Big Dreams

Chapter 17: New Life

I was finally in Canada and everything was different but in a good way, I felt like I was doing what I was meant to do and I was hoping that all the initial difficulties were only another step necessary to make so I could finally have a place to call home.

Me and Miguel had rented a small apartment because we couldn't afford a better one at that time; Canada was a very expensive country, we had just moved and Miguel had no job. The place was nothing special, but it was temporary -since we were planning on buying a bigger and better house when everything was more stable-, had everything essential (1 bedroom, 1 bathroom and a living room together with the kitchen) and it was furnished so we didn't have to spend money on furniture. The only thing we bought was a coffee machine because that was the only essential thing for us that the house didn't have, we were both coffee lovers.

As I had already found a job but would only start in the following week, we could get everything in order before that and Miguel would keep sending his CV. He had applied to a few jobs already so we were hoping he would get one soon, meanwhile, we decided to explore the city a little more because Miguel had never been to Toronto and I neither remember nor knew everything. The sparkles in his eyes didn't lie, he was loving the city and, as for me, I fell in love with the place again.

At first, things weren't easy at all; we didn't know anyone, the house was far from my job, we didn't have a car and it was a little complicated to learn exactly how the tickets for the public transports were and it took Miguel a couple of months to get a job. Also, we had a problem with some documents and didn't know where we were supposed to go to solve the problem so I reached one of my roommates when I had been there in my 3rd year of college and, fortunately, she was able to help us.

Something else that worried us during that time was the money because we had some of the savings we did while we were in Portugal and my salary, which in an expensive country like Canada wasn't much. But as people were really nice there we didn't think it would be difficult to start making friends. Those months were definitely the hardest ones but things started to get better.

- "Babe? Babe? I got it! I got the job!", Miguel screamed when I got home one day and started running around the house like a little boy after opening a present. I was so happy and proud of him, he had been really interested in that job and we knew that at a financial level things would improve a lot if the both of us had jobs.

My job was similar to the one I had in Portugal but there were some differences as I expected. The people there were all very polite and helpful so I easily adapted.

We decided that on a weekend per month we would go and visit a museum, go to an art gallery, cinema or even theatre, but we would always have a cultural weekend every month. We wanted to enjoy everything that the city had to offer, especially the art because it was known to be incredible.

We also made an agreement on how we would be as spared as possible to be able to realize our biggest dream together: travel. Also, we wanted to spend Christmas in Portugal with my father and visit our friends there, so we put part of our salaries aside, every month, to make sure that those things could happen.

We frequently made video calls with our family and friends to see how they were doing and tell them everything that we have been doing. I loved to tell them what new exposition or play we had seen that month. It was one of the things that I liked the most about being in Canada: the importance they gave to culture.

We still couldn't afford to buy a car, so we usually took the bus to go to work. But I didn't see that as a bad thing, that way I could enjoy the view, Toronto was such a beautiful city that it was almost a crime not to enjoy it. I loved to see the rivers, the trees, the parks and the big buildings, it was the perfect combination between nature and civilization.