Before starting, I want to apologize for my absence lately! To be honest with you, I have been through a serious disease: the writer's block. Depending on the period of the year, it's happening to me quite often but I'm back and for good now. I already wrote few articles and today I want to share with you a big experience of mine. Living in England vs living in Canada. As you probably know, I left my parent's house at the age of 22 to move to England. Years after, I moved to Canada. Today, I want to share my point on view and to define which country I blended in better. First of all, I want to say that I love England and I love Canada, both countries are amazing and it was definitely love at first sight for every cities I moved in. That being said, let's move to what's important here: what country won my heart?
Today 3 cities and 2 countries are in competition: London vs Toronto vs Montreal. Place your bets and get ready to read this.
TRAVEL
Well, this one is quite obvious. When you move abroad or even just when you're going on holiday or for tourism: you have to commute to there, am I right? As much as I love to fly, I have to say it's quite difficult for me to sit still for few hours hours straight. I flew from Belgium to Amsterdam and from Amsterdam to Toronto. In total, this took one hour for the first flight and around eight hours for the second. I mean this vs 2 hours to be in London, the choice is your but mine is already done. Between Toronto and Montreal, I didn't have to complain because the flight was around forty-five minutes. The winner of this travel/commute section is obviously England. Even if I slept during this long flight tho.
ENGLAND 1 - CANADA 0
LIVING
When it comes to find a place to stay it's as easier to find one in London than it is to find one in Toronto. Montreal was a bit harder tho but still quite easy. It took me less than a week to find my rooms or even my own studio. What matters here is the living cost tho. I currently live in London and I live in a house sharing because it's too expensive to live on your own in the city however, I'm lucky because my housemates are amazing. It's a win-win. I currently pay 650£ for a room (which is humongous tho) - let's put all the prices in euros shall we? 650£ is 715€. When I was living in Toronto, my room was approximatively 700$ which is 450€ and my own studio flat in Montreal was 800$ (all included + internet) which is 514€. For this one: Canada is the winner.
When it comes to cook, now, I have to say that England is closest in terms of food to what I'm used to. It's products I have been eating my entire life. It was a bit more difficult in Canada, especially in Toronto while in Montreal, as it's the french part of Canada, it was a bit more European food. Does that makes sens? Probably not. So, England wins. But, I'm going to add 0.5 to Canada just because food was easier in Montreal.
I think I covered here the most important. Maybe I'll write another article to share my experience with you regarding other stuff like daily expenses, regular shopping, activities, travel to other cities, people etc - but the most important was here, definitely and I hope this article helped you to see how things are outside of the place where you live on even if you want to move to London, Toronto or Montreal! I could do a comparison with Belgium but honestly, I live in the countryside, it wouldn't be interesting. Anyway, Canada won this first battle. Canada also won my heart but that's no secret.
ENGLAND 1 - CANADA 1
COMMUTE
This one will be different than traveling. It's basically all the expenses due to the travel inside the city. So when you're going to work or if you go shopping or eating with friends in the city, well, you know. I'm going to write this based on the monthly price for metro passes (which are usually including buses or streetcar in Toronto for exemple). At the moment, I have the chance to commute to work by foot so I don't have to pay for transportation but it's still really expensive in London. I live in zone 2 at the moment but in the past I have live in zone 4 and my monthly travel card was around 200£ per month which is around 220€ (add 5£ when you buy the Oyster card). Outch, it hurts. Every single bone of my body is hurt. If you didn't know that: in London you pay per zone while in Toronto or even Montreal you just pay for the whole thing and that's it. Currently, by living in zone 2 if I had to commute to zone 1 on a daily basis, I'd pay 138£ which is 151€. Less expensive. Let's move to the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. In Toronto, the monthly pass was 147$ which is 95€ and in Montreal, the monthly pass was 95$ plus 6$ for the Opus card, which is 65€. I mean....... this is obvious, Canada wins.
ENGLAND 1 - CANADA 2
FOOD EXPENSES
Let's move to food! Because food is the best thing in life. This one's going to be quick: I'm a poor ass bitch so I'm going food shopping in the less expensive grocery stores. ASDA in London, Joe's no Frill or FreshCo in Toronto but I couldn't do my poor ass bitch food shopping in Montreal so I was basically going to Metro or Provigo which are expensive af (not the worst tho). For a monthly food shopping in London, it goes around 150£ (165€). In Canada, in a general way, it was around 300$ (192€) -- fyi, cheese is 7$, okay? I can't live without cheese.When it comes to cook, now, I have to say that England is closest in terms of food to what I'm used to. It's products I have been eating my entire life. It was a bit more difficult in Canada, especially in Toronto while in Montreal, as it's the french part of Canada, it was a bit more European food. Does that makes sens? Probably not. So, England wins. But, I'm going to add 0.5 to Canada just because food was easier in Montreal.
ENGLAND 2 - CANADA 2.5
JOB SEARCH
I think it's important to explain things in the job seeking thing. I've always struggled to find jobs, we're not gonna lie, in London, in 2017, it took me months to find a job other than bartending (yes, I used to be a bartender). It took me 6 month to find a job and still, the salary was proper shit. When I moved to Toronto, it took me less than 10 days to find a job, it was close to home, the salary was decent and I never worked as a sales associate before so experience didn't really matter. Then, I moved to Montreal and I got fantastic jobs as well in a short amount of time. For this one, Canada wins. Even tho I have a job in London at the moment.
ENGLAND 2 - CANADA 3.5
I think I covered here the most important. Maybe I'll write another article to share my experience with you regarding other stuff like daily expenses, regular shopping, activities, travel to other cities, people etc - but the most important was here, definitely and I hope this article helped you to see how things are outside of the place where you live on even if you want to move to London, Toronto or Montreal! I could do a comparison with Belgium but honestly, I live in the countryside, it wouldn't be interesting. Anyway, Canada won this first battle. Canada also won my heart but that's no secret.
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