The coupon issue

(Québec and coupons: a love story since forever)

Today, me, Math an my in-laws went to a welcome party for "nouveaux arrivants au Lac-St-Jean". It's a happy hour with wine, fingerfood and the mayor of all the districts around the area, to welcome people from another countries who came to settle here. They do it once a year and they invite all the new families from the past year. The party is organized by Portes Ouvertes sur le Lac, an organization that helps new immigrants to find a house, work, school for the kids and even a translator, if needed. We had a total of 10 families - with me and Math counting as a family. The funny story I have to tell you is about the "Coupons book".

I'm going to open a parenthesis here to explain something: first thing you have to learn about the quebecers is they are crazy for coupons. They are not big spenders but they like a good special, like a hobbit likes food. It just comes together. And they like to talk about the specials and how much they paid for something (a hot subject for them). For the quebecers, taking care of your money is an important part of their life - absolutely different from Brazil, where the word "discounts" means "you-are-not-wealthy-enough-for-it-so-don't-buy-it".

So, as soon as I arrived, my mother-in-law came home with a big white plastic bag.

- What is this? - I asked in French

- This is a discount bag. You gonna get one of these every week in your mail box.

Imagine my face when I discovered I'm gonna have a big bag of papers in my mail box, every week, even if I never asked for one. It's like something that just happens in your life and you have to accept it. I was pretty sure I'll never use any of these coupons, because I would never have the time to check all of them. Everything changes and here I am, checking the discounts, until it becomes a kind of habit: the plastic bag arrives and you know it's time to go to the supermarket (we do the big groceries once a week).

So, resistent as I am, once again I react a little suspicious when Math arrived home, asking me to subscribe at Portes Ouvertes, to have access of the "Coupons book".

- What is this? - I asked in French

- This is a discount book, with all kinds of discounts everywhere in town. 

When I get the book in my hands, I understood why it was so precious. They gave you more or less $1000 in coupons to spend in every possible way - grocery stores, special cheese shops and even ski classes for free. They gave only one for each new family and only during this special gathering with Portes ouvertes sur le lac.

Even if I still have the brazilian suspicious girl living inside of me, now I'm starting to get really addicted to find good discounts - and tell everyone about it.

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If you want to know more about the Portes Ouvertes Sur le Lac and their amazing work: Portes Ouvertes Sur le Lac

If you want to know what is a Publisac and the kind of discounts you can find in it: Publisac.ca

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I barely arrived and next edition of the newspapers will have my photo, shaking hands with the mayor of the city. :)

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There's so many things happening at the same time, it is difficult to put everything updated here in the blog. I was kind of expecting this before I started but I never imagined how my life would change in such a short time.

Everything was good. Why change?

Last night, I was talking with my brother about this change of life. He told me how worried he was, because of that move to a small city, leaving my friends in Montréal and "anulate me" (his own words). I think people generally have the same opinion about this, so I want to set the record straight.

The past: When I came to Canada, I didn't have a lot of clue with what to do with my life. I dropped a good and safe job in Brazil (didn't pay much, but the place was really nice), a house and a relashionship to try something else. I was risking everything I got until there (not much, though) and I was in severe depression at the time. So, I pick all my money (it wasn't much, too) and I decided to take this big step. I can tell you it was the scarriest and best thing I did in my life. I proved to myself how much I can fight, how good my work is and how much I'm worth. Once again - I did it for myself.

The path of the warrior: I had so many amazing experiences it's difficult to explain. I practiced my humbleness, I learned how to ask for help when I needed it. I am grateful for all the things I've been through. I learned another Language, I made friends and they were always there, as my friends in Brazil.

