For all those that don't know me or are not close to me at home, I have just left for Canada on a two year working holiday visa (IEC). Originally the visa had been granted back in October of 2019 and my scheduled flight was leaving in June (or July, can't remember) of 2020. But with the outbreak of the Corona Pandemic, pretty much all flights into Canada were stopped, so I waited in Germany and earned some money to spend later.
One year, many visa extensions and a fun year working on our local Zipline later, I left for Canada on the 2nd of October 2021. My flight was mainly uneventful, but I do have to thank Lufthansa and Air Canada for getting all of my skiing gear over without any problems. I'm a skier and the Canadian winter and snow are world known, so I had to bring my skis with me. Also I'll be working on the snow fields come the winter season, but more on that in another blog.
Anyways, checked in my luggage no problem, as the teller at first seemed rather apprehensive of me leaving for Canada (there are a lot of regulations in place for entering the country) but once she found out I was doing a stop over in London Heathrow she was quite relieved as, in her words “they will take you apart there when you get on board the Air Canada flight” (as in they would check every single document I have). Flight was uneventful and the dreaded check wasn't too bad, as I'd had more than a year's worth of preparation to get all things sorted out. Second flight was also good, as I shared the row with another guy and we had the middle seat free for whatever stuff we had brought along. I've been really lucky on all my long haul flights so far. Landed in Vancouver after a nearly ten hour flight and then sat in immigration for another two hours waiting for my work permit to get granted. It was without any fuss, apart from the previously mentioned waiting time. Then the sky train into Vancouver central and a short walk to the hostel with a backpack on my back, a rucksack on my front, a ski bag in my right hand and a bag with ski boots in my left. What an image that must have been. The first night was rather interesting after that. Met two British brothers who have done the exact same traveling as I have and then had to somehow sleep through the night with an American trying to keep us awake with his snoring and taking a piss in the corner (he was extremely drunk).
Sunday was then spent trying to get my bearings in Vancouver and just getting over jetlag a bit. Not much really happened on that day. Just walking around the city.
Monday was when things then got interesting. In Canada you have to apply for a SIN (Social Insurance Number) to work and the waiting time was three hours when I got there. I could have done it online, but then I would have had to wait for two weeks, so three hours wasn't too bad. A bit later the waiting time had gone up to five hours, so I'd gotten in quite nicely. After the SIN was granted (once again with no hassle, as I had all documents prepared) it was off to the bank. That took a while, too, as that was the day all the Facebook servers went down and some banks also had issues on that day. So instead of a 30 minute procedure it took three times as long. Not all that was the bank's fault, as I did have a lot of questions to ask. Canada (like the US) seems to run on Credit Cards, and I have never owned one in my life before (only Debit so far). As I don't really want to go into debt and potentially pay 20% interest I was quite thorough in my questions. Once that had all been sorted out (thanks Mehrnatz) I took a stroll through town to a Koodo outlet. Koodo is a mobile network provider and I'd been annoyed at not having internet for a day already (no Google Maps or books whilst waiting for three hours) so that was the next thing on the line. Luke (a friend from Revelstoke) had mentioned Koodo as being one of the best providers as they have good coverage in Canada and decent prices (meaning expensive in the rest of the world). Getting a bank card had been the right move before that, as they needed a card as verification. Once that had been gotten and mobile internet back on my phone I went back to the hostel, ate something and slept. Busy day.
... was on the agenda for pretty much the rest of the week. Using Craigslist I followed car sales around the Vancouver area. The car specifications I would like are quite tight, so when a car pops up I try to be on it immediately. Unfortunately so are all the dealer shops around town and they will often time snatch away a car and then sell it for quite a bit more. Had a look at two cars, but one was pretty much a walking building site and the other nearly poisoned me with a broken catalytic converter. Now for everyone outside Canada wondering why it seems so hard to get a car here is the explanation. Canada (or better said British Columbia) doesn't have anything like the German TÜV or British Warrant of Fitness. So on the roads here there can be some horrors driving around. Mark used those exact words. He's a guy I worked with in New Zealand but he's been over in Canada for three years now. I met up with him during the week for some lunch and it was good to see each other again. He's been quite the help in a lot of things relating to Canada for me. Hope to see him a few times in winter, too.
Anyways, after having a really good car snatched from under my eyes on Saturday I was fed up with looking for cars at the moment and on Sunday did a small hike into the mountains with Kjell, a fellow German staying in my room at the hostel. It was nice to actually get out and see a bit of the nature around Vancouver instead of just a concrete city for once. Didn't see any bears, though. Unsure if that is a good or a bad thing.
For the next week I hope my car search goes successful and I can leave Vancouver behind me to see more of the surrounding area.
My impression of Canada so far? A bit strange to be honest. Australia and New Zealand appear closer to our European values and culture than Canada is. Canada seems more related to the US in that regard. Big cities, big cars, banking systems, etc. Also the individual states of Canada are a lot more autonomous than back at home. Probably comes with the size. Each state seems to pretty much govern themselves in a lot of things.
