All posts by Gina

One step nearer to becoming Canadians

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Hooray! Our PR (Permanent Resident) Cards arrived today.

This means we can now leave Canada and get back in without problems or further paperwork. It’s the nearest we will get to having Canadian passports for at least the next three years.

We will be able to apply for citizenship when we have spent a full three years out of four in Canada (this does not include any time we spend out of the country vacationing, on business or visiting the UK). We don’t have to apply for citizenship at this point; you can just have your PR card renewed every five years. But, of course, there are rights that citizenship confers that do not form part of resident status.

Our Canadian milestones (1)

arrival,

Until the last couple of days, I have not managed to keep our blog updated quite as well as I hoped. There’s a good reason for this; our feet haven’t touched the ground and my poor brain has been struggling to catch up with input overload, not to mention the change in time-zone and existing layer of fatigue!

Milestones to date include:

  • Arriving in Canada as landed immigrants (June 2009)
  • Setting up Bank Accounts
  • Getting a Rogers SIM for our mobile
  • Finding a Realtor (more than an Estate Agent – as buyers, we need a Realtor working for us and helping us negotiate a house purchase)
  • Meeting with a mortgage advisor
  • Getting our SINs (Social Insurance Numbers) – also in June (we are still waiting for our cards to arrive, forwarded by relatives to whom we had them sent)
  • Organizing a UPS mailbox as our initial address will be temporary (backed up by six months re-direction from the UK)
  • Arriving finally to begin life in Toronto (October 2009)
  • Meeting our Bank Account Manager and Branch Manager and sorting out the services we need (Canadian Banks still charge clients for various services, so it is important to set up the right kind of account and charging agreement)
  • Getting a safety deposit box at the Bank
  • Getting Library cards for our local library in the Beach
  • Paul’s first day at Tyco’s Markham (North Toronto) office – mostly he will work from home, but he has a hot-desk here. Markham is not realistically possible by public transport from here, so this first trip involved a hire car. The journey is similar to Paul’s commute from Wootton Bassett to Dorcan when he was in the UK.
  • Visiting Service Ontario to swap over out UK driving licenses for Ontario ones
  • Still at Service Ontario, using our new driving licences to provide the evidence of where we are living so as to register for OHIP (Ontario Health) coverage, which, for immigrants, comes in force three months (not 90 days) after landing.
  • Getting a new mobile phone because it was cheaper than buying a second SIM!
  • Looking for and buying a car (we pick this up tonight!)
  • Arranging auto insurance (horrendously expensive and without the benefit our UK insurance record, which we knew), with tenant insurance thrown in
  • Paul’s first Canadian conference a Stack Overflow Dev Day, for which he volunteered as a helper
  • Getting our first credit card (from the Bank) – this has surprised us as we had been given to understand that it is initially very difficult. We should have a further card shortly once American Express have checked out our UK history – they are the only credit card provider who will transfer such history from one country to another. Building a credit history as an incomer is important, so this is very helpful.

Hopefully life will now slow down a little and we can begin to explore what Toronto has to offer alongside moving our lives forward!

House Hunting – the search begins

Househunting, Toronto, ,

Having met with our mortgage advisor on Saturday, we wandered back down from Danforth to Queen through the back streets and, by chance, came on three open houses in a particularly lovely area known as the triangle. Although none suited us perfectly, it was a positive and reassuring start to our search. Indeed, we went back to all three with our realtor as part of a more focussed effort the following day.

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(click on a photo to page through larger versions of all the photos in this post)

mainWe also saw a great investment opportunity triplex further north – not a very pretty house and we decided that, whilst we are willing to do upgrades and a small amount of work, we are doing too much else to want to take on a project of this size. to be honest, I think I’m also pretty hooked on the idea of being at least on the edges of Beach, in a home that I love rather than one that has the greatest income potential!

Later today, after we pick up our new car (I will write about this tomorrow!), we are going to see another batch of houses, including one that, from the pictures, really appeals to us even though it is slightly further from the beach than some, though with the advantage of being really close to the subway on Danforth.

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[See a multimedia presentation on this property]

The Beach – our neighbourhood

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We had already established before we arrived that we want to live in or close to the Beach, a popular area in East Toronto.

There’s just something about the neighbourhood; the constant glimpses of the lake as you walk down Queen Street; the shore itself, wide sands curled by rocky breakwaters into a chain of lagoons – a vast expanse of water merges with the horizon to the south, whilst to the west the CN Tower gives graceful focus to the downtown skyline; the beautiful leafy streets lined mostly with heritage homes, from the relatively humble to huge mansions; the lazy bustle of Queen Street, with its streetcars to Downtown, its eclectic selection of shops and eateries; the strong sense of community and identity.

They say that people who come to the Beach to live rarely want to leave.

A visitor

wild things,

As I came into the office this morning, I noticed the twitch of a big, fuzzy shape in the window above the back door . . .

Raccoon
Raccoon

(click on the images for a larger version!)

Raccoons look so amazingly cuddly, with their soft fur and big, dark ringed eyes! Actually most people here recognize them as disease ridden pests that chew the roofing shingles (and most everything else), raid unsecured bins, are almost fearless and pose a number of health risks.