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.
No comments:
Post a Comment