I've been in Canada for over two years now. A few days ago, someone asked me, "Why did you come to Canada?" This is really two questions - why did I leave the UK, and why did I choose Canada, out of all the other countries in the world?

The reason I wanted to leave the UK was to change myself. I didn't like my life and I blamed that on who I was. I had heard that the best way to change yourself is to travel. So that became my plan. 

I chose Canada because it offered a working holiday visa. You might rightly point out that other countries offer this visa too: Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Monaco, South Korea, and Taiwan. But out of all these countries, I chose Canada because I feel connected to America, after having been swamped in their culture all my life with TV, films, books, and comics. I thought Canada would be close in culture to America.

My plan was to spend two years in Canada. Two years because that's how long I could stay in Canada with working holiday visas.

The ski resort

I had a prearranged job at a ski resort for four months in Ontario. Almost everyone was more carefree and open than I was. Most people had been travelling for at least a few months already. I didn't like feeling awkward and introverted. Slowly I adapted. I found a niche as a kind of practical joker - as "loco Paul" as the Chilean workers called me. Most of the time I was thinking about my next crazy stunt. Stealing, climbing onto roofs, holding onto lit fireworks, and getting drunk. When a world-weary friend saw my excitement over fireworks I'd bought, he raised an eyebrow and asked knowingly, "Paul, is this your first time travelling?"

The hostel

At the end of the season, the ski resort organised a lift for me back to Toronto. It was a shock to return to a metropolis after living at a ski resort for four months. I didn't like the gigantic, urban sprawl. So I looked at travelling east, to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. I imagined it would be green and foresty, like how Bill Bryson describes Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont.

But I couldn't get a direct coach ticket because the drivers were on strike - the furthest I could get was to Montreal.

Upon arriving in Montreal, I was struck by the French words everywhere - on signs, shop windows, on buildings and billboards. Charming, bizarre words I couldn't make sense of.

I stayed in the Alexandrie hostel because it was close to the coach station and cheap. After roughly two months there (there was a cheap monthly rate and I liked the people), the owner offered me free accommodation. He liked me and wanted me to stay, since my personality was good for the hostel. I still had an energetic, talk-to-everyone personality from the ski resort. I was given a job title of "night porter". It didn't have many responsibilities. Sometimes guests would knock on my door during the night, usually because they'd lost their keycard, and I’d simply open their room for them. But this happened rarely - only about once a month. I also cleaned the hostel before I went to bed - not because I was required to, but because I felt ashamed at how little work I had to do.

I didn't work much during that year. I earned only $6,276.63 (it says so on my tax return). Most of this was from working at the ski resort for 3 months, and the rest was from short stints in a leather factory and a cafe. Yet my savings actually increased, because I hardly bought anything - I shoplifted instead. Yep, I was a dirty shoplifter. Almost every day, I would leave the hostel for a few hours and come back with bags of stolen food, clothes, and paint supplies. Eventually though my spree came to an end when I was caught in Dollarama stealing five packets of $2 almonds. A couple of policemen took me to their car and told me I had to go to court in two months' time. From that day on, I stopped shoplifting. The court case was dropped, presumably because it was "my first time" and the cost of the almonds had been negligible.

I had a girlfriend for a couple of months, but she had to return to Spain because her visa expired. But shortly after she left, she told me she was still thinking about me, and began planning to return to Canada so she could live with me. And so she did. And I've been living with her ever since.

The apartment and the job

In 2013, my girlfriend and I moved out of the hostel and into a nearby apartment, where we lived with the landlord, a Quebecois sports teacher. I could no longer shoplift so I started looking for a job. My girlfriend was working as a video games tester at a company called Babel, so I applied to there as a UK linguistics tester and they offered me a contract! I proofread text in a game called Scribblenauts: Unmasked. After two months working on the Nintendo DS version of the game, we started on the PC version. My supervisor then realised that this new version didn't support UK English - only US English. Therefore, there was suddenly no more work for me at Babel. however, I found work for a month at another games testing company, where I tested a Japanese RPG.

The return home

My second working holiday visa was finally coming to an end. Usually this means you have to leave Canada, which would have brought my two-year stay in Canada to an end. But my girlfriend and I had a plan. I could stay a bit longer as a tourist (6 months), while I applied for a year-long spouse-sponsored visa. The preliminary steps to this visa were my girlfriend and I becoming common-in-law partners, and her getting a foreign worker visa by being sponsored by her company. It sounds complicated, but it seemed straightforward at the time.

Just before my working holiday visa expired, I realised I would be financially better off if I made a short trip back to the UK. I'd been to a Canadian dentist who told me I needed two wisdom teeth removing and four fillings, which would cost over $1000 - the same cost as a return flight to the UK, where dental care is practically free. But my main reason for wanting to return to England was an unshakeable fear that I had diabetes. I wanted to see a doctor in Canada, but a single doctor's visit costs at least $100 (it turned I don't have diabetes, by the way).

So I flew back to England for a couple of months. Here's a video of the reactions of my family:

Then in England, I agonised about whether to return to Canada or not. I had planned to spend only 2 years in Canada, after all. I wanted to go to Japan next, but it would have meant breaking up with my girlfriend. My brother-in-law said, "Go back to Canada and if you still feel the same way after three months, then leave your girlfriend". And here I am now - four months later.

The conclusion

Occasionally I feel horrified, like the person in Munch’s “Scream”, that I haven't lived out many of my original plans. I never did make it to the eastern provinces of Canada. I've never been to Vancouver, where I planned to spend a summer. I haven't seen the Rockies. I used to tell myself that "at least I'm learning French by living in Montreal", but my life is in an English bubble. Right now I'm trying to suppress my urge to travel and I'm trying take advantage of being settled instead. My current plan is to leave Canada in October 2014, when my girlfriend's work visa expires. From there we will eventually make our way to Japan or Australia.

The person who asked me "Why did you come to Canada?" went on to knowingly remark that "the grass is always greener on the other side", which implies that every way of living leads to the same amount of happiness, but I don't think that's true either. I've been much happier in Canada that I was in the UK. My life there was a joke. I was like a plant stuck in a tiny pot for far too long. I don't regret coming to Canada, although I do often feel frustrated that I've become "stuck" in Montreal for much longer than I intended to.