Hello all

So my friend Dan Borg told me about this site and I thought it would be a good way to keep a journal of my time in Canada. So here goes...

Last Wednesday 17th October 2012 I flew out to Vancouver from Heathrow with my friends Jamie Harris and Tim Ingall with BUNAC to start our working year abroad. The flight was with Air Canada it was pretty standard flight, the best thing was the headsets had a classic movies selection so I watched Terminator 2 and Ghostbusters for a bit of nostalgia.

The time difference is -8 hours so when its 8pm in London it is midday here. Only after a week of being here have we adjusted to not waking up at 4am thinking its midday.

The majority of this past week has been spent in Vancouver city centre in Downton staying at the Samesun Backpackers Hostel on Granville Street. The hostel was very big and seemed to be one of the only few in Vancouver, lots of people had the same idea as us of staying there before travelling up to Whistler. All the doors of the rooms have different country flags on which is nice, ours was half red and half white. I'm sure that is a country but at first I thought they had just been lazy and stopped halfway through painting. Our room was two bunkbeds and a small area to dump our oversized bags. Our room mate on the first night was a 40 year old Dutch man who came in after us and his snoring was deafening. It sounded like a tractor being driven by a fat 40 year old Dutchman. None of us could sleep, but what could we do? Wake him up and tell him to stop. Well yes we probably should have done that but I guess our British stiff upper lip got the better of us. Since that night every sleep has been bliss, so I guess it has helped us appreciate our sleep more.

We came to Canada through BUNAC a company which you pay £250 and they help you when you are in the country. Now if you are planning on staying in Vancouver then signing up to them is probably a good idea. But for Whistler it doesn't seem worth it as they can't help out much with jobs or accommodation just direct you in the general direction which you can find by typing simple searches on google. They were slightly helpful with suggesting a bank and phone company to go with, but if I tell you now I'l save you lots of money.

Phone

Unless you want to use your smart phone bring a s***ty old phone I brought my old Sony. As the cheapest phone you can buy is $50 as no where in Canada sells old or cheap phones like a £10 tesco mobile. I went with Fido mobile its $30 a month and has unlimited international texting and free calls on Weekends and evenings so pretty good. I did have to get my phone unlocked, Fido gave me the address of a random office building and in the back on the 2nd phone was an old and wise Chinese man who told me it would be done in 2 hours for $25 and it was.

Bank

Banking sucks in Canada, if you use a different banks ATM you will be charged to use it. I went with TD Bank as there is one in Whistler and they are open everyday even Sunday. Like a phone bill you have to pay a month charge depending on the amount of transactions you want to make on your card. Up to 25 and its $10 and unlimited is $15 so thats a no brainer.

Vancouver

Vancouver is very open and spacious to walk around. The annoying thing is the amount of homeless people, they are like pigeons in London and just as fearless. They don't mind walking up to you when your eating in a resturant or cafe and asking for change and when you give some they just keep asking for more. We went for a walk round Vancouver on our 1st day and crossed the road into East Downtown and later found out this was the homeless district as it had fires in barrells and boarded up windows and numerous people on the streets smoking weed. That's another thing Vancouver seems like the Amsterdam of Canada, it has a relaxed pot law. You can't buy it legally but you can smoke it and they have coffee shops to smoke here too. I think it's to do with the medical laws.

So there was a little bit of a culture shock walking around seeing and smelling all of this.

When it came to eating, the portions are huge. I think everyone should have food buddies and just share meals because they are so big. There is so much fast food and fried and greasy things. After two days I was craving a salad, I hope in Whistler there are supermarkets so I can eat well and for cheap otherwise I'l be fat and broke.

Tax and tipping

So VAT or tax in the UK which is on everything is always woven into the price of products so you know the full amount your paying. Not in Canada....

Anything that is priced say $10 for a pizza. When you go to pay the bill will then have the tax added which is about 12%. I know thats only a dollar but when I bought my $275 dollar ski boots I forgot and had an extra $30 added on top. Its annoying and everyone complains about it but they still have it.

Also tipping here is mandatory between 15 and 20% even if the service was poor. Servers are paid poorly so they work for tips, which I guess is good because tips aren't taxed. O yeah and thats another thing, when I do start earning income tax is 27.5%.

Woah I just realised all of that is boring work stuff and I have been ranting, sorry. This is meant to be a travel blog.

Well the rest of my last week I have been to see Two Door Cinema Club at the Commodore Ballroom which was awesome, unlike UK people don't care about getting to the front so we pushed our way there after having a few pints. The set was over an hour and a half and they played lots of their old songs.

On Saturday night we went to our first hockey game, we booked front row which we later found to be a bad idea as the barrier comes up quite high and blocked our view slightly. It was the Vancouver Giants V the Calgary Hitmen. There was so much sponsership around the arena and during the game. A normal hockey game is 3 20 minute periods but with the constant stopping and advertising we came in at 7pm and left at 10pm. It was a great experience though, and the friendly Canadians lived up to their names as everyone we sat near started talking to us and wanted to know all about us. Coming out of the hockey there was a stretch limo which was working as a taxi and we found out it was cheaper between 10 to take a limo back to our hostel in Downtown than to get a taxi. So we did that was an odd experience as I had never been in one before and this didn't seem the right situtation to be in one.

Sunday we packed our bags and left the hostel. We took the skytrain an hour east of Vancouver and met up with a very very distant relative of Tim's. Who his Mum knows slightly. Anyway they are so lovely and have let us stay in their house for the past two nights and bought us lots of food and took us out for sushi on Sunday night. There house is in a residential area and is massive. We are in a stand alone suite on the ground floor with two bedrooms, bathroom and kitchen living room. If only we have this in Whistler but I think we will end up living in shared rooms with our staff accommodation.

I do not have a job or a place to stay yet. I have applied to many hotels and resorts and a few shops. It seems the best thing to do is to just turn up and hand your CV in and talk to people directly as they see and remember your face rather than an email which they will skim over.

I read a blog about being a Bellboy at the Westin Hotel and it sounds like a pretty job good, just greeting guests helping with bags and being a valet too. I applied for the role and will call and go there when I head up to Whistler on Thursday.

Tonight we are couchsurfing with a girl who turns out to have 7 mutual facebook friends with me which is a bit mental, thew world is definitely getting smaller.

Anyway I must get back to job hunting and helping places to stay.

My aim is to write an update once a week. Hopefully they will be a bit more exciting than this one.

Peace