Alberta_Rose

I thought I'd start this thread for old-timers to introduce themselves!

I am a physiotherapist. I moved to NW Calgary from Sussex in Sept. '05 with my husband who is in retail jewellery, and our two boys, then aged 14 and 19, and a 12 year old border collie dog, Kes. I was the principal applicant in the skilled worker route, and it took 19 months from application to visa. Waiting times have shot up ever since!!

Since we moved here we have got involved in a local field hockey club and I also sing in a ladies Barbershop chorus, the Rhythm of the Rockies.

Our younger son played field hockey this summer, and is about to start senior high. "Canadian school is cool!" The elder is about to start an engineering degree at University of Calgary, having done some high school top-ups since we arrived. Both boys love it here, especially the winter sports. Both of them have enjoyed working the summer season at Calaway Park, a theme park to the west of the city.

I come to this forum to chat to old friends and meet new ones, and I like discussions but hate arguments. If I can be helpful by sharing any of our experiences, I will gladly.

Morw

iaink

NO YOU DONT!


I've been living in the Belleville / Trenton area of Ontario since being headhunted to work here (on a work permit) in '98, PR followed in late 2000 and became a Canadian citizen in 2004. Since coming here I've married a Canadian and had 2 kids. We live in a small rural community, about 20 mins drive from my work in Belleville.

When I'm not online here I enjoy music, and play sax in the local citizens band, and I got roped into coaching juniors little soccer team this year. I'm also a keen golfer, but have no time to do that now with everything else that goes on with small kids around. I love it here, and Im glad to pass on what I can about life here (as well as the odd warning), and try and make life a bit less of a mystery for newcomers than it was for me!

Piff Poff

We applied for PR in June '04, later that month my mechanic hubby got offered a job whilst we were on a fact finding trip. After a bit of a wait and he got HRSD approved and moved out here in April '05. My daughter and I finalised the house sale in UK and followed out in June '05.

Since we have moved my hubby had emergency surgery (kidney stone). My Mum was diagnosed with a rare form of cance and had 2/3 of her liver removed to get to it, she has just finished her chemo. We have bought and sold a house already and bought a smaller fantastic house that we love.

My daughter has had a fab summer with 2 residential summer camps, a day camp on a farm and a band camp. She starts band, playing the clarinet when she goes to middle school in a couple of weeks.

My hubby's car collection has already escalated - after promising we wouldn't have as many as before - we're upto 6 already, i suppose the temptation is too great BUT i have just got my puppy and A GAS COOKER!!!!

We have just spent the weekend hiking around Canmore. the summers are longer and hotter than we thought they would be and last winter was a breeze (I know it was only mild!!!!).

We love living here and really hope we get PR status soon - just done our medicals, hopefully we'll get PR by crimbo. Red Deer is a perfect town for us and so far our positive experiences far outweigh the negative.

I originally found BE when I was a little homesick. I hope some of my posts help others, somtimes it's just nice to hear people moaning about the baked beans.

sarah & andy

Hi All
I am relatively new to the board.We,hubby and 2 girls (6) and (21 mnths) are applying via a work permit and then permanent residency.We are 10 months down the line at the moment,since starting our emigration journey.I am hoping to be out in Calgary early next year for good,but am unsure if this is realistic ?? As the timelines keep changing.I am a registered nurse and hoping to get a job at Foothills,not heard any definate news yet about jobs I have applied for,but fingers crossed.I would be very interested to hear any stories of nursing in Calgary.Forearmed is forwarned as someone once told me.
I have read lots and lots of threads offering great advice and would like to thank Morwenna and others,for their honest thoughts.
Sarah & Andy

Purley

Well, I have to add my two cents worth to this.

