The long weekend dedicated to chocolate One of the times we often notice big differences between the UK and Canada is during holidays. This weekend is Easter but definitely not as we know it. For starters, Easter Monday is not a statutory holiday and we both have to go to work! This ruins the first thing I love about Easter – 4 days off! Secondly … Continue reading Happy Easter
So today is our 6 month anniversary since leaving the UK to come on our Canadian adventure. Doesn’t time fly! The good news is that in the past 2 weeks our respective parents have both booked trips to come and visit us (fortunately not at the same time…), and we can’t wait to see them again! To mark our 6 month anniversary, we decided to look … Continue reading Looking back on 6 months in Canada
So we did it! We survived! Spring officially started today, so goodbye winter. What’s more, February 2015 was apparently Toronto’s coldest month on record EVER, with the daily high never exceeding 0 degrees! Although some might say that February cheated in claiming this record, given that it has only 28 days… Honestly, I don’t think that the winter has been that bad, especially given all … Continue reading Surviving the Canadian winter
Pancake Day is definitely one of my favourite days, second only to Easter Sunday (no prizes for guessing who wrote this post). Pancakes are very popular over here and eating them with maple syrup was one of the things I was most looking forward to doing whilst in Canada. When I was younger, we went to Jasper on a family holiday and I remember eating … Continue reading Happy Pancake Day
One of the next things we did after getting our new home was to get ourselves a Canadian driver’s licence. The amount of time you can drive on a UK licence in Canada depends on the province. In Ontario you only have 60 days, but in BC for example it’s 90 days. Fortunately for us the UK has an exchange agreement with Ontario, which as … Continue reading Getting an Ontario Driver’s Licence
Now that the fun of our travelling was over, we were back in Toronto and it was time to find somewhere to live before the ‘fun’ of working started! Rather than having a useful website like Rightmove, that allows you to easily search for properties and view photos, here you have to use Kijiji and Craigslist, which are more popular variants of the Gumtree style … Continue reading Finding accommodation in Toronto
After staying in a not so nice motel on the way to Ottawa we decided we would rather stay somewhere a bit better on the way back. We also wanted somewhere that was closer to Toronto since we had to drop the car off by lunchtime the next day. This led us to Belleville – the birthplace of Avril Lavigne! We stayed in the Place … Continue reading Our first real snow!
Happy New Year! We still have quite a lot of 2014 to catch up with on the blog (we are 2 months behind!) but we thought it would be a good time to start thinking about our plans for 2015. So in no particular order here is the bucket list: 1. Find a moose in the wild. So far the closest we’ve got is some footprints … Continue reading Our 2015 Canadian bucket list
Merry Christmas from Canada! We’re missing our family, friends and gerbils, especially at this time of year but will be enjoying our first Christmas abroad and sticking to the tradition of eating lots of yummy food. Tomorrow we will be braving the crowds at the airport for a short trip to Boston! Hope everyone has a lovely day without us. Emma and Stewart Continue reading Merry Christmas
Monday was our 3-months-in-Canada anniversary, and along the way we have made a few observations of things that are different with back home in the UK. Given that Canada was once part of the British Empire and all that, some things are similar to the UK, but given the economic and cultural strength of the USA to the south, there are many things that are different … Continue reading 10 differences between Canada and the UK
Brown Bear Travels 