15th February – 3 days after landing
We are staying at the Hampton Halifax hotel. Breakfast buffet is legendary. Lots of breakfast options and a DIY waffle station with all sorts of toppings. My health-conscious self is battling with the guilt.
It has been a fantastic experience and all the people are so friendly here. Many immigrants from all over the world, we do not feel out of place at all.
All the services work and everything is on time. Buses, planes, bookings, breakfasts, everything just works.
The food is amazing here. We have been eating very well. Still waking up very early here (3 am) because our bodies still think we are in SA. By 6 pm we are knackered and crawling into bed, but at least it is dark outside.
Tomorrow it will be minus 8 degrees. Looking forward to it! The cold is quite something but strangely tolerable. Everywhere you go is heated and double-glazed so very comfortable.
They have an underground pedway system so you can travel through buildings and malls without going outside. Though we enjoy the outside and the cold!
Both kids flat on their backs sick with airplane flu. Luckily Heather and I don’t have it. Unsurprising because on all three plane flights we were surrounded by sick, coughing and sneezing people (immediately behind and in front of us, there was no getting away in the small space).
We wanted to go ice-skating with the kids at the massive local outdoor skating rink. It’s totally free, they give you skates and a type of push-support for the kids for free so they can rest on something while they learn to skate.
Heather took another bus ride today to a mall which has 312 shops in it. Public transport is clean and efficient (and on time!).
The police station across the road from the hotel is not very busy. The cars mostly just stay parked there. Not much business for them here. Heather has missioned across the city on her own and at night and neither of us felt any concern. Getting off at the airport truly felt like we have finally arrived home, our real home. It feels good and welcoming. So much to do here.
16th February – 4 days after landing
The Eastern provinces (Atlantic Provinces) are called the Maritimes here. We chose the Maritimes because we love the sea and never wanted to be too far away from it. Canada has the great lakes which are the largest bodies of fresh water in the world and the largest city in Ontario (Toronto) is positioned on Lake Ontario which is so big it looks like an ocean. But it’s still not the sea and we still feel a connection to Africa being on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.
Halifax is closer to the UK with direct flights on Air Canada or Lufthansa only 6 hours duration to London. It’s easier to visit family in the UK.
The people here in Nova Scotia are the friendliest we have met! It sounds like NS has a reputation for friendliness. There is a large and diverse population of immigrants here. Interesting fact: 1 in 5 Canadians was born in a different country. We do not feel out of place at all.
Starting with our shuttle driver from the airport, the experience has been amazing (East Shuttle). Trevor is a wintertime surfer. He knows all the good spots and heads out with a small group of dedicated surfers in all types of weather to hit the waves. He especially likes it when it is snowing and uses a heavy-duty wetsuit when he ventures to his favourite surf spots. He loves the wintertime surfing because all the “regular surfers” can’t handle the cold and he gets the best waves to himself.
Temperatures have not been too bad so far. Around minus 7 at its lowest but almost no wind so far and no snow. There was a thick fog last night which lent a lovely glow to the city. The air is clean and fresh and we are loving the cold. The shops are starting to stock lighter clothing and footwear in preparation for spring so we will save some money by not having to purchase heavy duty boots this year.
The internet here is amazing. In our business this is one of the biggest gifts.
It feels like we can re-invent ourselves. There is so much safety, infrastructure and possibility here. The pace of the city is not frenetic like Cape Town. People seem to have more time for each other. I hope we can become more like the Nova Scotians. I still feel like the driven, time-urgent business person from SA, like I need to be somewhere all the time and as if my hands cannot be idle for even a second.
The money looks fake. We had a laugh with the lady at the Forex desk at Toronto Pearson Airport. Since we are still living off Rands for now we just need to remember that R10 is about $1 CAD (as at Feb 2018).
Our agent is brokering an apartment rental at no fee to us. She has driven us to view some rentals and wants nothing in return. We keep asking about commission but she refuses to take anything. Good people, the Nova Scotians. I cannot believe the kindness and generosity.
I really love that you can speak to anyone here. Everyone has time for you. They try to place our accents and we’ve started a game of making the locals try to guess where we are from. Mostly they guess UK or Australia but we have had one lady guess SA on her first try!
The locals consider the 15% tax on goods purchased here to be high. Other provinces can be as low as 5%. However we are used to paying the same in VAT back in SA. We just need to remember that the tax is added afterwards at checkout. Prices are high for us when converting rands so we need to start earning some Canadian dollars.
We have a few urgent things to take care of and then we need to decide on a way forward to bring in some $CAD. Heather and I have unrestricted work permits so this really feels like a new beginning! We can do anything and be anything
18 February – 6 days after landing
So it’s 4:20 am here in Halifax and my birthday. A lovely crisp morning, no wind and still dark outside.
I’m on the 10th floor in our hotel room watching the occasional vehicle travel by. A taxi lazily winding down the long boulevard past the Citadel. A police van with 4 well-uniformed cops just offloaded a cuffed student. The joys of living in a university town.
The police vans are full size vans, completely closed off at the back due to the cold (none of the bars you see on the SA vans).
