Well folks,

Back in Glasgow after a whirlwind 6 days in Toronto..... wow! Head spinning and jet lag hurting right now.

Flew with Air Transat from Glasgow, £300 each return flights, booked way back in March. Flight was ok, service very friendly, but slightly incompetent, and YES they charge for everything except your meals, so blankets, pillows etc. ALSO, this is new to me, they only accept CREDIT CARDS on the flight, no debit cards, no cash - be aware.

So, to Pearson Airport. Landed on time, loooong walk to the passport control where we showed our customs cards you had to fill out on the plane and our visas. Said we were landing and were directed down the hall and into immigration.

No queue at all, straight up to the desk where a friendly bullet proof vest wearing immigration officer greeted us and made polite chit chat while processing the documents. He asked how much money we had, but wasn't interested in seeing proof (damn-it!!) We had to sign our COPR's and wait while he did some things on a computer - all in all no more than 10 mins - followed by 'WELCOME HOME'!

No one was at the immigration desk with leaflets or advice, so we just carried on to get our luggage (bit of an anti-climax actually). Luggage came through quite quickly and we headed to customs, again declared that we were landing, and were sent off down another hall to a large processing area. Again there was no queue and we were called forward immediately.

This process took a little longer, about 35 mins in total, not sure if perhaps the lady was new.... she again was very friendly and polite, asked very few questions. In fact we had to tell her about our Goods Accompanying list and get her to stamp it - she said that it should have all been on one list, but I am sure she was wrong....Anyway, you don't question people with guns!

We stayed downtown at the Hilton Garden Inn, and already had meetings and 'interviews' set up, so spent most of the trip apart from Husband at different ends of the city meeting key people in our respective industries.

As a result, Hubbie has been offered a job, and I have found two jobs to apply for which were not advertised anywhere!!

The weather was exactly the same as here in Glasgow, but with less snow Lots of things had changed in the last 4.5 years, but overall we are pressing forward and happy with our decision!

p.s. I will be taking a LOT of supermarket drugs with me... cold and flu remedy $12+tax, cough medicine $16+tax....

Any questions? Shoot!

I'm not sure about the legality of this, so I'm going to say that 'my friend' brings over the counter medication over with 'him' (especially the 30p a packet paracetamol that costs a fortune under branded names in Canada). I think 'he' had a solid 10-15 boxes last trip. It's up there with HP sauce for things to bring from the UK in my opinion.

I can't believe you couldn't use cash on the air transat flight, we flew with them in october to toronto and you could use sterling or dollars, seems a bit daft if you only want a drink!!

Glad your trip went ok!

DC

funny how some items don't lineup. I noticed HP is pricey but tomato sauce is half the price of the UK?

Cheapest HP is at walmart - got some yesterday at about 3.50 for a regular bottle, compared to well over 5 bucks at safeway.

Firstly, you can check what is legal to import and what is not, on the Canada government websites.

Secondly, if it is legal, then the value is important. There is a limit in what you can bring in and it depends on a number of things so best to check on the web.

Third, if a drug has "cod" in the name, don't take it out of the UK unless you know that CODEINE is legal in your destination country. Otherwise you could end up in jail for smuggling narcotics as many countries consider CODEINE to be a class A drug. Not sure about Canada. Actually, don't rely on the names, look at the labels for the ingredients.

But as for the paracetamol, this chemical is known as ACETAMINOPHEN in North America and the supermarket where I shop, Safeway, has cheap big boxes of it, as well as similar boxes of ibuprofen (as in Nurofen) and aspirin. No point in bringing that stuff. I even found Benylin Cold and Flu here at Safeway.

It is a good idea to bring along the boxes and leaflets along with a normal travel supply of drugs, because when the tablets run out you can take the list of ingredients to a chemist shop and get equivalent Canadian preparations.

you could always just take a regular dose of vitamin C everyday boosts the immune system and is what is needed for collagen synthesis so ladies do take note
natural is always best I think
Oranges if you dont want the vitamins, but must be taken everyday!

A collegue mentioned this at work today - will be looking into it next Safeway trip - may save a little space in the luggage for some non-North American produced HP!