Landing - Calgary
 

So, after years and years.. and years... I finally landed in Calgary 27th January.

We initially arrived in Vancouver and I did put a post on here because I was scared that I'd miss my connecting flight which was 2 hours later.
When I landed I identified myself as landing to activate PR, I said I had a connecting flight and was told that I'd just be put on the next one free of charge if I missed it. In just so happened that I didn't miss it and we arrived just in time for the gate.

The first person I spoke to when I said I was activating the PR said 'welcome home' which I thought was really nice :lol:

We had quite a few people in front of us and because of this the entire process did take about 1:30/1:45. The guy checking the goods to follow list was extremely thorough! In our short time here we have learned that Canadians love stamps.

In the first two weekdays after landing we did the following:

• Went to service Canada and got our SIN numbers. We went in the morning and it was busy but not bad, we walked past in the afternoon and wow... queue out the door.
• Opened new comer accounts with RBC. For being PR and based on our professions we got a joint account with no fees for the year, a savings account each and credit card each with $2000 credit. The service was really good!
• We then got sim cards from Koodo, because neither of us have jobs we wanted the absolute cheapest deal we could that would allow us to ring employers and each other. This is $40/month for unlimited national calls and national and international texts. No data.
• We then went to registry, for non Canadians these are all over the city and we got our health cards and driving licences. Both are in the post but we got given temporary on the day.

Everything was very easy and stress free!

I was applying for jobs before I came out here and have applied for nearly 30 since landing. It's early days but nothing yet.
My girlfriend has been annoyingly laid back the entire time, she applied for 3 jobs, one at 10 pm in the evening. By 10 am the next morning she was offered an interview. She now has a job as a Health Care Aide. They have said once she gets her nurse registration they'll just bump her title and pay up! That has taken a bit of the pressure off for now.

I am absolutely dying to get a job though, it's only our second week but I've never been out of work before. It seems ridiculous but in the UK I was called up weekly with job offers, so to go from that to nothing is strange.

I met AlmostCanadian yesterday, that was really nice, got some sound advice and it was good to see someone who had 'made it' yet had arrived here in a very similar situation to myself and my girlfriend.

I had been talking to a guy from the NE UK, we met them and stayed at their house last Friday which was really nice. It's good to actually know some people here.

We've had a lot of snow in these two weeks, even my Calgary standards from what people are saying.

Anyway, I just thought I'd share our landing experience and first couple of weeks.

Loving it so far but we're on a serious budget so I'm hoping to land a job in engineering soon!

Re: Landing - Calgary
 

Welcome home to Calgary - glad everything's gone smoothly so far, and apologies for the ridiculous amount of snow!

I feel a Calgary meet up in the works...

Re: Landing - Calgary
 

I was thinking that would be good. There's a few active members on the forum now in the Calgary area. it would be good to put some faces to names and get to know some more people.

Re: Landing - Calgary
 

I knew all our better halves were synchronised!!! :hehe:

Fantastic news bud and congrats :thumbup:

Re: Landing - Calgary
 

Congratulations and very glad it went smoothly. :thumbsup::thumbsup:

You seem to have all of the 'major food groups' already done. Remember to set aside some time to have fun too - it is all to easy to get sucked into 'gotta do......' every day (although you seem to have this in hand too).

Re: Landing - Calgary
 

I am trying to obtain work so on a bit of a budget at the moment. I don't know how long it'll take to get work so I'm a bit reluctant to spend savings.

At the same time this is a period of time off so I should probably enjoy it a bit more than I'm allowing myself too!