When you first arrive
 

I was wondering what you all did on first arriving?
May sound strange, but what I mean is, where did you live at first?
How did you get there and stuff like that. Did you have something arranged before you moved or did you "wing it"?

Re: When you first arrive
 

I stayed in an "efficiency" hotel.... you know, the sort that has a fridge and place to cook, some pots and pans etc so I didnt have to eat out all the time.

I was there a couple of weeks before i could move into the apartment that I started to look for soon after arriving.

Re: When you first arrive
 

I stayed in a motel (reduced rate for long stay) for 5 weeks whilst I looked for an apartment. One thing to bear in mind (which I didn't know when I first came - I hadn't found BE at the time, lol) was that different Provinces have different rulings about tenancies and end-dates.

As an example, Ontario requires tenants (or landlords) to give 60 days notice and generally most tenancies end on the first or last day of the month, landlords will normally start advertising the rental as soon as they get notice and quite often will have the place let 6 weeks prior to move in.

Arriving towards the end of the month and being able to get a place for the 1st of the next month can be quite difficult, hence most people stay in motels or self-service apartments for the first few weeks. There are hostels, B&B's and short stay places you can rent too.

Which Province are you going to?

:)

Re: When you first arrive
 

We arranged in advance to rent the 2-bed basement apartment of wonderful BE members The Thornes in Cochrane for a month when we arrived. We flew to Calgary with children and dogs, & dropped the dogs at kennels on day #1.
We had contacted a realtor in advance, and started looking at places to buy with him from day #2. This went on for nearly two weeks, we found a place, put an offer in, and moved into it two weeks after that, just in the nick of time before we moved from The Thornes.
Our 40' container with our goods arrived 2 days after we moved into the new house.

Re: When you first arrive
 

I arrived by car from California by a route that brought us into Toronto from the north (down the 400). As we entered the city we kept an eye out for a motel to stay in that night and get our bearings.

There weren't any to be seen until we reached the Lakeshore via Hwy 427, but back in those days there were several motels along Lakeshore Boulevard, later to be haunted by cheap whores and later still to be demolished to build condos.

It served for a couple of nights. Day two we picked up a free local newspaper and looked in the classifieds. Saw a flat for rent locally (in the High Park area), called, met the landlord and moved in the next week.

The rest is history. However that history included the invention of the internet and the availability of some dollars, so I wouldn't do it that way again.

Re: When you first arrive
 

I have accepted an offer from an employer in the Vancouver metro area and am doing lots of research prior to the LMO! I had thought of motels and the like but was wondering what the rest of you did? Obviously this wouldn't be ideal, but I can't really see another way, unless anyone else has other suggestions.

Re: When you first arrive
 

I stayed with a friend I had met on a previous visit, then just before the welcome wore out I sub let a condo until the rest of the family arrived and we moved into our first home.

All in all 7 months.

Re: When you first arrive
 

Yep - same here. We did that every move (Toronto, Vancouver, Toronto again, and finally Maryland). We stayed in a hotel for a couple of nights on the first and last of those moves until we found a short term, furnished rental.

Re: When you first arrive
 

We've found a furnished let, and have it til June- we bought a few suitcases with the essentials (magnets that don't stick and toys), our things will be delivered here on Monday- hopefully we should have just enough room! Then to the next move.

Re: When you first arrive
 

I'm a bit intrigued about the magnets that don't stick. :)

Perhaps they're the wrong voltage?

Re: When you first arrive
 

So I wanted to bring things that remind me of home, my fridge were full of those sarky, sweet, kids faces type magnets and they're small. But fridge fronts over here are plastic- so the bloomin magnets don't stick!!!!

When I need to go fridge shopping, I swear to God, I'm taking the magnets with me and I'm not leaving without a fridge that they stick to.

Re: When you first arrive
 

GE. Fridges to which magnets stick, from $800 to $4000 at the Home Depot.

Re: When you first arrive
 

They'd work fine in the southern hemisphere (goes around backwards or something).
We moved to Canada out of the summer/warm season. This meant there were loads of empty holiday lets sitting idle. We looked at a few then contacted some owners and put in VERY cheeky offers to rent one for 3 months (fully furnished of course), which fitted in fine with finding a more permanent place and our container arriving. We ended up with a lovely house right on the ocean with a private beach (which was open to the public of course).

Re: When you first arrive
 

Well it makes a change from missing marmite or some other godawful British junk.

Intrigued again, I've just checked the brand of our fridge to which magnets are rather attracted and lo and behold, it's a GE.

Of course, the ability to support fridge magnets was not our main criteria in choosing it, but it sounds as if you've done a lot of research on the subject?

Re: When you first arrive
 

Have you got magnets on there or did you have to go find something? :p I once found a magnetic piece of rock that stuck to the fridge too.

I don't miss any food at all, but I do miss a large choice of aerosol deodorant and Impulse- bit of a woman thing I think...