Living in Canada
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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...
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Chris Maunder wrote:
Further North (such as North Bay) get those stunning crystal clear winters but they are crazy cold.
North Bay... X| I lived in Sudbury for 7 years (40 mins from North Bay by car). Worst 7 years of my life. Awful, awful, awful place. No culture, no happiness, no nothing except a big bloody nickel and a giant (suspiciously shaped) smokestack. When the wind blew the "right way" everything stunk of sulphur. Terrible hideous place of no value at all. Winters consistently -20C at the end of December and averaging -25C through January to March (with dips as low as -42C). I don't know how I survived that long in that place. Gah. North Bay is no better, it's even smaller and there's absolutely nothing there except some car dealerships, a few small boat marinas, a basically unoccupied military base and a black bear with a penchant for McDonald's grease bins. Also, the water is full of rotting leaves which stains everything brown with tannins. There was a huge effort to remove them (citing health reasons, specifically carcinogenicity when they are exposed to cloramines) and to clean up the water because it was terribly polluted and acidified from the nickel mine emissions - hence the crystal clearness. In North Bay, they dam Nippissing in the summer which drains the French River of needed water and makes things run stagnant and causes a great bloody algae smell... A terrible, terrible mess that desperately needs attention. In conclusion, don't live in North Bay.
I do think you still enjoy Monty Python's old sketch about childhood as much as I do. "We lived in a shoe box in the middle of the street... Sometimes when we were lucky, we were just beaten twice a day.. and so on Where are you staying now?
/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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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
As I wrote in the first message starting this flood of helpfull comments it's not necessary that my wife work as occ. therapist. I think it's more relaxed for her to be AHA - At Home Administrator, and if something interesting comes up she can work halftime or so. Since I live in-country Sweden we often gotdry winters -5 to -20, but of course it varies, bad winters the snow comes and goes 4-5 time between december and mars.
Håkan Nilsson -- Swedish developer, DBA, C#, SQL Server, soccer trainer, C64 player
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The temp is around 0C to 25C if you are asking for the average extreme. However, if you had lived in a high humidity city, you will know that even a temperature of 12C could be cooler than a city at 2C with a low humidity. Unless you have uncommon weather perferences, otherwise, Vancouver has the best weather a hunman being would want to live in.
I'm more and more convinced that Vancouver is worth a visit next summer. Chris M. asked why I'm not heading for Australia. We have thought about that but my wife is afraid of sharks or something :) Otherwise I now feel like Canada is a bit like Sweden, but we use bigger ice hockey rinks and plays "bandy" (11 players on ice with shorter sticks with a red little ball) A little bit like soccer with skates. My favourite sport except soccer of couse.
Håkan Nilsson -- Swedish developer, DBA, C#, SQL Server, soccer trainer, C64 player
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Calgary is booming
You don't see a WTF in spawning hundreds of threads ?? Or using code found on places like codeproject.com in production applications ... Code that is most likely untested, or barely test, more often than not, not made by reputable developers/development groups/etc ?? .... Wow ...
I'm not that up to date with english alternative words, so what do you mean with booming?
Håkan Nilsson -- Swedish developer, DBA, C#, SQL Server, soccer trainer, C64 player
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Montreal hands down. I was thrown out of a place in Quebec city for speaking English some years ago! Ah, the good ole days... I prefer Montreal because it is more cosmopolitan, the restaruants are much, much better and there are more things to see and do (*exception, see below). The probability of receiving hostile treatment for being and English speaker (even though I speak French) is much lower as well. I just preferred Montreal - more jazz clubs, better food, nice places to walk...beautiful city. Almost moved there but ended up in Switzerland instead. Long story... HOWEVER, if you prefer historic things, then Quebec is the place to go. The "old city" is quite nice to explore and there are many more historical sites.
When I first studied the canadian map I found Quebec. It seems like a natural place for new settlers to stay. Then I googled a while and understand that I should look for other areas instead.
Håkan Nilsson -- Swedish developer, DBA, C#, SQL Server, soccer trainer, C64 player
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Vancouver is not just beautiful, it is spectacular!
What's special then? Good beaches? I like the french riviera and italian west coast!
Håkan Nilsson -- Swedish developer, DBA, C#, SQL Server, soccer trainer, C64 player
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Things might have changed a lot since, they made efforts to increase tourism. I'm french speaking and visited Quebec city last summer. We were first greeted in English in most restaurants and English was heard everywhere.
Nowadays, there are even folks in Paris and southern france who speaks english even if you don't start speaking with the in french first! I'm surprised :)
Håkan Nilsson -- Swedish developer, DBA, C#, SQL Server, soccer trainer, C64 player
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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.
Oh, Looks like there is a cultural shock waiting for me in Vancouver, but that's OK. The only thing that disturbes me is the well grown germans taking all the beach areasat 8 in the morning :)
Håkan Nilsson -- Swedish developer, DBA, C#, SQL Server, soccer trainer, C64 player
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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.
Laid back and activated people sounds good, I'm one of those myself. If I should be a workaholic I should do something more steady than building computer systems, I should build houses instead or plan cities instead. Very important for me is my family activities, a lot of soccer, excercising, skating, skiing and so on. Next week I travel to Island for 6 days, 3 days business and 3 days leasure - hill walking :)
Håkan Nilsson -- Swedish developer, DBA, C#, SQL Server, soccer trainer, C64 player
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Proper English = United States. From what I have read in numerous locations. US English is closer to 1700 English than british English. Plus our spellings are better. Go to Quebec! The are seperatist, warm, and caring, other than the fact they speak French you'll be fine.
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
with proper english I meant queens english I learned in scool. As you know Swedes are mostly speaking this dialect. Maybee it depends on that it's very easy for us to take a trip to London. We like to say colour instead of color. In other words some of us are still notice the presure from the old english colonial culture.
Håkan Nilsson -- Swedish developer, DBA, C#, SQL Server, soccer trainer, C64 player
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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...
The main thing is that you now have seen some parts of europe. Where are you staying and when did you get there? Right now Canada for me is just ice hockey, alaska, ice hockey and Winnipeg Jets.
Håkan Nilsson -- Swedish developer, DBA, C#, SQL Server, soccer trainer, C64 player
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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 ------------------------------------------------
Vancouver is ok if you like rain and trafic jams. If you want hot temperatures, sunshine and skiing, then you want the Okanagan valley, Penticton or Kelowna British Columbia. Try www.silicon-vineyard.com Craig
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VAIO Blue wrote:
IMO, the best place in Canada is Vancouver.
Vancouver doesn't get real winters though. It's just slightly cooler than Seattle and we're lucky if we get snow once a year. On the plus side though, Vancouver is just south of Whistler which I'm told (but have yet to experience personally) is very good skiing. Additionally, Whistler will be the site of the 2010 Winter Olympics so there will be that to entice you as well.
Mike Poz