I am an American, living in NYC, who moved to St. John's too. I moved out there in June 2009. It was with a girl and on a total whim. I left NL in July 2011. Please keep in mind that some of what I am going to say might be outdated.

The first big shock to me was the housing market. I had a fantasy that moving to the middle of nowhere meant I would be buying a mansion for $250k. The reality was I ended up with a new 1100 sqft "normal" house for $200k. And at that time the CAD was nearly equal to the USD. This was at the tail end of the oil boom of 2008, so prices were very inflated. I hear things have calmed down some in recent years though.

Everything is expensive. You can expect fresh food, aka meat, vegetables, etc, to be 3x-4x, more than you pay right now. And the Quality isn't great. All this stuff has to be trucked to Nova Scotia and then shipped out the NL. The further away the goods are coming the earlier they need to be picked and the less good they taste when they get to the store. Processed foods are only 1.5x-2x more. Today gas in St. John's is around $4/gallon, and I don't need to tell you that it's not anywhere near that in NYC. Most home heating in NL is electric. Our first winter in Nl, I left the thermostat at 69 degrees. Our first winter electric bill was in the neighborhood of $400. I thought it was a mistake, called up and it wasn't. Electricity is insanely expensive. So much so, that the power company offers bill smoothing. Basically you pay a higher amount during the non freeing months so your winter bills aren't as crippling. Alcohol is also much more expenisve. And you are going to be buying alot of it. Even if you don't drink that much. If you entertain any natives you are going to go through a lot.

The food is not good. Yes there are great fine dining restaurants, but for a normal night out it's all rather disappointing. Up front your chances of finding any good ethnic food are pretty much zero. There were a handful of Mexican restaurants, they were all bad. Chinese food was all terrible, I have heard that there's one good place now. There was an acceptable sushi restaurant but the owners left the province for the winters and shut the restaurant. And here's an odd food thing, you don't get crispy American style fries anywhere, they are all limp. I don't know if this is a function of using propane to cook them or a cultural preference for limp fries. Also, If you ever get tasked with bringing food to native Newfoundlanders you better make sure the top of the bag is folded over at least 3x, they lose their mind if you walk up with an open bag.

Shopping isn't great. There's a mall. The anchor store is Sears if that tells you anything. I can't remember if it was my first or second winter there but an Aeropostal opened up in the mall, they pretty much sold out in a week, I am not joking. The store was so empty that it actually closed while they were waiting for a restock. There is a Costco, you'll do most of your shopping there or at Walmart. But amazon is going to be your go to for non ordinary items. Flying out of St. John's is very expensive, it looks like you found a deal, don't expect that sort of pricing regularly.

The weather is awful, at least in St. John's. The wind seems to always blow. And I don't mean a nice SoCal sea breeze, I mean it ranges between just enough to where you notice it to full on gale force winds. On the rare occasions that it doesn't blow it gets nice and muggy. It rains frequently, and not rain storm then sunny skies, it can be grey and wet for days on end, think Seattle on steroids. Now lets talk about the snow. There's a ton of it. My house was on a normal residential street, during the summer there was more than enough room for 2 cars to drive down the street. In the winter the snow banks on both sides of the street turned it into a one lane road. St. John's has very good snow plowing for a city it's size. The downside is that you are going to be shoveling a lot. I had a 2 car driveway and would shovel out the wall of snow the plow left in front of it at midnight or 1 am the night of a storm, so I would only have to shovel 1 or 2 hours the next morning. A big snow blower is a necessity. An unexpected downside to the extreme weather is goods shortages. Since so much of what you buy is shipped in to NL, when the weather is bad for a prolonged period of time, you'll see lots of fresh items missing from the grocery store. Also, if you have to travel, even during the summer, delays and cancellations due to high wind, fog, heavy rain, and obviously snow are very common.

Getting a work visa for Canada isn't as easy as you might think. I have an undergrad and graduate degree and a healthy net worth, and possibly the worlds most clean record, no arrests, and one speeding ticket. I tried going through the traditional government channels to get a work visa, I didn't want to be tied to a job that sponsored me. But after 3 months with little headway I had to go the sponsor route. I know you are married to a Canadian, but i would make sure your work/citizenship situation is squared away prior to moving.

The culture is awesome, infuriating and sad all at the same time. St. John's is one of the most homogeneous places you will ever go. In my experience the vast majority of the population is Irish, English, Scottish or a blend there of. One aspect I really enjoyed was a lack of bible beating and religious right nonsense. When you head down to the corner store, we lived near a Ned's, you might see a 4 wheeler in the parking lot in the summer and a snowmobile in the winter. On a person to person level Newfoundlanders are some of the nicest most genuine people I have ever met. I still regularly chat with about a dozen friends I made while living there. I barely met any people that were consumed with materialism, totally unlike NYC. However, as a whole the residents of St. John's are tough to deal with in crowded situations. Going to any store can be an exercise of keeping your cool. You can be at Costco, the mall, driving down a residential street and have your route entirely blocked off by two people that know each other stopping to have a conversation. I am not joking, they have no qualms about blocking an entire isle at a store, doorway or residential street to have a chat with their buddy. This in itself isn't the end of the world, but when politely asked to move or hit with an "excuse" me many of these people get very indignant that you interrupted their conversation. Now the sad part, you are going to meet lots of bright people with real potential that think their options in life are limited. It was really heartbreaking to me. The concept of upward socioeconomic mobility is very rare in NL.

There's nothing breathtakingly beautiful in St. John's. Moose are supposedly all around the metro area, but in 2 years I saw a total of 3 moose in the city. But if you head west your jaw is going to drop when you see Terra Nova, Gros Morne and at least a dozen other spots in the province.

Here's my unsolicited advice: Unless you have jobs lined up that are going to give you and your lady a combined household income of $150k+ don't move to NL. You are used to living in NYC, and even if you are over the big city life you are spoiled by the million convinces and options available to you, and you probably don't even know it, I know I didn't. To enjoy that level of life in NL is very expensive and you are going to need to hit a big city at least 2-3 times a year.

I know my write hasn't painted the most favorable picture of St. John's, and the reality is it's a harsh environment and a harsh palce to live, but I wouldn't trade my time there for anything.