From Belfast to Calgary
 

Hi there Im pretty new to this forum Im a 28 year old from a little village outside Belfast in N.Ireland relocating this year to the Calgary area with my Canadian husband whos been playing ice hockey in the U.K and with a 7 year old boy (Jakob) & 10 month old girl (Avah Rose) we have decided to give up the hockey life and take up an offer from a hockey friend of the hubbys and go and work for his business in Calgary.

Im a trained Make Up artist and mainly concentrate on weddings, functions and photographic is there a market for me in Calgary do you think? Also Im really nervous about leaving my friends and family although my husbands originally from Winnipeg (all his family are there) I only really know the couple we are friends with who my husband is going to work for and members of their family. Im waiting for my mother in law to send us our sponsorship form and hopefully I will be out there for the start of the summer and maybe at least feel like I have had a summer this year.... Has anyone used any particular shipping companies from Belfast?

Also would you advise shipping or should we just sell what we can. Im so stressed at the moment as Ive been left to organise the whole move as Im based in N.Ireland and my husband is in England with his team! So not only am I at work, kids etc etc Im trying to organise everything to make this move as easy as possible for us all. Ive heard Calgary is a pretty young city is it easy to meet new people etc? Sorry for the long post but any info about Calgary would be wonderful!

Re: From Belfast to Calgary
 

Hi Khuppe

Firstly welcome to BE - you should be able to get answers to most/all your questions here.

I know how daunting the process is - but it's worth it in the end.

I would imagine that you would be able to find work in your profession here. There is a wedding fair taking place in Calgary at the TELUS Convention Centre this weekend, might be worth googling it to find out who the exhibitors are as a starting point for building up your contacts.

Calgary is a fairly young city and is growing at a fair pace. As you have kids I am sure you won't have any problems meeting like minded parents and if your OH did something like get involved in coaching hockey you would be able to build a circle of friends around that.

Summer is a great time to be hitting Calgary, although if you are planning to stay in a hotel when you first get here and end up arriving during Stampede you might want to book now! :)

HTH - good luck with all your preparation

Julie

Re: From Belfast to Calgary
 

Hi

Gook Luck with the move.

Check out all the WIKI Articles there are on this site about both moving and differrent locations!

Hope things get clearer for you!

Re: From Belfast to Calgary
 

Hi Khuppe

I think, as someone else said you will meet people through your kids. I would suggest that picking a school where the majority of children are not bussed in makes it easier!

Gryphea

Re: From Belfast to Calgary
 

thanks for all the words encouragement!:thumbsup:

We will see what happens

Re: From Belfast to Calgary
 

hi hows things we are at present from little town outside Belfast and we hopeflully will be goin to Calgary in March ive tried quite a few removal companies and I found so far MCGIMPSEY BROTHERS IN BANGOR have been the best so far and as for what to take it is quite hard to know we keep changing our minds about some of our stuff .LET ME KNOW HOW YOU GET ON TAKE CARE email [email protected]

Re: From Belfast to Calgary
 

Thanks very much for that info about the wedding fair I had a look and seen that only 4 people exhibited for Make Up so thats refreshing to know. I dare say the Canadians would love to hire someone who has trained in Europe

Re: From Belfast to Calgary
 

I'm sure they would! Good luck! :thumbsup:

Re: From Belfast to Calgary
 

hi hope u got some good answers i left wrong email address its [email protected]

Re: From Belfast to Calgary
 

Hi all

With any luck we will be moving from Belfast to Toronto in May once my work permit is approved.

I have found McGimpsey Bros and they seem to be quite good, who else has anyone got quotations from?

Has anyone used McGimpsey?

Re: From Belfast to Calgary
 

If you dont mind me asking roughly how much were you quoted? I havent called any just yet but intend to on Friday thanks

Re: From Belfast to Calgary
 

Hi Khuppe, welcome to the boards.

Which small village outside Belfast are you from? I'm from Comber, and we have someone around here from Kilkeel.

