by Lorie.   

When I moved to Canada people heard my name as Janeet because of my New Zealand  accent.  I couldn't figure out why people were mispronouncing it at first and would repeat my name emphasizing the last syllable (which I pronounce "ette" as in "pet"), but of course the more I emphasized it, the stronger the "ee" sound was and the more confused we all got.

People don't mishear my name much these days because, after 8 years in Canada, my accent has acquired a lot of Canadianisms.  I have "r's" where there were no "r's" before and my vowels have moved in self-defense.  I do still sound foreign to Canadians - they think I'm Australian, or English, or more oddly, South African.  But now I also sound a bit foreign, a bit Canadian, to my family and friends in New Zealand.

God knows what living in Costa Rica will do to me - perhaps I'll start rolling all those new "r's" I have!

I really like the Costa Rican pronunciation of my name - the "J" in Janette is softened and slurred and the "a" sounds like "up" instead of "at".  And Stratton becomes Estratton.  In Spanish, it seems that "s" followed by another consonant always has an "e" before it - as in especial, Español, escribe - so people want to add that "e" to Stratton.  My simple Anglo-Saxon last name becomes a lot more exotic in Spanish.

Oh the pressure of coming up with five vaguely interesting things that people may not know about me.  But here goes....

1) I grew up in Waipori Falls, which is a tiny hydro village (about 100 people lived there when I was small) in New Zealand.  It was a fantastic place to be a kid.  We had lots of freedom to roam around in the bush, play in the river, slide down banks, and swim in the lake. 

2)  I couldn't decide what to write for number two - this is my second attempt.  I hate Brussels sprouts and mashed potatoes, have hated them since I was little,never eat them now that I don't have to.  I love cherries and blueberries and ate them by the pound when they were in season in Vancouver.

3)  I moved to Canada in 1999 because I wanted to see what was out there in the big wide world.  I chose Canada because they run a temporary work visa exchange with New Zealand and I was eligible for a visa.  I chose Vancouver because I knew I was going to arrive in January and didn't want to freeze to death.  And because the X-Files was filmed there.  They made the city and surrounds look so cool - all dark, gloomy, and menacing.

4)  What else?  I left NZ with a grand plan - earn lots of money in Vancouver (this despite knowing no one and having no job to go to), travel all over Western Europe for a few months, just me and my backpack against the world, and finish up in Australia to live in one of the bigger cities, Sydney or Melbourne, probably Melbourne, for a while.  And the plan mostly worked out - except the moving to Australia part.  I earned some money, made friends, met my husband, and took my trip to Europe with Travis.  Bonus!

5)  I spend far too much time these days reading Vox blogs - they're addictive!