Living in Canada
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Vancouver is not just beautiful, it is spectacular!
Vivic wrote:
Vancouver is not just beautiful, it is spectacular!
Damn, I gotta visit then!
Regards, Nish
Nish’s thoughts on MFC, C++/CLI and .NET (my blog)
Currently working on C++/CLI in Action for Manning Publications. Also visit the Ultimate Toolbox blog (New) -
OK, so when I say "BC" I mean "the area around Victoria, Vancouver and Whistler". You're correct in that I really should be more specific about the nature of my sweeping, narrow sighted generalisations :D (PS. I just read that some refer to BC as "Before Common sense". I reckon there's a story in there somewhere :D )
cheers, Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
FIX: A MFC program created in Visual Studio .NET 2003 unexpectedly quits when you try to close it[^]
Ahh then in local vernacular you want to say "The lower mainland and victoria".
Chris Maunder wrote:
PS. I just read that some refer to BC as "Before Common sense". I reckon there's a story in there somewhere
The typical Ontarians picture of a B.C. person is that they are high on pot sitting in a hot tub swilling lattes and red wine while meditating. :) Of course I don't know anybody that would do anything remotely like that. ;) I once worked for a guy while I was temping in Ottawa who had visited B.C. and was truly and utterly shocked that bank tellers were wearing blue jeans. It was probably casual friday at the bank but I had fun spreading more misinformation about B.C. The truth is that the people are very different wherever you go here, some are all industrious and business like, people in the oil and gas area in north eastern b.c. are maniacs that work until they drop dead and there are a *lot* of millionares up there wearing ripped up jeans and you would never know it to look at them. People on Vancouver island on average are pretty much the prototypical bc'er from an Ontarians perspective. Laid back, happy to make enough to live and no more, sybaritic. Many people here are just happy to make enough to go mountain biking in the summer and snowboarding in the winter. Slackers really, even the middle aged.
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David Cunningham grew up in North Bay. You've given me so much material to work with it's almost unfair :D
cheers, Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
FIX: A MFC program created in Visual Studio .NET 2003 unexpectedly quits when you try to close it[^]
Chris Maunder wrote:
David Cunningham grew up in North Bay.
:-D Poor bugger.
Chris Maunder wrote:
You've given me so much material to work with it's almost unfair
You can compensate me later. ;)
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Ahh then in local vernacular you want to say "The lower mainland and victoria".
Chris Maunder wrote:
PS. I just read that some refer to BC as "Before Common sense". I reckon there's a story in there somewhere
The typical Ontarians picture of a B.C. person is that they are high on pot sitting in a hot tub swilling lattes and red wine while meditating. :) Of course I don't know anybody that would do anything remotely like that. ;) I once worked for a guy while I was temping in Ottawa who had visited B.C. and was truly and utterly shocked that bank tellers were wearing blue jeans. It was probably casual friday at the bank but I had fun spreading more misinformation about B.C. The truth is that the people are very different wherever you go here, some are all industrious and business like, people in the oil and gas area in north eastern b.c. are maniacs that work until they drop dead and there are a *lot* of millionares up there wearing ripped up jeans and you would never know it to look at them. People on Vancouver island on average are pretty much the prototypical bc'er from an Ontarians perspective. Laid back, happy to make enough to live and no more, sybaritic. Many people here are just happy to make enough to go mountain biking in the summer and snowboarding in the winter. Slackers really, even the middle aged.
John Cardinal wrote:
Slackers really, even the middle aged.
