I’ve been in Canada since July on a Working Holiday Visa.
In our media, Canada is always portrayed as a dream country. Yes of course, it’s beautiful here (Rockies, nature) but it also has a lot of downsides.
The quality of food is incomparable to my home country and the food prices are even higher here.
I thought rent prices back home were high, but here (except for small towns on the prairie), you have to share an apartment with 3 people and still pay the same amount as getting a 2-bedroom apartment alone back home.
Then 5 weeks of paid vacation + 11 paid holidays (weekends are generally free, there is no business open at Sundays), when you’re sick, you’re sick, but you still get paid.
Canadians are polite that is true, but what I’ve noticed is that people often make false promises just to be nice.
Making friends here as a foreigner is challenging and perhaps I’m homesick being on the other side of the world.
I’m considering abandoning everything and flying back home. While at first it was really nice here (especially the traveling in the summer), the drawbacks are becoming apparent.
Additionally, my education isn’t recognized here and honestly I don’t want to work at Tim Hortons or Walmart just to „survive“ and with much lower QOL than in Europe.
But on the other hand, I’m afraid of missing out if I fly back home now.
Idk what i should do :(
Any suggestions?
I’m from Cornwall, but I’ve lived in Devon, Hampshire, Yorkshire, Wiltshire, and Gloucestershire. I’ve also travelled around most of the Isles and some of the islands (Jersey, Scilly, etc).
Yes not everywhere is great, but you have to remember most of the criticisms are comparing Britain now to Britain 20 or more years ago, or to other European countries. I think it still compares very favourably to North America and there’s a lot of reasons why Britain on a bad day is still better than the US or Canada on a good day.
You’ll find the country is, for the most part, whatever you make of it. Unless you’re dirt poor it’s actually trivially easy to avoid bad areas.
Word of caution. Most Brits are friendly and earnest, but if you’re American you will find a small minority of people will poke fun at you for it. Some of it will be good intentioned, but some will be mean spirited and they will attempt to disguise it as “only joking” (that’s a favourite trick in Britain). Don’t be gaslit by “oh come on, can’t you take a joke?”, because if you take it once they will just continue to throw insults at you, and no it won’t ever get any better. You might also get the occasional asshole who has a chip on their shoulder about it.
You’ll eventually be able to avoid these people completely, but in the initial phase where you’re meeting new people and establishing your social circle you will unfortunately come across them. Don’t waste your time around people who try to drag you down, basically. There’s enough amazing uplifting people in the UK that you aren’t missing anything by telling the crabs in a bucket to go kick rocks.