Canada: The First Month

Wowee, I can’t believe we’ve been living in Canada for over a month now! Here’s an update on some of the things we’ve been up to during our first month (or so).

We are staying at my parent's house for the foreseeable future. (So from now on I will just refer to it as our house!) We live in a suburb west of Toronto called Mississauga. It is my family home, where I grew up, so I know the area pretty well, even though I haven't lived here since I was 19 years old. Living with my parents has made the move a much easier transition. We can focus on looking for jobs (more on that later) without worrying about finding and setting up a place to live. Prior to our arrival they spent a lot of time getting the house ready for us, and it is big enough that Ella and Ollie have their own rooms along with a play area. Ella loves being here with her grandparents all the time, she is never without a playmate! Our rough plan is to find jobs, save some money, and then buy a house somewhere close to work. The property market in Toronto (and surrounding suburbs) is crazy like in Melbourne, so it feels like the buying a house dream is still a long way away.

The kids seem to have adjusted very well, although every so often Ella asks when we are going to the beach or to visit one of her old friends. She says things like "if we want to go to the beach, we can just get on a plane and go there" which is both hilarious and heartbreaking. I must admit, it's been a harder adjustment for me. I really miss living in a city, and I have very quickly remembered how long and cold a Canadian winter can be. It is mid April and we are still having temperatures that are only a couple of degrees above freezing. Everyone says this is abnormal and it is not usually this cold in April, but I'm not sure I believe them! 

When we first arrived in early March it was like a winter wonderland here. Our first weekend was filled with beautiful bright, sunny days that we spent playing with Ella outside in the snow. She loved making snow angles and snowmen, tobogganing and throwing snowballs. It was like all of her Frozen dreams had come true.

We have a few parks within walking distance to our house, so have spent a fair bit of time at those. Ollie is really loving the swings these days!

Andy got to experience a Canadian driving range - complete with golf balls frozen into the ice. The snow and cold were a novelty when we arrived but after one month I'm already over it. Hurry up already spring!

My friends had a combination welcome home/St. Patrick's Day/birthday party on the second weekend we were here. It was so great to catch up with some of my really good friends, plus meet some of their friends as well. We brought Ella with us as it was an afternoon/family friendly affair. My friend Kristin was there with her daughter Aoife, who is just over two years old. Ella and Aoife got along like a house on fire which made me SO happy. They even did karaoke together, singing all the best hits like "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and of course "Let it Go". Too cute. 

Kristin's husband Dan is also British, and although Kristin is Canadian we all knew each other from when we were living in London. (Kristin and I actually met waaaaay back in 2004 when we were both exchange students in Sweden, and then we both ended up living in London around the same time). It's great to be able to hang out with them again, doing admittedly more family friendly things such as Sunday dinner instead of the crazy partying we used to do in London. We are SO OLD now.

Finding a job here is proving to be a difficult task. One big issue has been that soon after we arrived the government announced big cuts to the education budget, including increasing class sizes in secondary schools, which means they need less teachers. Very bad timing for us to be looking for jobs! The cuts are very controversial and many teachers and parents are upset about them. We went to an education rally at Queen’s Park in Toronto last week which was attended by about 10,000 people. It was a great atmosphere and a good example of a peaceful way to protest government decisions. This was Ella's first protest experience, but I think she was only in it for the balloon hat:

At the beginning of April we took Ella to a Maple Syrup Festival at Mountsberg Conservation Park. How much more Canadian can you get than that?! We walked through the forest, peeking in buckets to see how much syrup there was. With some trees you could even watch the syrup slowly dripping out of the tap. 

We tasted maple candy (which i LOVE!) and had pancakes topped with maple syrup. The conservation centre also had a pretty cool play barn that Ella enjoyed running around in.

We quickly discovered the government-run BridgeWay Family Centres, which offer drop-in play and  free programs for families with children ages 0-6 years. They are pretty awesome and we are lucky to have one less than a five minute drive from our house. We have been taking Ella to the pre-school session that is for kids aged 3-6 years and Ella loves it. The session is an hour long and run by an early childhood educator and the kids do tons of different activities. It's especially good as Ella isn't in daycare in the moment, so it's an opportunity for her to play and learn with kids her age.

We also discovered Playtown, which is a (paid) play centre that is set up to look like a street in a town, complete with grocer’s, fire station, hair dresser, movie theatre, vet, police station and more. It’s great as it encourages imaginative play and is a lot calmer than other play centres that are more about physical play. We’ve gone twice already, once it was just Ella and me, and other time we met Kristin, Dan and Aoife there. 

Continuing on the theme of "things to do with Ella when it is freezing cold outside", Erin Mills Town Centre is a shopping centre located about a 10 minute drive from our house. Normally a shopping centre is last place in the world I would want to take small children, but this one has been doing a lot to become more family friendly. In the centre there is a large fake grassy area with a fountain, along with some seating around the outside. We have gone there many times and inevitably there are other kids there for Ella to run around with. (Whether or not she actually plays with them is another question. She's pretty shy so usually a really outgoing kid has to approach her in order for any sort of friendship to form!)

Periodically there are other attractions in this space. For spring there is a mini garden maze which is super cute and is perfect for running through. Ella is always asking us if we can go to the maze - she loves it there and I can usually just chill out with a coffee while she races through the maze over and over.

The shopping centre also has a paid kids play area - another pretty fantastic idea. It’s a bit pricey ($14) but there are days you can go for half price or 2 for 1 which make it a bit better. This is more of a classic kids play centre with lots of ways for little ones to burn energy. 

Andy and I have had lots of opportunities to go out for dinner and see friends, WITHOUT KIDS. Amazing. Our 7th wedding anniversary was last week so we had dinner at our favourite Canadian steakhouse, The Keg. We also had a really fun day in Toronto checking out the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition at the ROM (Royal Ontario Museum). The exhibition is regularly shown at the National History Museum in London and Andy and I used to go to it every year when we lived there, so it was fun to see it together once again.

I briefly touched on the difficulty of getting a teaching job here at the moment. Luckily Andy and I have experience working in the independent system from Melbourne, so we are currently applying for jobs in those schools. We both have interviews coming up over the next two weeks, so I will update on that once we have some news on how those went.

And that's enough for this update! As I type this I'm watching a Toronto vs Boston hockey playoff game in the background. I'm definitely back in Canada now!