Slackers supported by transfer payments from Ontario! Ha! I am submitting your post to my local MP as "evidence"! ;P
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I'm aware of that, she needs to upgrade some examina /Håkan
/Håkan Nilsson ------------------------------------------------ - Old fashion C programmer since 1988 - Bachelor in systems analysis 1991 - Systems developer at work with C#, SQL Server... - DBA, database design, SQL, admin ------------------------------------------------
Sadly it is probably a little more complicated than that. I would really encourage you to dig extremely deep on this matter and check multiple sources. I cant tell you how many stories we hear in Vancouver (I live thereabouts) where there are Doctors and Engineers that are working as taxi drivers for years before (if they ever..) get their certifications required to work in Canada. Our systems are very backwards in that respect. So far your desired description of a place to stay describes Vancouver perfectly, except that there is not too much sunshine in the Winter. Mainly overcast and rain. Temperatures rarely below -5C in Winter (usually 4-10C). Good luck. David
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Canadians out there and the rest of you who knews a lot of Canada, help me! I'm thinking about taking two or three years abroad with my family - wife and three children. Main reasons are: the children will learn proper english and we want to see something more than sweden for a longer time. We have just been traveling in Europe on our vacations, we have never been in the States or Canada, but I think Canada could be just fine. We live in Örebro, Sweden and if you look on the map and follow the latitude you will find yourself in southern Alaska, but we got about 20-30 degrees summertime and minus 5-25 wintertime. Now to the questions: 1) Which town should we head for? Criterias: English as 1:st language, there are soccer teams for my sons to play in (8, 13 years old). Some of us like hot temperatures at summertime and cold sunny > -10 degrees wintertime. We like skiing both downhill and cross country (ok, I like both, rest if the family just downhill :)) There must be good natural bathing with warm water > 18 degrees). We want to travel mostly by bike to school or work. Oh, what a list of demands! :-D 2) Working? How is the market for DBA:s / SQL Server programmers? My wife is occupational therapist, but maybee she could do something different just for fun halftime or so. 3) Get paid? What about the wages for senior developers/DBA:s 4) Administration, papers, permissions, formalia and... and so on. What do we need Anyone? All comments are welcome!
/Håkan Nilsson ------------------------------------------------ - Old fashion C programmer since 1988 - Bachelor in systems analysis 1991 - Systems developer at work with C#, SQL Server... - DBA, database design, SQL, admin ------------------------------------------------
Wow, you pretty much described where I live: Kamloops[^] British Columbia. - Self proclaimed tournament capital of Canada. (It may, in fact, be true - it's unbelievable how many sporting events happen here). - Soccer, soccer and more soccer. There are leagues for you, your wife, your kids. You name it. - It was 35 celcius two days ago, high so far this year 41. Winters sometimes dip below -10, but not for long. - Skiing. We have the Sun Peaks[^] resort a mere 40 minute drive away. In fact the Austrian Olympic team has already booked Sun Peaks for their pre-2010 olympic training site. - British Columbia and Alberta are both in an economic boom right now, so job possibilities are pretty good. - Lots of people bike here. Lots of road biking and there are tonnes of mountain bike trails and parks. - Scenery. If you've seen the movie "An Unfinished Life" with Jennifer Lopez and Robert Redford you'll see what I mean (it was filmed in and around here). - Proximity. 3.5 hour drive to Vancouver, 7.5 hour drive to Calgary through the Rocky Mountains. Both are spectacular drives. Take a look at the promo page[^] Can you tell I like it here? Hope this helps. Cheers, Drew.
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It's a two-language country. Immigration certainly requires a certain proficiency in French.
Asynes yw brassa ages kwilkynyow.
Obviously you have not been to Vancouver. Huge population of Asian and Indian immigants Main languages spoken out west: English Manadarin/Cantonese Hindi and other Indian langauges German French And the prevalence is roughly in that order. I doubt most of the asian immigrants except the Vietnamese (and one or two others) speak any French whatsoever when they come to the country. David.
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Canadians out there and the rest of you who knews a lot of Canada, help me! I'm thinking about taking two or three years abroad with my family - wife and three children. Main reasons are: the children will learn proper english and we want to see something more than sweden for a longer time. We have just been traveling in Europe on our vacations, we have never been in the States or Canada, but I think Canada could be just fine. We live in Örebro, Sweden and if you look on the map and follow the latitude you will find yourself in southern Alaska, but we got about 20-30 degrees summertime and minus 5-25 wintertime. Now to the questions: 1) Which town should we head for? Criterias: English as 1:st language, there are soccer teams for my sons to play in (8, 13 years old). Some of us like hot temperatures at summertime and cold sunny > -10 degrees wintertime. We like skiing both downhill and cross country (ok, I like both, rest if the family just downhill :)) There must be good natural bathing with warm water > 18 degrees). We want to travel mostly by bike to school or work. Oh, what a list of demands! :-D 2) Working? How is the market for DBA:s / SQL Server programmers? My wife is occupational therapist, but maybee she could do something different just for fun halftime or so. 3) Get paid? What about the wages for senior developers/DBA:s 4) Administration, papers, permissions, formalia and... and so on. What do we need Anyone? All comments are welcome!
