Buying a car and getting scammed

Well... the story about our car has been the most frustrating one so far...

I started looking into the car market already before coming to Canada and now thinking about it, it was a good idea. It is something different than in Europe and when coming here you do have to realise that! The market here is loaded with trucks (pick up trucks) and SUV´s. Took me a while to understand, but thing is gas is cheaper here, so loads of cars here are 3L+. Also I guess one of the reasons why so many people are driving are driving so big cars is because of the mental reason of trying to protect themselves of the same big cars they are buying. Probably still the best place to buy used car is Kijiji, but to get the idea of the car prices might be AutoTrader. I would have wanted to get a van, but the price of those is really high and there is not that many for sale. So you would end up paying so much more than it is actually worth.

This is where stupid Blogger made disappear my few hours of work, even though I did hit save button ONLY LIKE 3 TIMES...

Anyways I will then write quickly what I remember I had...


We did ended up buying SUV, GMC Jimmy and the reason for it was condition compared to other similar cars available, good reviews (only problem was fuel economy, but we knew that already) and being able to use it as a camper as well due to the size.

But here´s the story of buying the car and what happened next:

And how our car got broken into 3 TIMES (almost week between each):

Please let me know if you have tips and ideas how to improve my editing using GoPro Studio. And I know they are maybe bit too long :)

We are planning to move by the end of this month. Have been applying in different places, but mostly been looking around Banff area. Canadian employers take their sweet time sometimes, so been a slow progress, but progress non-the-less. I did just accept a chefs position in Kananaskis, now we are waiting for them to contact Liis. For some reason front desks are slower and most likely they receive more applications as well. So hoping for the best now...

PS! Canada did just legalise recreational use of cannabis, not so much is still known about it other than few government approved shops and online governmental stores, with some weird identification system. The medical cannabis has been legal for long time now and there is plenty of proof that it does have lots of uses. In the example of US it has provided the government with incremental tax revenue boos, but has brought up few other issues, mostly regulatory. Anyways only time will tell how Canada is effected by it, but for sure it will boost the governmental budget and create many other jobs...

Banff and Jasper trip...

No story, watch the video if you haven´t seen :)

Maybe I will write about it somewhere in the future... Probably not so near future though :)

Acclimatization and first steps on the land up top

Our flight went smoothly, no issues there and no crazy layovers. We were thinking when we were buying the flight tickets to have a layover in Island and spend some time there as well, but it was cheaper through UK.

Also in the airport everything went smoothly. No long waiting times/lines, our luggage arrived and the immigration officer was quite nice. They were warning that immigration can ask also for example your proof of funds, but they didn´t do that, which was nice and quick. We had picked out an AirBnB place in Calgary about a week before, so we knew where we were going, kind of. Got some maps and bus tickets from the airport, looked up what bus we need to take and went for it. I had downloaded Calgarys map on my phone, so I wouldn´t have to use my data from Finland which could end up being quite expensive. As there wasn´t straight line to where we needed to go, we first went to downtown.

Busride wasn´t bad at all, took some time but can´t complain. We were going through the suburbs and Liis was really surprised how huge the suburbs are. Lot of private houses almost from the airport all the way to downtown. We are used to having more compact cities where you see also quite a lot of apartment buildings, then in Calgary the taller buildings were basically only downtown thing. And apartment buildings didn´t catch our eyes at all. Thinking that our AirBnB is close to downtown we were heading its way with a bus, checking our progress with Google Maps, it took round trip in Calgary to get there, but could have been worse. Place was quite nice, we had a room with en suit bathroom and shared living room, plus kitchen.

 We spent almost two weeks in Calgary, but we got most of our things done in two days. All the official stuff, like getting our SIN, getting our bank account and local phone card which are the most important things. We got our phone card from Walmart and it was bad idea, we spent almost two hours there, because the lady was taking her sweet time there, plus all the other people asking questions all the time. Anyways, recommendation for those buying a phone card, do it at service providers shop.

Rest of the time we spent searching online information about work and different places around Alberta, because we did not know what and where yet. Did have some ideas, but as always things are and look different on the spot. We kind of skipped the touristy stuff and might have been good idea, as I was saying we did not know where we were going and when we find work. I also kept looking into car options around Calgary just in case.

So with those two weeks we figured out that we are heading Red Deer next, which is exactly between two biggest cities in Alberta: Calgary and Edmonton. Plus as it is not too big city unlike Calgary, but still a fairly big city (about 100 000 pop) to us, so that you have everything available and for sure there is work. I did contact one smaller (family) landscaping/concrete company and was surprised on quick answer. Owner Chris told me to contact him when I get to Red Deer and we will have interview.

We booked another AirBnB in Red Deer for a week and looked into transportation there. We were hoping that using train would be cheapest way, but actually it wasn´t. There wasn´t many departures and it was quite expensive compared to bus. Booked the bus and our AirBnB was really nice to us and gave a ride to the bus station.

In Red Deer the accommodation actually was walking distance from the station, which was nice and town itself looked quite nice and green. Our hosts were really friendly as well. We did had to extend our stay there couple of times as things took longer than we were hoping for and they were really helpful in that way as they had one day some repairman coming and they had closed rental for two days, they opened it up again for us, which was really great from them. Looking around the town centre it looked fairly clean and surprisingly small. In here we did notice homeless people/those who have gotten caught in between wheels of life. Those who we talked to they were also saying that town has had some tough time after the oil market "crash" few years ago, as the town is making quite a bit of money of oil.

