Originally Posted by city4

Just thought I would give everyone a slice of our Ontario story so far.

13th Aug 2008: We (me and OH) arrived at Pearson airport in Toronto on TWP, got through immigration and customs no probs picked up our hire car and headed to our temp home (a hotel)

14th Aug: Headed to my new work to let the boss know I was here safe and sound, he was great, told me to get myself settled before starting work. After that we started viewing apartments (loads of research via the internet)which was a bit of a let down, they seemed to be rough and smelly or not available until November!! Eventually we found a nice apartment in Clarkson so we filled in the application and crossed our fingers. Next on the list was BANKS we checked out a few and decided to go with TD Canada Trust, I know there`s been alot said about BANKS in Canada on this forum but TD have been nothing but great so far. Got our debit cards there and then and they approved us for a credit card to help built our credit history.

15th Aug 2008: First thing we headed to our local service Canada office to apply for our SIN numbers, it took about 20mins and we had the numbers in our hands. After that we headed to Future shop to buy a laptop, got a decent Dell for $800 they threw in a printer to get the sale!! Rang the leasing agent to see if we had been approved for the apartment and we had so we drove over to sign on the dotted line!! (we move in on Aug25th).

16/17th Aug 2008: Window shopping for furniture and electricals, then in to downtown Toronto for a wonder, ended up buying a couple of Virgin cells. (didn't achieve much really but it was the weekend)

18th Aug 2008: Decided to exchange our driving licences which is really simple, you take your licence to the drive test center, hand over your UK licence and $75 and you get an Ontario licence which is basically what happened, the problem was we had to que for 3hours!!! The place was bursting at the seams, it was mental!!! (get there early to avoid the ques!!!) I then thought it would be a good idea to start looking for cars and OMG 2nd hand cars are expensive, even a piece of crap rust bucket is expensive out here, we went everywhere to find a decent car but had no luck!!

19th Aug 2008: Today, realised we had been given the wrong post code by the letting agent for our new apartment which also meant we had given the wrong post code to the licence people so off we went to the drive test center, thankfully we were there for it opening (the que was still 20 people deep!!) got everything sorted in 20mins. It was back to car hunting and things were starting to get really tedious, we must of seen 100 cars and none of them were worth a second look so we went for something to eat and I had a good old fashion moan about Canadian cars!!! (I was only venting)
On the way back I spotted a Dodge neon in a big Cadillac dealer so I headed in to see how it looked an hour later it was bought. (I wish I could tell you how much i payed but I blocked it out as soon as I walked out the dealership door ouch!!!) I have now found out just how expensive car insurance is, lets just say my wallet is considerately lighter tonight.

I've enjoyed the challenges so far and still have a smile on my face so things can't be that bad!!!!

Originally Posted by Spindacud

your posting was great. I'm glad you're enjoying it so far and welcome to Mississauga