I grew up in Canada. And because I grew up in Canada, I never quite realised quite how boring my life was. For example, if I wanted to buy something, I’d buy it. I wouldn’t find myself immersed in a hilarious maze of customer disservice. And if I wanted to go to a movie, I’d just go to a movie and you know, watch it. Because a movie theatre has one job: to play movies, and it’s very difficult to […]
Canada VS South Africa
Stranger Danger
We all know that strangers are bad news. I’m not here to refute that. But in my experience, it’s not like they’re any worse than everybody else. I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention to the news lately, but humanity in general is a giant dumpster fire. Everybody is a hot garbage pile, and being a stranger doesn’t really add to or detract from that in my books. So that being said, I interact with strangers all the time. On […]
Halloween in South Africa
I’m going to state the obvious here: holidays are fun. Some are nothing more than a day to skip work and get paid for it (I’m looking at you, Family Day), but others prompt people to pull out all the stops and celebrate harder than parents do when their kid finally learns to wipe his/her own keister (if you’re a parent, you’ll understand. If not, just imagine how awesome that moment would be). Easter is dope. Christmas is cool. But […]
What To Expect When You Move From South Africa To Canada
I usually blog about life here, but I’ve had roughly a kabillion Saffas contact me to ask what they can expect when they move from South Africa to Canada. I’m inherently very lazy by nature, so I’m writing this post simply so I don’t have to keep answering the same question over and over again. Oh, and if you think you’re going to get any VALUABLE advice here, you clearly haven’t been following my blog. Whatever. Here we go: The […]
Thing I Love About South Africa Part 6- The Social Life
A while ago I quite stupidly promised that before I could complain about South Africa again, I had to post 10 blog entries devoted to things I love about this country. Related: I’m a giant nincomboob. Anyway, here’s post 6. Canada, as everyone knows, is awesome. We invented all the best stuff in the world, like the internet, steak, clothes, and Beyonce. OK, like, maybe we didn’t INVENT all that stuff, but we HAVE it in Canada. And, to America’s […]
How To Braai Like a Champ in South Africa
I’m usually proud to be a Canadian. We ride polar bears to work, introduced the world to classy cuisine like poutine, eat cereal with maple syrup instead of milk (which you can buy in a bag, just the way God intended), drink reindeer flavoured slurpies, and play hockey, not soccer. Everything I just mentioned is totally true. Don’t look it up. But after living in South Africa for almost 22 months, I’ve discovered that we have one major shortcoming: the […]
Canada vs South Africa (In a Handy 11-Point list)
I’m sorry if the title brought you here in hopes I’d be talking about who would win in a fist fight between Canada and South Africa. That would be ridiculous because there couldn’t be any possible way of knowing (but for the record, it would totally be Canada. We’re able to harness the power of poutine). When I say Canada vs South Africa, what I MEAN to say is I’m going to look at the differences I’ve noticed between the two […]
The World’s Most Grueling Competition
I’m not necessarily saying I’m competitive or anything, but I like to win. If you beat me at Monopoly, I’ll train bees to attack you. I like boxing with my 7-year-old son because I can beat him at LEAST 78% of the time. He’s a pansy (at least for now). I always finished exams first when I was in school, whether I knew the answers or not. Being first was more important than performing well. Same with sex. I ALWAYS […]
Why You Should Become an Expat (And Why You Shouldn’t), Part 2
Last week, I started to explain why you should (or shouldn’t) consider taking an expat contract. But, like always, I broke the rules of blogging by not keeping it short and sweet, so I only got through three points. Here are some more thoughts to consider before becoming an expat: 4) You Can Totally Show How Valuable You Are To Your Company Your bosses wouldn’t have asked you to relocate if they didn’t think you had great value- or potential value- […]
The Person Who Does That…
I’m going to throw a quite common scenario at you. You’re at your office in North America, and you’re about to go on your yearly vacation to see all the severed whale wieners you can imagine. You set your “out of office” notification on your email, informing anybody who may try to contact you that you’ll be away, but there’s an alternate person who can help them out. Same with your voicemail. Now, your customers can still get what they […]