Like I wrote in my last blog post, my parents change their opinion of the city of Toronto, and they were happy and amazed by how beautiful the city was J.

My first Journey in Toronto

For whoever want to follow my steps, I should explain how is the system of being an international student in Canada.

I will divide my student life in Toronto in two, as an English student and as a college student. They were too different experiences to put them together, so for today’s chapter, I’ll talk about my time upgrading my English to be able to go to College.

Welcome to Toronto

One of the most exciting day of my life was on the 2nd of April 2016, when I arrived to Toronto. I felt immediately at the time like I was at home. It was love at first sight. I thought… “This is a city that I could live for the rest of my life.” now, I realize that coming to Toronto and not going to Montreal was the right thing to do.

Upon arriving to Toronto, I was contacted by a car driver, that was sent by the school. She was a Greek woman that received me with open arms, she hugged me, and she said “welcome to Toronto.” It made me feel very good, since until that moment I didn’t know anyone here. She took me to a host family where I’m still living, and the first faces that received me in the door were my host mum, also from Greece, and one of my roommates that was from Turkey. He barely spoke English so most of our communication was based on signs or pointing to things. We became friends, he was a very nice guy, but he is back on his country, I sadly lost contact with him.

First month, first challenge

On my first month, most things were at its best. I liked the house, the city, my roommates, the school, the teachers, and practically everything. That was the good part.

The bad part is that I started to feel pretty lonely. I had lunch by myself for over a month. I dined alone too. I didn’t have many people to talk to, I got sick that month, and since my roommate always arrived at night, I rarely had the chance to chat with him. I personally saw that I was getting depressed.

I got adopted by Brazilians

On my second month on a snowy day, I was very surprised to see a guy on shorts and flip-flops listening to music outside the school. I don’t know why, but he said hi to me. We introduce ourselves and I find out that he was from Brazil, his name was Daniel. We had a chat for a while. We became friends and we started to have lunch every day together, and hanging out around the city on Sundays, or we used to go to certain restaurants, because in the province of Ontario the drinking age is 19 years old, and he was only 18. We are still in touch, and thanks to him is that I had my first friend in Toronto. Before he left back to Brazil, he introduced me to another Brazilian, who had the courtesy to introduce me to practically the whole Brazilian community. These incredible people made me feel more like home. They made me realize how important it is to have someone that you can talk to anytime. I’m still thankful to all of them.

Surprise visit

My birthday is on June, my parents and one of my sisters came to visit me to Toronto. I took them on around the city. They loved the city, especially my father, who said to me something that gave me sufficient reasons to keep chasing my goals. He said… “son I’m very proud of you and the decision that you made of coming to Toronto. I couldn’t have made a better decision myself.” I loved their visit so much, their visit recharged my body with extreme positive energy. I didn’t want it to end, and it was very sad to say goodbye but I knew that I enjoyed every single second of their busy.

Finishing my English course

Before I finish my first course of English, I have to start to study my second stage of the program called Pathway. Where I learned some very useful skills for college, like writing essays and some college’s level skills. It gave me an advantage, in comparison to my Canadian peers and other international students, especially when writing essays. Adding to that, you can get a direct path to certain colleges depending on the English schools that you go, In my case, they had agreements with 2 colleges that were my preferences, so as soon as I finish that course I was ready to start my college.

A lot of goodbyes

One of the biggest disadvantages of making international friends when studying English, it’s that most people stay a couple of months and then they leave to never come back. If you get too fond of them, it is very hard to say goodbye. It’s a very repetitive and uncomfortable situation, but I assume that this is part of being an international student and living in another country. There are sometimes that It does get me emotional, for example when a very good roommate from Colombia left, he was like a brother to me, and we hangout every day, so he was very present in my daily routine, he left a void in the house, that until today has been impossible to fill.

In my next blog I will be writing about my return to Chile for a few months and the second stage of my career but now in college. I hope you are enjoying my story so far, write you next Friday J.