So, let's jump in the future 1 year and a half later.
On dit oui pour la francophonie! I love Montréal, but I wanted a real francophone experience, something unfortunatelly Montreal can't give me. I want to live like a real québecoise, learn more about the culture and the people. It's another step, like jumping to another level in the game. I want to improve the language until the day I speak French as good as my English (where you have a lot of work to understand where I came from, as I have just a slight accent). I want to spend the winter in a place where you have snow from September to March - see, those people are born in the snow! I want to breath pure air, to have a garden, to buy a house - impossible things in Montréal. I love the cultural life back there, but maybe a small city gives me more about History and where they came from.
The future: I want to tell I'm not afraid. I'm not afraid of changes, not afraid to find another job, not afraid at all to start all over again. This time is different, because all the struggle I had in the beggining, it went away. I already have the canadian experience, I came from a big city, I already speak French - actually, at this point, I'm fluent in 4 Languages, which is kind of impressive for them and I use this just to show off, hohoho!
The dark side of the moon: Another thing most of the people don't know is about how much I was working in Montréal. I tell this, because even with a good paycheck, it became difficult for me to go out. I was going to nicer restaurants, nicer places, buying nicer things but my quality of life was decaying. I think when you just get better things but always the same, it's time to rethink. I didn't travel so far to not enjoy the path. It was difficult even to go to shows - as I had to work early the other day. Even the huge quantity of things was overwhelming - sometimes, I had so many choises, I get stressed and didn't when out. It may sound ridiculous, but you have to buy tickets 2 months in advance to get a place (reason we lost the canadians game in Sep, 28th and the Unicorns show in a few days, with the tickets already bought). You never know how your day or your life is gonna be so, believe me, it has to worth a lot for all the stress.
Another funny problem you have there is the distance. Montréal is a long city and to delocate to one place to another, sometimes it takes 1h, 1:30h. Believe me, the public transport really works, but because of the distances and turns the bus gives (all the buses cover just a small area, so you are obliged to pick 2 or 3 buses to go anywhere far), after a while you want to never pick a bus again in your life. That's why Mile-End (my old neighborhood) and Plateau are so expensive: you have everything more or less near, so you save a lot of time and money in public transport if you have a bike.
The price is right: once again, Montréal is an expensive city. Rent is so outrageous if you live in a good area, it's impossible to think about save money and buy a house. Most of the people I know can't save money at all, they live in a small apartment, no forniture, that's it.
I'm the passenger, I ride and I ride: Since I came to Montréal, most of my friends moved or are moving to another city. My friends start to spread all over the world, so our big group shrinked a lot since last year. A few friends came to Alma and, even if I didn't have a Welcome Party as I had in Montréal, I think I'm gonna have another solid group really soon here.

So, this are the big reasons I decided to move. I'm not bashing Montréal, I love the city, I love to live there, but as everything, it has a good and a bad side. This is just for people who think living in Montréal is the most amazing-fucking-bad-ass-thing in the world (ok, sometimes it is), but it's mainly a city with the great things and problems all the cities have. Another time, there's my personal experience - I want to live the Québec fully and completely. I want to be part of the "experience québecois" and I really think the cultural path it's not just montréal-centric. It goes through the forests, food, rivers, beaches, snow season, autochtone culture, parcs, roads, Language and everything around in the Province of Québec.

Trouver un travail au Lac

Today, I took the day to solve practical stuff. Not that I was not solving anything, but it was a good day to organize some burocracy. I had to change my address in the bank, sending some emails, call my internet service and so on. One of the things I did was asking for my assurance, while I'm not working.

Q: "But, Isis, didn't you quit? How can you ask for assurance emploi?"

A: That's the thing: I fit in one of those categories where you can actually ask, as I am the company and my "conjoint" found a job in a city far away from Montréal. So, in the meanwhile, I can stay at home organizing all the things and I earn some Government money for that. Good, right?

Of couse, there's some conditions for this: you have to prove you are really trying to find a job (Emploi Québec is good for that, specially if are an immigrant), that you did nothing wrong in your last job and you worked at least 52 weeks last year. So, I filled the papers and cross the street, going to Emploi Québec.

First good surprise: lots of jobs, no one in the waiting room. I was the only one in the waiting line. So, I would say one of the advantages of moving to a small city is this: almost no concorrence. Even if you tried everything and you have an heterogeneous CV as me, you can possibly found a good job here.

They are really nice with you here. I went to Emploi Québec and people were so polite, even my mother-in-law was impressed. You have to fill a file with all your data and they will call for a interview, probably with someone from the immigration. Here in Canada, I learn to trust in Government, the oposite of my country, where everything from the Government is a strugle. To ask for my assurance, for example, they already did all the papers online with the companies I worked for. I just have to fill some papers to say I want them to pay me and the best of my last 18 months paycheck, so they can pay me more or less the same amount. Almost too good to be true - the good part is, yes, it's true.

Alma, on y va!

So, we moved. One day before, we call some friends to help us. As I think moving is a pain in the ass and if it was possible, even I will not came to my own moving. Math was hopeful some of our friends could come, but in the end, we did it all alone, with some help of 2 friends who came to say goodbye. I think for canadians, the moving day is sort of a big thing, like some kind of 80's movie, were everybody has fun and drop glasses and everybody laughs. For me, as a brazilian, I would NEVER invite any of my friends to see me carring boxes and no talkative at all, probably not friendly too. Cultural differences...