/Håkan Nilsson ------------------------------------------------ - Old fashion C programmer since 1988 - Bachelor in systems analysis 1991 - Systems developer at work with C#, SQL Server... - DBA, database design, SQL, admin ------------------------------------------------
Sounds like Kelowna, BC is what you are after. Water skiing, snow skiing, mountain biking. Winters are mild and rarely hit -10. Summers are pleasant with July reaching 30 on a regular basis. Population is around 100,000 and we have a international airport. Job market is a little tougher but if you're the best there is then you won't have a hard time finding work. Housing market is comparable with Calgary and some parts of Vancouver. Not much in the way of rentals.
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OK, I now got Vancouver, Toronta and Ottawa in my "look for list". The thing that could be a problem is that myfamily life right now is so easy. 10 mins bike to work, living in a villa in a city center (Örebro, Sweden) a lot of activities for my family. The easist thing is to stay at home, but that's right it's too easy! I knew that Canada is not another Sovjet state so I'm sure I can somehow select my own living! I'm just surprised that I will be called immigrant in Canada. We don't call folks from north-america immigrants in Sweden. Immigrants in Sweden are people from Afghanistan or Bosnia, north-americans are settlers. It's a "north-south-east-west-cultural-thing" in sweden.
/Håkan Nilsson ------------------------------------------------ - Old fashion C programmer since 1988 - Bachelor in systems analysis 1991 - Systems developer at work with C#, SQL Server... - DBA, database design, SQL, admin ------------------------------------------------
Squamish just up north a bit from Vancouver, BC is known world-wide as capital for outdoors activities - rock climbing, hiking, mountain biking, rafting, kite boarding, you name it... It's beautiful part of country for sure! I'm a bit envious that you have the means/adventurous spirit to up and move to a whole different country. Right now, if I was in your position, I'd definately put Vancouver at the very top of my list. I regularly drive up from Oregon to ride at Whistler just up the road from Squamish (that's also a world class skiing destination I hear but that's not my bag...) I like downhill mountain biking and Whistler, BC is the mecca!
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Canadians out there and the rest of you who knews a lot of Canada, help me! I'm thinking about taking two or three years abroad with my family - wife and three children. Main reasons are: the children will learn proper english and we want to see something more than sweden for a longer time. We have just been traveling in Europe on our vacations, we have never been in the States or Canada, but I think Canada could be just fine. We live in Örebro, Sweden and if you look on the map and follow the latitude you will find yourself in southern Alaska, but we got about 20-30 degrees summertime and minus 5-25 wintertime. Now to the questions: 1) Which town should we head for? Criterias: English as 1:st language, there are soccer teams for my sons to play in (8, 13 years old). Some of us like hot temperatures at summertime and cold sunny > -10 degrees wintertime. We like skiing both downhill and cross country (ok, I like both, rest if the family just downhill :)) There must be good natural bathing with warm water > 18 degrees). We want to travel mostly by bike to school or work. Oh, what a list of demands! :-D 2) Working? How is the market for DBA:s / SQL Server programmers? My wife is occupational therapist, but maybee she could do something different just for fun halftime or so. 3) Get paid? What about the wages for senior developers/DBA:s 4) Administration, papers, permissions, formalia and... and so on. What do we need Anyone? All comments are welcome!