Town also has fairly decent public transit which makes it good to start without a car. Walking around downtown area and close by there were many ads up saying there are apartments for rent, but finding a decent place turned out to be quite difficult. Most of the places were unfurnished, but that was not good option for us as getting all the stuff for the apartment would have become bit too difficult, so that cut down many places for us. There was something in Red Deer apartment rental Facebook group and we did go see one place little way out of the centre of the town, it was just a room though. It was really spacious with our own bathroom and we were ready to take it, but the landlord was not happy with our references, so we had to start again basically. We almost were ready to take unfurnished one, but Liis wrote to one AirBnB place in Red Deer that was renting out month to month and asked if we could get a discount as it was over our budget. Turned out it was a rental company and they said they would have a place for us. So they did, it was unfurnished when we went to see and quite small, but location was great and they promised to get furniture for us. So we signed the papers and moved in couple of days later.

After moving in, I did have my interview with Chris and not so long after I had the job as well. Interview was easy going, which I liked. He did ask me some questions which put me off a little, as they were kind of logic questions or just abstract. But I did like it, made it feel less strict/official and left good feeling about the guy as well. Chris did warn me about heavy work and long days. Long days are no problem for me, but getting used to all the physical work took time, as it is different kinds of physical than working in the kitchen. I will make separate post for work tho.

And because buying a car and everything related to it is quite a story by itself as well, I will make a separate post about it as well.

First step is always the hardest

Well I have taken my sweet time writing about Canada, but better late than never, right!?

And as the heading is saying the actual first step for coming to Canada took a while as well. I have been thinking about Canada for some years already and those who know me had probably already thinking every time I brought it up thinking: yeah, yeah. Also we had talked quite a few times about it with my girlfriend as well and she was also interested of the trip, but neither of us had taken any real steps towards it. I mean we were quite comfortable with our lives as well, had kind of a routine going on: spending our winters working in Snow Village and summers down south, either Finland as well or Estonia working or taking it easy.

There comes a point where you have to do something or nothing is going to happen. Usually the push comes from something that makes you do the first step. For me it was work related, as I was seeing that we are not moving forward, I had to step down and look things from different perspective. So I put my name in the working holiday pool and couple of days later so did Liis. Also travelling is always a good way to widen your horizons, open your mind, challenge yourself, separate yourself from everything and everyone. Plus learn something new and experience in my opinion is the only thing that will stick with you forever, everything else comes and goes.

Liis got her visa easy and real quick, but for me I had to fill one more paper for them. They were asking for countries where and when I have travelled to past 10 years. Most likely because they saw Iranian visa on my passport. Anyways it took me quite long time to remember and write it down. After I sent it didn´t take too long either to get my visa.

Next big step was the flight tickets as that meant the date is set as well, because with the WH visa you have one year to enter. What we started looking for was, something cheap, after the winter season, so that we would have time to pack and get things we still needed. After a while we found decent priced tickets from Momondo about a month after the season.

Most expensive thing about coming to Canada actually was insurance. We were checking from different companies online, on the spot, in Finland, in Estonia, international to get the most decent price for it. We almost went for the same company we had in Finland because of the price, but when we started looking into it what they covered was less and adding coverage almost doubled the price. So reading and looking around on FB group IEC Working Holiday Forum - Moving2Canada we realised that True Traveller is offering quite decent coverage for the price. So we went for that. Haven´t had real reason to claim anything from them, so can´t comment on that part, but people seem to be happy with them.

We are almost done with getting ready for Canada. Well, not quite. Now it is the smaller things. All the paperwork. There is a fair bit you should take with you when you come here, I mean paperwork. The Moving2Canada gives you fairly good idea what. All the previous insurance papers, international drivers license and so on! Much easier to take it with you than get them sent over! Then there is of course if you do not have a proper backpack, like we didn´t. Where you have to choose if you go the travellers way or hikers way, there is a fair bit of a difference! Then what to take with you and how much, that also says how big of a backpack you need. Let me tell you right now that do not go crazy bringing too much over, you will make your own life much harder, unless you travel around 100% with cars, taxis and so on. The clothing here is actually somewhat cheaper than in Europe, remember that as well. I went with one weeks clothing, one set of nicer clothes, two pairs of shoes, plus flip flops, something warmer, wind and water proof jacket. So far it has been almost enough, had to get crappy working shirts from drift shop, for a 1/2 CAD, as I realised the shirts didn´t go totally clean anymore :). Then electronics, do remember that they are using different voltage here and different outlets, so you do need the converters. I got two and it has been enough for me. Then some entertainment, books and so on, washing stuff and some personal belongings. We have been good with 63 L backpack and small backpack, at least to start with. Things will pile up in time, when living in one place, so we will have a car by the time we leave from our first destination.

Liis did quite a lot of general research, while I was looking into more specific stuff, like getting a car, first destination, paperwork and so on. She haven´t been anywhere for so long before (well except the winters in Lapland, but still not so far from home), so I do understand, for me I did not need so much info, as I knew Canada is culturally and even nature wise not so different than us.

The month went by really quickly and before we realised we landed in Calgary airport.