I thought we had less things, but I was wrong. We filled a whole medium truck and we left behind some stuff, like our couch and a chair. We clean the old home, called some people and we leaved 3 hours late than what we planned. Cats on the front with me, we started to pick a 6 hours road trip.

Our body was tired. We were needing a good bath, the cats were super colaborative with us, quiet as possible inside their cages. We stoped two times to eat, drink water, put some gas, walk a little and go again. It was raining, sometimes more, sometimes less. In this moments, you see who are by your side. Math was all the way super caring and happy, even if tired as I know he was. We heard music, we played car games (like "20 questions"), we talked about our plans, about the canadians game we gonna missed, about our costume for Halloween, and we laught about people and about the cats. He's such a good company for good and bad times.

The road was dark and difficult to drive. Suddenly, I saw some lights in the horizon. I thought it was a big cloud, but it started to big bigger and colorful and bright. Then, I realized it was seeing my first serious aurora boreal. We got this as a beautiful way to say to us everything is gonna be alright.

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I'm still trying to find a good way to write in the Ipad. It's not easy to use the blogger here, so the posts will be crappy until I have internet at home.

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The biggest difference I feel from Montréal is the quality of services. I don't know if it's because I'm from another country, people treat me so amazingly nice and polite here in Alma. I think they are like this, nice and polite people. Another funny thing: they LOVE I moved here. Like, they are so proud of their roots, they really think I did a good move. They even do compliments about my French, which I think is more to encorage me (my French is full of accent actually, but they love it). :)

On the road again

(a picture is better than words)

The big surprise: we rented this apartment in Montréal and Math needs to do a work trip next week, so we decide to move early this weekend. It's good, since our home back in Alma is ready, but it's crappy because I just had 2 nights to pack everything. Thing is: I have ADHD, under stress because is my last days in the company (officially, today is my last day), Math is in Alma, I'm home alone AND I have a blog. I prefer to blog than do boxes, I prefer play with the cats than do boxes, I have to choose the right soundtrack to pack the things, so you can imagine my work didn't went so fast these last 2 days, since I got the news. 

Math was suppose to come yesterday, but he had a mechanical problem in the car and all my plans went down (I was expecting to dinner at a Indian Resto last night and take a good breakfast this morning - no donuts for me). 

Even like this, I'm pretty confident about this move. I'm happy about leaving my work and the good possibilities ahead. I'm happy to see Math after a whole week just skype talking. I'm happy my cats gonna have a yard to play and hunt birds and eat grass until they vomit, my big fat furry balls. I'm happy about having a loving family waiting for us. I'm super happy about travelling - I'm in the dog mood already.

 (FUCK YES! THE MOVE! I LOVE THE MOVE! MOVING IS THE BEST! OMG! OMG! OMG! YARDS AND GRASS AND POUTINE AND STUFF! LAC IS THE BEST! HOLYSHIT! HOLYSHIT! I LOVE TO ROAD TRIP! ROAD TRIP IS THE BEST!)

And I'm freaking happy about moving to a place where the francophone culture is absolutely strong. Nothing in the world is better than have the unique possibility to be integrate in another language and culture. It's something so big than anything else I could imagine.

(on commence a pratiquer! <3)

I'm going to pick my last cup of Starbucks before I leave Montréal. Wish me luck with the move.

Boxes, boxes everywhere

I'm celebrating my move, but I almost forgot the hell it is to make the boxes. You have to go to every commerce around your home and ask for boxes. Any kind? Any kind. Big, small, medium sizes. You want all of them, like a greedy person. The first day, people treat super well, feeling kinda pity for you ("Poor girl, she has to carry all those big, heavy boxes alooone..."). After the 3th day, people are knowing you as "the crazy girl from the boxes"("WHAT THE HECK THIS GIRL WANTS? BOXES? AGAIN? DIDN'T SHE MOVE ALREADY???). When people starts to think you are kind of a delusional hobo, it's time to change your strategy and places to ask.

After you have enough boxes (at least you think so), you start to pack. Your decision is: separate all the places of the house (living room, kitchen, bedroom) and do a subdivision on them (living room ----> books). If you are super organized, you do a under-subdivision, so your boxes will be more or less like this: living room ---> books ---> travels. In the beginning, you are able to do this perfectly right. After 10 boxes, you don't know where to put your things, and you are tired, and all your pacience is gone because you over-classified everything and you will not do a box for only one book. So you start a new box called "miscellania" which is a little of all the unclassified stuff. Problem is: you have so many random stuff and you are so tired of packing, you start to call every other box "miscellania". This and, of course, the quantity of boxes where not enough, or the tape was not enough, or both.