/Håkan Nilsson ------------------------------------------------ - Old fashion C programmer since 1988 - Bachelor in systems analysis 1991 - Systems developer at work with C#, SQL Server... - DBA, database design, SQL, admin ------------------------------------------------
Having recently travelled a couple of times to Sweden I think you will find that the Canadian and Swedish people are very similar. I live North of the Toronto area and have found that our summer and winter climates are _very_ similar to Stockholm. Come to Toronto; work in the city, commute from the subburbs. And if you want to have a chance to see the best Swedish hockey player (Mats Sundin of course) in action you have to chose T.O. for the Maple Leafs
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John Cardinal wrote:
Slackers really, even the middle aged.
Slackers supported by transfer payments from Ontario! Ha! I am submitting your post to my local MP as "evidence"! ;P
That's the price you pay for being "central" canada...eat it with a fork! :laugh: Actually to be honest there are very few ski bum type slackers on welfare that I know of, most just work enough to get by in typical slacker type jobs. Technically "working poor" but loving every minute of it.
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Ennis Ray Lynch, Jr. wrote:
Plus our spellings are better
Must...not...take...bait..
cheers, Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
FIX: A MFC program created in Visual Studio .NET 2003 unexpectedly quits when you try to close it[^]
I figured someone would like that.
On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage
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Having recently travelled a couple of times to Sweden I think you will find that the Canadian and Swedish people are very similar. I live North of the Toronto area and have found that our summer and winter climates are _very_ similar to Stockholm. Come to Toronto; work in the city, commute from the subburbs. And if you want to have a chance to see the best Swedish hockey player (Mats Sundin of course) in action you have to chose T.O. for the Maple Leafs
X| Sundin the best Swedish hockey player in canada? Markus Naslund might have a thing or two to say about that, where does he play again...? Oh right VANCOUVER! ;P Here's a joke I learned when I lived in Ottawa: How many people from Toronto does it take to screw in a light bulb? Just one, they stand there, hold the lightbulb and wait for the world to revolve around them. ;) You forgot to mention that the *average* Toronto commute time is 79 minutes a day. That's no kind of life to move to another country for. Seriously though if you had your choice of anywhere to live in Canada would you seriously choose Toronto?
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X| Sundin the best Swedish hockey player in canada? Markus Naslund might have a thing or two to say about that, where does he play again...? Oh right VANCOUVER! ;P Here's a joke I learned when I lived in Ottawa: How many people from Toronto does it take to screw in a light bulb? Just one, they stand there, hold the lightbulb and wait for the world to revolve around them. ;) You forgot to mention that the *average* Toronto commute time is 79 minutes a day. That's no kind of life to move to another country for. Seriously though if you had your choice of anywhere to live in Canada would you seriously choose Toronto?
Having also spent some time in Vancouver.... yes I would chose Toronto area (not within the city itself). Vancouver is a beautiful city, but boring for evening and weekend entertainment. (unless you want to go skiing every day) My commute time from a small town (13,000 people) to work in the north end of Toronto is 20 minutes each way in traffic. Here is one for you to share with the Ottawa folks: Did you hear they are getting a new area code in Ottawa? "043" (they are 0-for-3 against the Leafs in playoffs)
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Canadians out there and the rest of you who knews a lot of Canada, help me! I'm thinking about taking two or three years abroad with my family - wife and three children. Main reasons are: the children will learn proper english and we want to see something more than sweden for a longer time. We have just been traveling in Europe on our vacations, we have never been in the States or Canada, but I think Canada could be just fine. We live in Örebro, Sweden and if you look on the map and follow the latitude you will find yourself in southern Alaska, but we got about 20-30 degrees summertime and minus 5-25 wintertime. Now to the questions: 1) Which town should we head for? Criterias: English as 1:st language, there are soccer teams for my sons to play in (8, 13 years old). Some of us like hot temperatures at summertime and cold sunny > -10 degrees wintertime. We like skiing both downhill and cross country (ok, I like both, rest if the family just downhill :)) There must be good natural bathing with warm water > 18 degrees). We want to travel mostly by bike to school or work. Oh, what a list of demands! :-D 2) Working? How is the market for DBA:s / SQL Server programmers? My wife is occupational therapist, but maybee she could do something different just for fun halftime or so. 3) Get paid? What about the wages for senior developers/DBA:s 4) Administration, papers, permissions, formalia and... and so on. What do we need Anyone? All comments are welcome!