Re: From Belfast to Calgary
 

we are from Newtownards and we are heading to Calgary

Re: From Belfast to Calgary
 

Hi we were quoted £2100.00 for 300 cubic feet and this included our three piece suite so we have decided to leave suite behind which has brought the price down to £1640.00 thats working out as it would be 500 pound to bring our suite over and we could prob by one in Calgary for that price as this was the suite for the basement anyway

Re: From Belfast to Calgary
 

Hi Kuppe,

Heading to Calgary myself in March from Lisburn. MCGimspeys from Bangor seem to be the best and a friend used them them before to move to England and said they were great. All the best for the future and glad to see a few people from home making the trip.

Rob

Re: From Belfast to Calgary
 

Hi there well Im from Hillsborough, spoke to someone from McGimpseys today and they tell me for a part consignment around 2500 to Calgary door to door, I was in work so I couldnt get all the details does anyone know if thats them packing it for you etc or do you have to that yourself? And a full container is 3500 around a bout, still waiting for All route shipping to get back to me.

Of course spoke to my hubby earlier and if it was up to him I'd be moving there with the clothes on my back but after speaking to a friend who emigrated she said she wished in hindsight she brought as much as you could as you still have to replace the things when you get to your destination. And we will have to replace our tvs etc.

Good to hear some people from here are moving too so we will have to keep in touch as its always good to touch base with people from where your from.

Re: From Belfast to Calgary
 

Dirty Newtown eh. I spent 7 years at Regent House before departing for England.

Re: From Belfast to Calgary
 

when we called into Mcgimpseys we told them we would pack all our own boxes and supply our boxes as i have been told they do charge you for packing and the boxes etc they supply to you .Ive also been told to bring as much as possible ,but i was told that you can get a cable to plug into your tv as all new tvs are made to work worldwide but il have to check this outmore

Re: From Belfast to Calgary
 

did you live in Newtownards i went to movilla

Re: From Belfast to Calgary
 

Would be great if you found that out as we just bought a new tv last xmas although I seen a 42" philips for 1200 dollars but if we could bring our tv it would mean I could, I think I'll say that to them about packing our own stuff too thanks!:thumbsup:

Re: From Belfast to Calgary
 

No, lived in Comber all my years in Northern Ireland. Was in or through Newtownards about half of all my days in NI though, but always lived in Comber.

Re: From Belfast to Calgary
 

Khuppe & ScotCal00 & Paddyonway

Thought I'd shove in my experiences of moving from N.I to Calgary (another wee village just outside belfast...ballygowan) just last september.

We used Brown's removals, based down Duncrue I think, and I found them to pretty good although they are just agents for somebody else...and they did follow up a few queries I did have once my gear was in transit, although were never able to give a definite delivery date which I think is impossible until nearer the end anyway. We opted only to bring a small amount of gear and buy furniture once we arrived. It took about 3 and 1/2 months for our boxes to be delivered, we sent 9 in total...not much I know and I think it cost about 600 quid. However my english mate flew a similar amount over with UPS or similar, he got it in 7 days or so and it cost about 1200 quid i think. I suspect it would dearer from N.I as your gear will have to fly to england first.

Anyway Calgary is a grand city but most important is the proximity of the rockies, I'd never been skiing before coming here (Craigavon dry ski slope don't count) and have since spent a few weekends at Fernie & Lake louise.:thumbup: It is a city full of blow-ins , so everyone is in the same boat!


If you've any queries let us know and I can try and help, but I'm still relatively new to all this too!

Good luck with the move......

Re: From Belfast to Calgary
 

hi there i am lookin forward to Calgary and i will give browns a ring to see what they say .We were up Rockies in August when we were over and it is breathtaking ive never skied in my life before and i cant wait to try it .Its hard to believe how many Northern Ireland are over in Calgary it is a small world

Re: From Belfast to Calgary
 

Hello there Burtons thanks for your info so do you like Calgary, the food the shopping? What else do you like about it?

