Sometimes it takes living in another country to realize just how many small comforts of Canadian life had quietly become part of your everyday routine.
Space was everywhere
I didn’t know how used to space I was until I moved somewhere vastly more congested. Houses in Canada can feel bigger, streets can be wider, parking spots generous, and once you get out of the big cities, miles upon miles of open space are easy to come by. Other, more crowded countries will have smaller apartments, and less personal space can quickly feel like a luxury.
Canada has big cities and pricey little apartments as well, but the size of the country changes day-to-day life in ways you don’t really notice. Sometimes what I miss isn’t a place at all, just some space.
The first morning after a storm
I never thought I’d find myself nostalgic for the eerie silence following a major Canadian snowfall. You wake up, and the world looks unlike anything you’ve seen before. Cars are buried, rooftops are white, sounds are muffled. Sure, there was windshield scraping, driveway shovelling, and dealing with slush afterwards.
Living somewhere without a true Canadian winter has taught me there was something magical about those first couple of hours of fresh snowfall. It’s one of those annoying things that you take for granted when you have it and miss when you don’t.
A problem I never knew I didn’t have
Back in Canada, I never used to think twice about drinking water right out of the kitchen tap. Grab a glass, take a drink and get on with your day. Ever since moving away, I learned this is something you can’t always assume. You might need bottled water, a filter or at the very least some insider information before taking a gulp from your tap.
All of a sudden, something I never thought of as a luxury in Canada started to feel luxurious. I miss walking into the kitchen half asleep, flipping on the faucet and drinking without first wondering if I should.
Nobody thought 200 kilometres was ridiculous
Canada recalibrates your sense of what qualifies as a long distance. Hours spent in the car to visit someone, get to the cottage, or just spend the day somewhere else were never all that impressive.
Since living overseas, I’ve encountered people who treat that same distance like I asked them to trek across the globe.
Cities and towns are clustered a lot closer together in most countries, so their sense of far away is dramatically skewed. I didn’t realize how much I’d miss the Canadian perception of distance, the acceptance of loading up some snacks, filling up the tank, and just driving for hours because it’s worth seeing what’s at the end.
The seasons actually meant something
There were days when Canadian weather drove me insane. But I didn’t realize how drastically the seasons separate each year into chapters. Summer was long evenings and patios. Fall was crisp mornings and amazing colours. Winter transformed the landscape, and spring actually felt like something to celebrate after months of freeze.
In parts of the world I’ve travelled to, you don’t notice the seasons change nearly as much. Sometimes the weather is even nicer, but I find myself missing staring out the window and knowing the year has progressed. Canada will provide you with 4 completely different versions of the same street without you changing your zip code.
The sun forgot to go home
Canadian winters rob you of daylight, but Canadian summers have a way of returning much of what they steal. Throughout much of the country, evenings in summer linger late enough that you can leave work, eat dinner, and still have hours of productive daylight before you. North of about Calgary, things really start to get interesting. I didn’t think much of it growing up because it occurred every year.
Having moved south to where darkness falls at approximately the same time year-round, Canadian evenings now seem indulgent. It’s lovely to glance at the clock, see that it’s late already and still feel like the day isn’t over.
The extra floor I barely counted
Living in Canada, I’d never thought much about having a basement. It was where the furnace got stuffed, along with the laundry, freezer, and boxes of stuff no one wanted to throw away. In many houses, it doubled as a second living room or kids’ play area/home gym/workshop/spare bedroom.
When I moved to a place without basements, I discovered how handy that out-of-sight extra floor had been. Now storage had to fight with livable space for supremacy, and there was no handy place to keep all of the junk a house inevitably collects.
The house stayed comfortable on its own
I never took central heating for granted until I lived somewhere that heating your whole house wasn’t just expected. In Canada, you could go from your bedroom to your kitchen or bathroom and every room would be comfortably heated. Your furnace silently worked away in the basement, and you didn’t even think about it.
Living overseas, I realized that there are places where people heat select rooms in the house, use portable heaters, or just accept feeling cold inside. Canadians may complain about how cold it is outside, but we have gotten quite efficient at keeping winter outside the front door.
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