When I went to Canada, I arrived in a Homestay (Family's House). But after 1 month, I decided to move to a shared house. I prefered a place more independent, where you can do anything you want (for example, in my homestay I couldn't listen music loud after 10 pm, because 2 childrens were living there). So, it was more confortable for me. Ok, like in a homestay, in a shared house you should make rules with the other people that live there. For example, if we wanted to do a party, we asked before to the other persons. And fortunately, in the most of the times, everybody wanted to do a party too, jaja (of course, we are young =p ).
I moved to an apartment with my chilean friend (Marce). When the owner said "apartment", I thought it was a building. But not. Apartment was a house with 2 floors and 1 basement. The first floor and the basement we share with one Turkey girl, and after 1 month, with one Mexican girl too. And in the second floor were living 2 brazilians. It was really nice live with them.
Is true. Some people prefer live in a homestay and some people prefer live in an apartment. I think this depend of many factors. First, you can't choose the homestay you want to go. Is lucky. I talked to many persons in Canada, and some families were very nice, and some were terrible. For me, it wasn't terrible, but it wasn't very organized in terms, for example, the meals. For breakfast and lunch, you should make a sandwich with something you can find inside the fridge. But sometimes I couldn't find anything. And I dont like eat sandwich every day for lunch =/ . In Chile, the most important meal is the lunch, but in Canada not: is the dinner. So, many times I had to buy things to eat outside home, and of course, I spent a lot of money in that. That was one of the reasons because I choose to move to an apartment: save money and the possibility to cook anything you want (well, I'm not good "chef", but I had to learn).
The other thing is the freedom. In homestay you should follow many rules. Of course in the "shared house" you have to put rules too. But its different. Everybody is your same (or similar) age. You have more similar interests. And I'm not talking just with partys. Actually, we didn't do A LOOOT of partys. But you feel more like "in home", not like your are a "guest". I don't know. I think, everything depend of "what do you want". For me, for sure, it was more comfortable live in an apartment. I really recommend.
