Let’s face it – you need money to travel. I have a lot of tips and tricks on how to travel on a really small budget, but you will never get everything completely for free.
Therefore, going on a Working Holiday Visa to Canada (or any other country) is the perfect opportunity to both explore a new country and culture but also to settle down for a while, work and save money so you’re able to travel some more before the visa expires. Working in another country is challenging, but – more importantly – you’ll get experiences for life. Working in my home country Sweden and working here in Canada is not the same. Here, I have to speak a different language, learn how things work during a job interview, after the job interview and how things generally are at work.
To be honest, I’m not completely sure I behave in the right way. How do people greet each other? Do you shake hands? Should I bring my references to the job interview? What do you talk about with your co-workers, how personal are the conversations? Do I get paid for working overtime? Can I quit my job whenever I want or do I have to tell the employer a month in advance as in Sweden?
Of course, I can try to search online for answers to my questions. However, I will not find answers to all of them and if I do – how accurate are they?
I’ve decided to not worry too much about it. It’s part of the charm, to explore how things work in other parts of the world, that’s why I’m here.
And as the title for this blog post imply, I actually got a job here in Toronto. I got the opportunity to work as a brand ambassador at Toronto Christmas Market this year. It would be the most perfect job for me since I love meeting new people (and I love Christmas!), but in the end I declined the offer. It would surely have been amazing, but Toronto just isn’t the town that we want to spend Christmas in. Instead we’re now aiming for spending it in Calgary, and therefore also finding a job there for the winter which I told you about before.
At the moment, we’re having some nice days in Toronto, as visitors. As I told you about in my previous post, we’ve been to the Hockey Hall of Fame, but we’ve also been to the CN Tower. We didn’t go up though – it’s quite expensive and Fredrik doesn’t like heights. We’ve also visited some nice parks, the harbour and the Kensington Market just next to where we stay.
Tomorrow it’s time for quite an adventure. We’re leaving Toronto, by train, to go to Winnipeg. It will take us 35 hours. I’m not joking, we’re going to be 35 hours non stop on a train. Without a bed, just a simple seat. The cabins with beds are more than twice as expensive, and it is pricey enough as it is.
I will tell you all about the train ride and show you pictures when we have arrived in Winnipeg! I don’t know if I’m looking forward to it, but I think it’s kind of cool to go by train for 35 hours without a break. Especially since I’ve been working for the Swedish train company. I think it will be alright, I will be able to get some reading done, we can play games and we have movies to watch. There’s also a dome with a glass roof that anyone can enjoy – hopefully we get some nice views on the way!