My First Impression of Vancouver

Pause & Breathe

When I left my country, I was worried, sad, and anxious. I could not stop thinking during the flight, about how much I would miss my family and home. I was repeating to myself that we took this decision because our city was turning into an unsafe and violent place to live, where femicide was heading the newspapers every day. I was doing that for my daughters, to give them a safe environment to live and grow up in and to give them a better future.

When we arrived, I instantly noticed the beautiful landscape. It was in December, so some parts were covered with snow. I had some tears and all my worries, sadness and anxiety went away. It was a roller coaster of emotions in my chest. We were finally here, our dream of living in Canada was becoming true and we felt hopeless and happy. We landed at the airport and we got out of the plane, I felt the cold weather on my face, and I took a deep breath. This air was different, was full of hope and the smell of a new start. We waited for 3 hours for immigration to give us our permits and then we were randomly chosen to take a covid test. We were exhausted and my babies too. The only thing we wanted to do was to get to our apartment, have dinner, and rest. When we finally got there at night, we could rest and appreciate the neighborhood from the windows. 

The next day it was snowing and my family and I went outside to enjoy the snow and the weather. We came from a city that is in the middle of the desert, so we were very excited about the snow. People were very kind to us. There is a very special neighbor who knocked at our door and brought us soup; “a specialty from my country“ he said, and my family and I felt very welcomed thanks to him. For the next few days, we were very busy having all our documents ready as temporary residents and we took advantage and toured the downtown. It was awesome to see all the tall buildings and people from different countries. I remember that my husband and I were very surprised by the different languages we were listening to during our walk-in English Bay. We live in Westend, so we are only 2 blocks away from English Bay Beach, 3 blocks from Stanley Park, and 2 blocks from Downtown. Another thing that amazed us was that we have different ecosystems in our city; forest, beach, and lagoon. We are surrounded by nature and we love it.