jad n rich

Its like summer - really clear and warm, really would have prefered to see some less perfect weather but never mind. Very impressive looking however.

Drove about 300klms yesterday, thanks to a very helpful axe murderer, erm I mean BE member thanks again, more helpful than you can imagine.

Staying at Days inn Calgary south, dont do this unless you are a well seasoned traveller with a broad mind and are open to part of the hotel being fairly horrific, and a nightclub downstars so the odd discarded stetson hat and party remnans or patrons wont worry you. Cheap and incredibly handy for transport and downtown though.

Housing, yikes, expensive for some very small lots, and definate conslusion if you have teenagers the city limits are going to be pretty much your limits unless you want them to go mad with boredom. Rentals, seen 3 all very grim, need a much higher budget I think, we allowed 1500 a month, not enough from todays findings This is bad enough but add dog, and the fact we wanted to buy but wont be on current exchange rates and all a bit scary to be honest.

City, pretty clean, less homeless than vancouver, but still plenty around.

Teenagers, been a bit shocked, most seem to smoke and love to sit on calgary transport mouthing off very loud about drinking/driving/ clubbing, and for some odd reason they use the F word like its supposed to impress not sure what thats all about. Younger kids seem far quiter, nice generally.

Jobs, every business/shop/bus etc etc needs staff, I guess at $9 an hour for shops to $20 for bus drivers you can see why. Wages V cost of living seem quite out of whack.

City seems quite safe, and thats from woman on own using lots of public transport/walking.

Hire car tomorrow to see more housing, schools.

All just my first impressions 2 and a half days, still totally confused TBH, think we could have a decent life here but it would be need to be subsidesed by heavy dose of savings I think, it aint cheap.

Right dont shoot me, and typing is really bad, library kindly gave me 2 hours but keyboard is stuck together with crack or cheese or something

tonyrleach

Good to read, Im coming to Calgary next month, keep us updated

Piff Poff

I haven't anything helpful to say apart from the fact I have found the 'F' Word to be used more here in general, it doesn't seem to have the 'shock' factor to it.

Steve_P

What is so shocking about "food"?

comet555

Just curious.... why the Calgary area? Unless your job dictates that you be there then there are a lot cheaper places to go where the cost of living of living is more in line with wages.

So was the motivation to move to the Calgary area? If you don't mind a commute you can live farther out and hopefully find cheaper prices.

Definitely don't try Fort McMurray if you think Calgary is expensive.

moondevil

Agree totally

We are around 2hrs outside calagry and wages are good and house prices looking better everyday
school is awesome, parks are clean and kids dont use the "f" word...well i havent heard it yet
if you like city living, calgary is good, but we decided to go smaller and love it here........plus its hot here as well at the moment

What line of work are you in???

Gill

LotteW

Welcome to Calgary.....

Butch Cassidy

what she said

jad n rich

Another update and answer questions.

Why calgary, thats where the job offer is in a nutshell. I know we could live more rural, but would commercial builidng projects be there?, and with teenagers, I have my doubts canadian rural life would hold enough interest for them, unless we cave in to calgarys scary plan of drivers permits for 14 year olds and buy a couple of monster trucks for them

Better explain the F word thing, dont know if people just swear a lot in general, dont think that would be a shock after australia but teens deffo seem mouthy, swearing starts up if they think theres someone around to impress.. other kids, person in authority etc, more odd is the spitting, loads of girls too, just love to spit in the street must be a cowboy thing but pretty revolting the first few times you see it. To be fair they seem pretty harmless, a few are quite glassy eyed, but for every teen like that theres one with a pile of books. I guess I have really noticed the teen behaviour as thats my kids age.

What else, still hot, hottest since 1800 something, weird for october.

Checked out food, pretty similar to australia really, quite a bit of stuff is cheaper but some basics like milk chicken more expensive. Petrol 119, trend to small cars just seems to be starting.

Anyway must go, am in the library again and some of the people are a bit high, armpit wise not drugs, must be the heat I know the train in the afternoon out of the city is pretty much like UK or melbourne rush hour, not nice.

primadonna

Unless you like city living dont bother looking at Calgary. There are loads of wonderful places just outside the city and everybody commutes cos they like to drive their big trucks.

Kids spit cos they chew 'spitzs' which is a practice run for chewing tobacco which is what adults do - yuk

Butch Cassidy

May I be the first to congratulate you on how helpful and informative and considered your first two posts have been.

I am almost moved to nominate you for troll of the month but well, actually I guess the month has just started

Little D

Someone doesn't know what they're talking about!! Have you ever been to Calgary??

Steve_P

Now there's a couple of sweeping generalisations which for the most part are in the local parlance bullsh*t.

Butch Cassidy

Tis a Troll I tell thee A Troll it is.

Steve_P

Then a feeding it I will stop.