Final scenario: lots of boxes, the first five correctly classified, 30 boxes called "miscelania", some without sealing (because you didn't bought one more pack of tape) and you, trying to put all of this inside of a truck.




After you arrive in the place of your dreams, you are so tired you just want to take a nap. If possible, you would leave all the boxes inside the truck - don't forget the truck is rented, so you can't do this. You pick all your strength left, you put everything inside you new home and, before you get some serious sleep over the mattress without any sheets and in the middle of that battlefield of boxes, you promise yourself you will never move again.

Good news

Finally, we got the news: Math got a job in Alma and we are moving. It's been a while we are talking about leaving Montréal, but everything happened so fast this time. Kinda overwelmed and happy at the same time. Hes family is from there. He grow up in Lac-St-Jean and... Wait! What the heck is Lac-St-Jean????? So, there it goes: Lac-St-Jean is a region near Québec City, North of Québec.

 Let me say before that North of Québec is not like, REALLY IN THE WILD NORTH.  

(Oh, so no bears in the backyard? No? Ok.)

No bears, no iglus. Actually, is really near from Chicoutimi and Québec City. Everybody speaks French there, no English at all. We have beautiful forests and a river crosses the whole town. In the winter, we have a road just for skidoo (is a motoneige - really fun for those who loves speed) and we have beaches around. Nature at it's best.

(There we go! You see? Not so far in the North!)

Another think is super amazing in Alma is the prices. We rented an apartment here in Montréal, 3 1/2, very well located (Mile-End) at 915$. In Alma: apartment very well located (10 min from Centreville), 4 1/2, big backyard, renovated: 500$. If you want, 120.000$ you can buy a house. Not apartment. A house. Here in Montréal, a small house is around 600.000$ - depends of the area, it can costs you more than 1.500.000$

Alma is an amazing city for those who wants to get deeper in the French culture. As no one speaks English, is impossible to switch from one language to another. They will understand you, but it's weird.

Food: OMG. They eat supergood, they buy local but they eat a lot of meat. I'm preparing myself already.

People are super warm there. They don't know you and they invite you to go dinner, to sleep in their houses, to participate of events and so on. As a brazilian, I don't need to say how much in home I felt since the first time.

(Not exactly like this, but almost: they speak French)

Another amazing point is: the Government gives you some support to move. They lower your taxes, gives you some money for the move (750$ more or less) and help you to find a job, studies and even a home. Luckly, we have a family there that are helping us with all the practical thinks, but if we need it, we can count with the Government, for sure. As there's just a few people who move there, they really want to assure you are OK and you will not want to move back.

I'm gonna tell later about the huge quantity of festivals we have in the region and everything you have to do there.

Slow life

Image from here: http://draweverything.blogspot.ca/

Just a few people understand the real why we are moving to a small city. It's been a while we are talking about having a slow life. This is a move I'm doing since a long time ago, little by little. The big start was here in Montréal, were I decided to change some of my habits, like start to cook again, eat healthy food (but the bier and the chocolate - good people have to have some addiction), learn French, read more, write my thoughts, make my own bread, fix my own forniture, change the car for the bike/bus/metro, start to grow a garden and so on. Now, another step: I'm gonna be a small town girl. Those who are closer know for how long I've been practicing this.

No, I'm not disappointed with Montréal, as someone asked me. Montréal is been super generous with me since I put my feet in the airport for the first time. I never, never, never in life met so many nice people, so many interesting people, did so many friends. I never learned so much in so short time.

But this is something I call "The Traveler Curse": inside of you, there's something itchy. It's not a sadness, it's just the need to move on. And, at this moment, I need to move to settle down. Québec is great for that - awesome french culture, awesome autochtone culture, awesome landscapes in summer and Winter. By the way, everything here is about the Winter. Here you have to wait, wiser advice my mother-in-law gave me these days: you can't go faster than the time. So, time is a precious thing, I have to wait to harvest, one day at the time.

This is why I'm moving to a small city, to be a small town girl, or became a redneck as some of my friends say. Go to the forest, make bread, cook, sew, learn woolwork and have the time for my quebecois family here.

And I'm so lucky I have a superhero in my life that I call him: "Dr. Time" because he knows the time and space of everything. I found someone who recognizes my internal time, grabbed my hand and said: "Let's go", when it was the precise time to go.

Once more, life is being good with me.