/Håkan Nilsson ------------------------------------------------ - Old fashion C programmer since 1988 - Bachelor in systems analysis 1991 - Systems developer at work with C#, SQL Server... - DBA, database design, SQL, admin ------------------------------------------------
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Having also spent some time in Vancouver.... yes I would chose Toronto area (not within the city itself). Vancouver is a beautiful city, but boring for evening and weekend entertainment. (unless you want to go skiing every day) My commute time from a small town (13,000 people) to work in the north end of Toronto is 20 minutes each way in traffic. Here is one for you to share with the Ottawa folks: Did you hear they are getting a new area code in Ottawa? "043" (they are 0-for-3 against the Leafs in playoffs)
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Håkan Nilsson wrote:
English as 1:st language,
I think you'll also need a certain level of French to get into Canada for an extended period.
Asynes yw brassa ages kwilkynyow.
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Canadians out there and the rest of you who knews a lot of Canada, help me! I'm thinking about taking two or three years abroad with my family - wife and three children. Main reasons are: the children will learn proper english and we want to see something more than sweden for a longer time. We have just been traveling in Europe on our vacations, we have never been in the States or Canada, but I think Canada could be just fine. We live in Örebro, Sweden and if you look on the map and follow the latitude you will find yourself in southern Alaska, but we got about 20-30 degrees summertime and minus 5-25 wintertime. Now to the questions: 1) Which town should we head for? Criterias: English as 1:st language, there are soccer teams for my sons to play in (8, 13 years old). Some of us like hot temperatures at summertime and cold sunny > -10 degrees wintertime. We like skiing both downhill and cross country (ok, I like both, rest if the family just downhill :)) There must be good natural bathing with warm water > 18 degrees). We want to travel mostly by bike to school or work. Oh, what a list of demands! :-D 2) Working? How is the market for DBA:s / SQL Server programmers? My wife is occupational therapist, but maybee she could do something different just for fun halftime or so. 3) Get paid? What about the wages for senior developers/DBA:s 4) Administration, papers, permissions, formalia and... and so on. What do we need Anyone? All comments are welcome!
/Håkan Nilsson ------------------------------------------------ - Old fashion C programmer since 1988 - Bachelor in systems analysis 1991 - Systems developer at work with C#, SQL Server... - DBA, database design, SQL, admin ------------------------------------------------
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That's the price you pay for being "central" canada...eat it with a fork! :laugh: Actually to be honest there are very few ski bum type slackers on welfare that I know of, most just work enough to get by in typical slacker type jobs. Technically "working poor" but loving every minute of it.
John Cardinal wrote:
That's the price you pay for being "central" canada...eat it with a fork!
:-D
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Sounds like you are describing Vancouver. In the winter you can go up to the mountains for skiing etc. Your sons can play soccer, there is plenty of work. However it is a big city so if that's not what you're after you might not want to live there. Lot's of people go to Toronto, I lived there for a while, it sucks unless all you want is a big city. The people are hugely self obsessed, the weather isn't pleasant and any possibility of going to unspoiled nature just doesn't exist within any reasonable distance. You might as well live in any city if you pick Toronto. I've always heard good things about the eastern coast of Canada, it's should also meet your criteria. It's not as affluent an economy as western Canada, but the nature is supposed to be nice, no big mountains of course, at least not by what we could call them out west here. Honestly you have no hope unless you travel here first and go to the major areas of interest. In general most europeans that are into nature seem to end up in the far north of Canada, I know a *lot* of people living in North Eastern B.C. from Europe who enjoy the outdoors, hunting, fishing that kind of thing and still work as computer network techs etc becasue of the oil and gas industry there where there is a lot of work for all sorts of professions.
John Cardinal wrote:
I know a *lot* of people living in North Eastern B.C. from Europe
Strange, I left Canada for Europe and now I hear that Europeans are going to Canada...I wonder if my presence here provides a correlation...