We rather enjoy staying opposite the copshop so we can see a bit of activity. This is otherwise a very sleepy little city. It is not as busy as you would expect a full size city to be.
Breakfasts are included in our hotel stay (large buffet breakfast with bacon, sausages, patties, eggs, quiche, omelettes, waffles, cereal, fresh fruit, yoghurt).
For lunch and dinner we need to venture out into the town to find takeout. This is a cosmopolitan city with a vibrant food culture and there are many different types of food to try. After the first day or two we got tired of the big American-style burgers and french fries (had to do it though, we’re in North America now!) so we’ve moved onto more healthy alternatives like Indian chicken curry, freshly made Subway sandwiches, Chinese Noodles, Vegetable Sushi (non-fish) and Thai Chicken or Beef noodles fried up with egg.
Every takeaway so far has been well-prepared, well-packaged and well-presented. The food is of a really high standard here but we feel awful about the single-use plastic containers (use once then throw away). So much plastic is tossed and while there are many recycle bins we’re not sure how much actually goes to landfills and how much gets recycled.
Yesterday lunch when we got back from Walmart we ate a spicy chicken and vegetable gumbo in the nearby mall (type of runny soup) which was nutritious and delicious. We have been battling to get the kids to eat anything simple, yet oddly they both dug into the gumbo, little mouths burning from the Jalapeno but still eating. Strange kids.
Both girls are still a bit sniffy since the plane ride, though seem to be past the worst of it. Luckily Heather and still haven’t gotten sick. Did you know it is illegal in Canada to give kids under 6 any sort of medication to relieve snotty noses? At least we are allowed to administer meds to bring down temperature.
Day before yesterday we got our SIN’s (Social Insurance Numbers) which makes us bona-fide residents. With this number we have benefits, can work, rent property and do all the things you would normally do with an ID number in SA. In the Welcome to Canada paperwork we received there is a section about applying for child grants. The grants are scalable according to income, so the higher your salary the less you get – though the threshhold is quite high so most folk with kids do receive some sort of child grant. There is an additional provincial benefit payment which comes from Nova Scotia. We recommend all newcomers to apply for this as it will really help during our setup phase especially after all the immigration expenses.
Finding a rental has proven to be very difficult. There are very few rental properties available in Nova Scotia – it’s a known problem. We decided not to take one rental house due to cagey behaviour of the lessor. He gave us first option, then said he had to travel away for work. Still in the hotel room we thought our rental was finalised. We dutifully waited for him to return so that we could sign the lease but when he returned he told the agent that he is also going to show the property to someone else. We had stopped looking at other rentals and we had extended our hotel stay (not cheap) so we could wait for him to get back from his business trip. He knew we had young children so it’s rather callous that he is now showing the house to someone else.
NOTE TO NEWCOMERS: Use a well known rental agency for your first rental.
After losing the rental, we decided to go with the flow. We have taken the very unusual decision to become city-dwellers and move into a rental apartment! It is easy to live in the city, peaceful, safe, quiet and lots for the children to do. There is a lovely apartment in the city which we are going to look at this afternoon with our lovely agent Lynne. Everything is a bus ride away and they run every 5 minutes. We’re not going to buy a car anytime soon (parking can be $20 in the city). So here we are, reinventing ourselves.
Yesterday we bundled up the kids and went out in minus 7 degree weather. There was a layer of white ice on the streets, crunchy underfoot but not slippery. On many of the streets they throw down salt to help mitigate the buildup of ice. We crossed the street from the hotel and entered the pedway system (underground system of walkways) to get to the bus stop on the other side of the block.
We didn’t even wait a minute and a bus pulled up. The front of the bus automatically lowers on the suspension to allow you to easily step on. The buses are very clean and the drivers are friendly. We hopped out at the Walmart centre and of course our little one was off as fast as her little legs could carry her. This is the main reason we need the pram, and because little legs get tired quickly. The prams here come with hoods that pull completely over to block the weather. We picked out a $150 pram which was very comfortable, easy to push and has a cup holder (bonus!).
The shoes here at Walmart are all good quality and affordable. I picked out a good pair of sneakers for $34 (about R340). In SA you would probably pay about R1000 for a shoe of this quality. Likewise we purchased affordable shoes for Heather ($24) and the girls. We’re saving money because it’s near the end of winter and the locals advise not to waste money on boots now.
They sell everything at Walmart! We went past the meat section were pleasantly surprised to see that much of the meat costs less than SA. Processed and packaged luxury goods are much more expensive than SA. If we stick to unprocessed foods we can save a lot of money each month.
After Walmart we took a long walk down to the sea and strolled along a wide, planked walkway which seemed to run forever along the water’s edge. Very cold experience but we have the right gear! The sun was shining and there were no clouds but yet the temperature was minus 5.
Our hotel room is South-facing, which in the Northern Hemisphere means it is the sunny side. I caught a few rays in the comfort of the hotel chair.
Woke up this morning and my little family wished me happy birthday. Honestly all the challenges do not matter when one has this. I just opened the loveliest birthday card written by my mother which Heather was instructed to keep secret until my birthday. Thanks Mom, for your kind words and always being there for all your kids. You can take comfort knowing that all of your kids are safe, happy and content. We will see you very soon!
