From everything I read, from the movies I saw, from the stories I heard, I knew that a developed country would have many advantages and improvements compared to the less fortunate countries, like Brazil.
However, after living fifteen days like a local-tourist in a big city in Canada that I was able to really understand all those information that I had received about such places.
Temperatures below zero and nothing about feeling cold? Heating? Food with acceptable prices (for those with the local currency)? Public transportation that works? With unlimited tickets? And with quality? Universities with easy access and low prices?
For us brazilians, it sounds like a dream, especially when we are cold in the winter and dying in the hot summer using crowded public transportation, expansive and low quality – despite the fact that we always have the risk to need to stop in the middle of the route because the bus crashed, or we got robbed, or even harassed. And we also have the fact that good private Universities in Brazil are super expansives and a simple meal in a good restaurant in any big city is exorbitant.
Imagine going to your favorite fast-food place and be able to choose one sanduiche, with medium potato, a soda and also extra nuggets and pay 14 moneys for that? Or have your breakfast every morning in some cool coffee place and spend 1,59 for the small coffee (that would be the huge size in Brazil) and also a croissant for modest 1,49?!
It is hard, I know. A city where everything works, not even the winter stops it. There are festivals during the week and night, there a parks open for those who want to take a risk and want to ride a sled, there are museums, skating rinks. And we can’t go without talk about all the cyclist that don’t give a sh*t to the weather forecast.
The impression that those fifteen days left is that in this world things don’t work by chance, or because people are polite. It works because the system is thought for that. Of course, nothing is perfect, even here I noticed garbage in the streets and some places don’t smell pee because it is winter. But, in general, life here is easier, it is less tiring.
Nevertheless, the hardest part of a trip like this is certainly to go back home. To the country in development, which takes one step forward and two steps back. In an election year, with a political future and socioeconomic so unsure..