We have been living in Regina since 1968!! Holy shit - that is 38 years! I grew up in Purley; worked in London and I can assure you it was quite a culture shock when we got here! It was a heck of a lot easier and quicker to get to Canada back then. In fact, I think they were almost desperate. We originally wanted to go to Vancouver, but at Canada House they persuaded us that Regina was the best place for my husband's work - he is a butcher/meat cutter. To tell the truth, I think they got a bonus for talking people into moving to somewhere unpopular with most immigrants!!

Anyway, we are still here. My two sons both live in Regina.

I don't want to put you off but even after 38 years, there are still quite a few days when I wished I had stayed in England. But I do have to admit that going back for holidays does not really give you a true idea of how things really are, particularly as I am sure that my sister and her husband and family are far better off than lots of people are.

I come here to give advice and to lend a hand to people who are moving to Regina or other places in Saskatchewan. And - I heard today on the radio that the price of an average family house in Calgary is $403,000 - whereas the price of an average family house in Regina or Saskatoon is $130,000.

Steve&Tanya

Great Idea!

We (me and Hubby) Applied in March 2004 via SW route with hubby as lead applicant. Hubby had interest from a company in Milton, ON and for a while we thought a work permit was on the cards but nothing ever came of it (SIGH) Got completely fed up after a year of hope and decided to check out the Emigrate show at Sandown in March 05. Alberta was really being pushed so we booked a trip to Calgary for Oct 05. A week before we left got med requests and took them before we went so were really happy and thought we might be out in Jan 06 so got back and put house on the market. We got caught up in the delayed PPR so eventually in Feb 06 our Visas were issued (WOO HOO)

We landed in Calgary 25 March 06 to find the economy booming and almost being priced out of the housing market :scared: However everything has come together and we are very happy. Hubby has recently started working fror CP and I could have worked for Westjet but decided to turn it down and work for a fellow expat as a cleaner. The money is better and it's regular hours.

We have not really been out and about much yet, having spent all our money on cars, the house and furniture!!!!!! Planning to do much more exploring now the house is basically together.

I come here to help out where I can and sometimes just to get some British humour

R2D2

Hi all
We are a family of 4. Myself (Debbie, 34), my hubby and 2 small boys aged 6 and nearly 3.
We originate from Cheshire and decided to start looking into emigrating seriously after a holiday here back in the summer of 02.

We did the self assessment, and back then we were 2 points short, so hub tried frantically to learn higher level French in the vain attempt to gain those elusive points. Not so easy!!!! Anyway, we got the application ready and waiting, still working on the French many months later, THEN BINGO, they lowered the points. YIPPEE, the application was posted instantly and approx 20 months later we were here and starting over !!!!

My hub is in technical sales, working within the Oil and Gas industry here in Alberta, which is keeping him extremely busy. I am at home with my 2 lovely boys now, doing all the nice things like bike rides and coffeee mornings and trips to the park or swimming etc, and i'm loving every minute of it.

As a family we love travelling and get away exploring as often as we can, and what a great place to explore !!! I am quite into Scrapbooking now and do Salsa dancing, hub is longing for a Kayak canoe after taking lessons in the local pool. As well as a Kayak, he wants all the "toys" that the Canadians seem to have, ie, Quads and SkiDoo's etc

Our ambition when the boys are older , is to pack up our big motorbike and tour one side of Canada to the other. Only another 15 yrs or so to wait!

hot wasabi peas

Good idea Morw!

I'm from Vancouver Island though I have live in various other places in Canada as well. I currently live in England, almost in Suffolk, where I've been for the last five years. I came to England to do some post-grad uni course and also I had a UK ancestry visa (thanks to my Scottish grand-dad) that allowed me to stay for four years. I've since received 'indefinite leave to remain' (PR) and I'm now eligble to apply for UK citizenship. Once I become British, like so many others on this forum, I'm emigrating to Canada. Actually I'll be moving to Calgary within a few weeks.

