It’s time to face facts. I’m moving to Canada. I’ve never been there before.
Four years in London have finally got the better of my boyfriend Conrad and I and we have decided to embark on new adventures in undiscovered lands. Four years is the longest I’ve ever lived anywhere through choice – growing up in Birmingham was less than desirable and I spent most of my childhood plotting my way out. Since then, I’ve felt more like a global citizen than a British one.
As soon as I left school, I hit the road. I spent a year working as a waitress in a restaurant in Tenerife before starting uni at Nottingham. I couldn’t resist spending my third year in Mexico, Togo and Slovenia instead of hanging around in Paris and Barcelona like everyone else.
It was finally Brussels that wore me down. When I finished uni and went straight to work for the European Union in Belgium, Conrad didn’t come with me. This effectively meant I spent the next two years travelling to see him every two weeks. When you have to travel so much out of necessity instead of enjoyment, it really numbs your inner travel bug and when I finally moved to London to live with him, I couldn’t imagine ever wanting to go anywhere ever again. After years of living in different countries, we could finally stay put somewhere and hang out together.
But a couple of years passed and before I knew it my inner explorer was back, hankering for an adventure. We travelled as much as we could afford, venturing to the Netherlands, Australia, Turkey, Norway, Thailand, Cambodia and most recently Berlin.
It was during our trip to Cambodia that we decided we needed a bigger adventure. We needed to get out of London and explore the world again. This time together.
As you might have gathered from his blog, Conrad works in film visual effects (VFX), which handily is a global but small community. This meant he knew there was an established VFX industry in Vancouver and more importantly, he knew someone who worked there. So emails and phone calls ensued and before we knew it, he had been offered a great job there with a good company. So we have decided to take the plunge. We’re off at the end of August this year.
Don’t get me wrong, London is great in lots of ways and we’ve started a posterous blog to keep a record of Things We Will Miss About London. But I am tired of the constant engineering works, the gloom of the overcast skies and the sheer hard work it takes just to be here.
Although I’m yet to read my Canada Lonely Planet cover to cover, everyone I know with any experience of the place has waxed superlative about Vancouver and I can’t wait to get there.
In Slovenia, I loved seeing mountains when I stepped outside my flat. In Mexico, I loved living right next to the sea. In Sydney, I loved the relaxed atmosphere and the liberating, wide open sky. In Togo, I loved being able to travel vast distances in Africa and discover new lands and people.
I get the impression Vancouver, British Columbia state and Canada offer all this and more.