I am so nervous now and often think am i doing the right thing but sure its a learning experience and I have never skiied before and I am loojking forward to that side of it for sure!

Re: From Belfast to Calgary
 

Yeah Settling into Calgary and enjoying it so far, I certainly don't miss the rain of home, I have seen it rain about 4 times since I arrived!. Shopping isn't really my thing, but it seems there is plenty of choice here, although the city centre is kind of dead on an evening/sunday...everyone seems to use the malls instead. Been mostly to pubs so far and there are some really good micro breweries. One tip I can give is that you may read that UK driving licences can be exchanged however when you read the fine print you'll see they don't include N.I in this. Typical!:curse:
So I had to do a test, it is not as bad as you may fear but nevertheless if I could have avoided it I would have tried.....for example by switching my N.I issued one to a GB issued one via an English address.....I used to live in England so this would have been above board.

There are a few N.I knocking about, i bumped into some folks in Giants shirts at the (ice) hockey and have seen some GAWA too.

Hope that all is of some use....

Re: From Belfast to Calgary
 

hi paddyonway did you try browns yet as we got a quote from MCGIMPSEYS and someone has told us to ring browns which i will ring in the morning

Re: From Belfast to Calgary
 

My hubby also is from Scotland and in laws still live there do you think we could change driving licence to in laws adress as he did live there

Re: From Belfast to Calgary
 

Hi,

Good Luck with your move. I myself am from near Ballymena although I have been working in London for afew years now. My husband and I are hoping to move to Vancouver now in April - Cannot wait!!

Liz

Re: From Belfast to Calgary
 

HI Burtons Khupeand Padonway I phoned browns this Morning and they were roughly £400.00 cheaper than the other estimate that we got so we know now who we are going to Calagary with .

Re: From Belfast to Calgary
 

Don't suppose anyone would know of the following?

Did you use your own doctor for your medicals or the one it states for N.Ireland on the CIC site?

Also does anyone know when your packing all your things and your doing a goods to follow list do you have to write every item - or do you just stae 6 suitcases of clothes, 1 box of cds etc? Or do you have to write 12 womens tops, 20 womens shoes etc?

Re: From Belfast to Calgary
 

I'm under the impression that you have to use a designated doctor.

From the Wiki entitled Goods to Follow:
When I look at that Wiki article now, it seems to me that that piece of information is somewhat "buried" (in the Miscellaneous Tips section). I think it would benefit from being presented more prominently, and I'll go ahead and tweak it a bit.

Re: From Belfast to Calgary
 

Just had to poke my nose in and say hi to everyone moving to Canada from Northern Ireland. I'm from Larne and have been here 8 years. Anyway good luck with your plans and enjoy the adventure:thumbsup:

Re: From Belfast to Calgary
 

Hi there Elaine, do you like it over there?

Re: From Belfast to Calgary
 

I have to be honest and say that we are planning to move back to Northern Ireland hopefully this year and I know that must sound crazy to all of you that are trying so hard to leave. Canada is a great place to live for a lot of people but for me at this point in life it's more important to be closer to my family. We have 2 kids (both born here) and it can be difficult when you don't have the support of your family nearby. However I have no regrets about moving here.

Re: From Belfast to Calgary
 

I understand that my husband is Canadian and all his family are out in Canada so hopefully it will feel a wee bit different for me! Sure its all part of life experience Good luck!:thumbsup:

Re: From Belfast to Calgary
 

Sounds like you'll be in a better position than me:thumbup: I'm sure your OH's family will be great support for you.

My husband is a Canadian too. His Mum and Stepdad and all his Aunts and Uncles are in Montreal so we don't see them much. Plus some of them are frankly a little odd. His father lives in Ontario but he's a redneck nutter! Oddly enough he lives alone. :eek:

Re: From Belfast to Calgary
 

Lol... oh dear say no more no wonder your moving back!! Hopefully it will work out ok with regards to the kids as having your own family support is a bonus but who knows how I'll fair I know like you if I cant settle Ill move back and maybe house prices in U.K will have dropped! lol