I found BE during a bout of homesickness and I believe my first post was asking what people hated about. I thought getting reminded of the underbelly of Canada would help my homesickness. It didn't and I've since become sucked into the BE vortex and can not escape! Beware newbies! In truth, I have met some truly amazing people from this forum, both in real life and virtually (and hopefully in real life at some point!), who have become very good friends. And it's been, and still is, very interesting for my anthropological brain to read about people's ideas, conceptions and experiences of migrating to Canada. And I enjoy the humour too.

ClareBC

Mowenna, what a great idea

I'm a secretary at a university in Vancouver. Hubby works in IT. We've been here FIVE years Got two kids (7 years and 17 months).

We live in North Vancouver (mountains, forest, beach, libraries, parks, trails - all minutes of home Quality of life here is way better than NW England, but with the drop in salaries and the scary mortgage we are not better off financially. sigh..

When we first came here we made some pretty stupid fundamental (and expensive!) mistakes - but were really helped by friends we initially met online . So we helped set up Brits2Vancouver - pretty much as we wanted to help out folk just landing. And it was through that I found out about the BritExpat site (which would have been a boon when I was thinking of coming out!)

Good luck to anyone about to make the move

daft batty

hi all

I'm not new here but have been away for a bit while we moved to Ontario

We've been here a week, and are lucky that we have been offered a home by our very good canadian friend, so we will be staying in her spare room for a few months until MOH can sort out a job and then we can buy a house.

I am a radiographer but we came here on a student visa- as we are too impatient to wait another ?? year for PR to come through. Plus i think it will make me more employable if i have some canadian studies behind me. We've already come across the 'you need canadian qualifications' scenario

So far this week we have been able to sort out a bank account, get MOH UK experience recognised so he can take the certification exam for plumbing, immigration issued his work permit at the airport saving us a few weeks waiting for that to go through. - and yesterday we bought a car, car cheaper than UK, insurance very expensive!

the people on this site have given us some invaluable help, and once we take delivery of our car then we will be able to meet a few people in person, and some we missed out on meeting up with- sorry Ro you will just have to come to Ontario for your hols.

Anyone interested in BE meetup within reach of Peterborough?

dbd33

Yes. We'd be up for that.

I'm from London, I've been in Canada since 1981 and a citizen since 1985. I have a business related to computers, we have almost no customers in Canada so for years I spent more time out of Canada than here. Now most computer things can be done over the internet so I travel much less and we're slowly using up that stack of flyer miles on trips "home".

I have three children, two are grown up, they're bilingual and attended french language schools in the GTA. They're Swiss citizens (as well as being British and Canadian) and usually spend the summers in Europe. I guess that'll stop now for the eldest as she's just started work as a nurse in the head-bashed-in department of a Toronto hospital.

The third child is autistic and the subject of a peculiar custody battle; she's with us for the time being which may limit our ability to go on a tear in the Kawarthas. "Us" is me and my young American lover. She's in Canada working as an undocumented farm labourer. We live in an inner suburb of Toronto but have an interest in horses which does not work well where we are (we drive 500 miles a week back and forth to the barn) and so we're looking for a cheap field somewhere near the GTA.

Apart from shoveling out stalls I enjoy sailing and open cars. I am humiliated to have recently been reduced to driving a Honda. A borrowed Honda. With a roof. All one can say for it is that it's neither grey nor beige.

iaink

Maybe if it was nearer PB than TO we (or I) could make it. There are a few others over this way too.

acer rose

Hello

I'm not new and I'm not in Canada. I can't even remember how I found the BE forum and am generally an unreliable occasional visitor.

We are on the move to Canada at the beginning of next year having successfully completed the PR application procedure. We are currently mired in family illness and house selling "issues". On the up-side, the recent thefts mean we will have less stuff to pack

daft batty

so where shall we go, and when? looking at my map- would port hope or cobourg be a good place and when? mid september??

any suggestions would be good

I would really like to meet up with folk- i was jealous reading all the fun they had in calgary so we can do better eh?

iaink

Whats wrong with Peterborough?