Trends

Debates, discussions, news articles, cultural differences stories and everyday life blah blah.

On The Road

Follow me in China, in Central and in South America, in Australia, in South-East Asia or in Europe. Enjoy the pictures and some crazy travel stories!

Immigration

How to immigrate to Canada, how to apply for Canadian citizenship, and how to tackle the challenges newcomers face.

Just Blogging

Blog contests, memes, interviews, photography hunts, random facts… Let’s connect, share some blogging fun and some little snippets of life.

The Saturday Series

The ten post Saturday series: how to immigrate to Canada, how to find a job, interviews with immigrants… and more!

At War Against Spam

June 22, 2011 – 8:15 am | 35 Comments

You wouldn’t believe how much spam this blog is get­ting. Every time I log in and go to my Word­Press dash­board, I do a double-take at the num­ber: “Akismet has pro­tected your site from 74,191 spam com­ments already.”

Daniel: From Paraguay to Montreal

June 18, 2011 – 8:30 am | 9 Comments

Daniel, from Paraguay, isn’t afraid of new chal­lenges: he chose to set­tle in Que­bec, Canada’s fran­coph­one province, even though French is not his mother tongue. He is also very patient and waited for two years before he was finally granted per­ma­nent res­i­dence status.

Picture of the Week: 33°C

June 17, 2011 – 8:00 am | 14 Comments

Believe it or not, it actu­ally gets very hot in Canada in the sum­mer. It sur­prised me too when I first came here. I thought the tem­per­a­ture would be in the twen­ties degrees Cel­sius, at most!
Sum­mers in Ottawa are typ­i­cally hot, humid, hazy and stuffy.

The Food Dilemma

June 15, 2011 – 8:30 am | 35 Comments

We attract super­mar­kets.
When we first came to live in the neigh­bour­hood, there was only a Loblaws. Then came Food Basic and Shop­pers Drug Mart, right across the road from Loblaws. And when we came back from trav­el­ing this win­ter, we dis­cov­ered that a huge Wal-Mart had popped up on the other side of the road. We now have three super­mar­kets within a 20-minute walk.

Naked!

June 13, 2011 – 8:20 am | 35 Comments

For a con­ser­v­a­tive gov­ern­ment city, Ottawa has many lit­tle quirks. For instance, Four-Twenty aka National Pot Smok­ing Day is cel­e­brated on Par­lia­ment Hill and there is a yearly Zom­bie Walk (where you can meet zom­bie hockey play­ers and peo­ple with a bad headache). We also have inter­est­ing alter­na­tive places such as the Prince of Wales Bridge… and let’s not for­get about “Maman”, the huge spi­der.
I’ve just added one on the list: appar­ently, Sat­ur­day was Naked Bike Ride Day. And by “naked”, I don’t mean with­out a hel­met. I mean naked.

Jean-Paul and Emma: From France to Montreal

June 11, 2011 – 9:00 am | 14 Comments

Emma and Jean-Paul were ideal can­di­dates: there are both young and highly-educated French cit­i­zens with degrees and expe­ri­ence in needed fields. They were selected eas­ily and nine month later, they were land­ing in Montreal.

Picture of the Week: Fender Bender

June 10, 2011 – 9:00 am | 8 Comments

In Ottawa, a sure sign of spring is the num­ber of con­vert­ibles and fancy cars you spot on the road. It’s also hear­ing the police and fire sirens, and see­ing the para­medics zigzag­ging in the traf­fic.
For some rea­son, there seem to be more car acci­dents dur­ing spring and summer—strange, con­sid­er­ing the weather con­di­tions are much bet­ter than in the winter.

Neeraj: From India to Toronto

June 4, 2011 – 9:00 am | 16 Comments

Born 200 kilo­me­ters North­west of Mum­bai, Neeraj was raised in India. When his par­ents decided to move to Canada in the mid-1990s, he was trans­planted into a totally dif­fer­ent cul­ture. Maybe that’s what prompted his wan­der­lust sev­eral years later.