Friday, September 30, 2011

Survived Our First Night

Our first night was pretty interesting in Calgary.  We got to our temporary housing (hotel in downtown).  It is basically like a studio apartment, where everything is in basically one room (kitchen, living room, and bedroom).  It was pretty small but we survived the first night.  Today, we moved to a larger one that is meant for long-term guests but it's not that much bigger.  We will be looking around this weekend for a house to rent.

We had to go downtown to get our SIN #s today (Canada's SS #).  We walked 20 blocks with Penny and got that taken care of.  After, we drove to pick up Matt's rental car.  Driving in Canada is surprisingly different that in the US.  The wording on signs is a lot different and confusing!  They also take pedestrians VERY seriously here.  At any time a pedestrian can push a button to make some lights flash and then just dash out across the road so if you are driving you have to be super careful to watch for people.  It made me really nervous driving.  It will take some getting used to for sure.

I have already heard someone call the letter "z" zed and I have also heard someone say "eh" after a sentence.  It's really weird.  I asked Matt if he thought that people could tell that we are not from Canada and he said yes, but I think we blend in pretty well, haha.

Monday should be interesting, when Matt has to start his new job and I will be on my own (well with Penny of course)...

Thursday, September 29, 2011

We're not in Texas anymore, Penny...

We FINALLY arrived in Calgary!!  We woke up early this morning and got on the road to head for the border.  We were super nervous about the process of getting Matt's work visa and my work permit and how everything would go.  It was an amazing drive through Northern Montana and we got to the Canadian border around 11 AM.  It took us about an hour to complete all of the paperwork and interrogation, and we were back on the road around noon.  It is hard to believe that we made it 2000 miles to Calgary without getting lost, but somehow got lost getting to our temporary housing in Calgary.  We had a real scare at the very end of our drive when the Jetta had some weird lights go on and the gas pedal wouldn't work for a second.  But, we turned the car off and back on and we were good to go for the last few miles!  The temporary housing isn't quite what we had in mind, and Penny is having to learn to be a real "city" dog now, with all of the noises and limited grass.  I am SO glad we made it but now there is so much to do.  Tomorrow:  open bank account, call Canadian movers, find a home!....the list goes on and on.


Mountain views straight ahead through N. Montana

We made it!  They let us in!  This was at the US/Canada border.

Penny was VERY glad to be done with the car riding for little while.

Arriving in Calgary...where our car almost died but didn't!

Our room - view from the bed

Our room - view from the door

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Montana!

We had our longest drive so far today.  We left at around 7:30 AM and drove all the way until 6:30 PM.  It was a mostly smooth drive, only being on about two roads the entire way.  Penny did get a little crazy toward the end of the drive since we were on a 2-lane highway, passing 18-wheeler after 18-wheeler and Penny felt the need to bark at each and every one of them.  We discovered something that Penny loves though - cows!  And she loves facing backwards in the car to see out the back window!  She finally wore herself out though and we got to our hotel, the nicest La Quinta thus far!  Hopefully, Penny won't hear too many noises tonight (we had to switch rooms last night since every time someone left or entered the hotel she could hear the door slam and would bark.)  After switching rooms, she did MUCH better!  Tomorrow is a BIG day...border crossing!  I am soooo nervous about this.  It seems like they are sticklers and don't always love Americans.  Keep your fingers crossed for us that everything goes smoothly!

Wyoming


River in Wyoming

Penny likes to pretend she is in the driver's seat sometimes.



Mountains in Wyoming




More green in Montana than Wyoming...



Penny checking out the view from the back window


Awesome view....cows, wind farm, and mountains

Pretty sunset on the river at our hotel (Great Falls, MT)

Sunset Walk in Cheyenne

Here some pictures from our sunset walk from last night.






Tuesday, September 27, 2011

See you later, Texas....

We officially left Texas and we drove a total of about 1100 miles in two days!  We got on the road around 8 AM again this morning after a really good night's sleep.  Penny has been doing such an amazing job so far!  We passed through New Mexico and then Colorado today and saw the mountains along our entire drive.  It's amazing how open and empty everything is out here.  We went through a super small town of only about 300 people and started to worry about finding a gas station in time before we got too low.  Luckily, we made it!  We also discovered that in addition to hating tractor trailers and large trucks, Penny also dislikes motorcycles and the radar-detector.  Now we are in Cheyenne, WY for the night.  We made great time again today and are now in the Mountain Time Zone so we are 2 hours earlier than the east coast.  We saw our first coyote along the side of the road today!  Here are some pics of our trip today:

Near Amarillo, TX on the way to Colorado



Small "mountains" on the way to Cheyenne

Awesome sign when we got to Colorado!

Scenic spot that we stopped at

More mountains!


Denver


Random buffalo statue when we got to Wyoming

Monday, September 26, 2011

Arrived in Amarillo!

We started on the road at about 8 AM this morning and drove to Amarillo, TX.

Reasons our road trip has been stressful so far:

  1. Our car is filled to the brim with stuff, leaving very little leg room for anyone.
  2. Matt feels like he's "driving a go-cart" when he has to drive the Jetta.
  3. Penny hates 18-wheelers and large pick-up trucks and likes to bark at them when we drive by.
  4. Matt gets to practice driving a stick-shift!
  5. Saw a snake in the grass when taking Penny for a walk!

Reasons our road trip has been fun so far:

  1. We have gotten to drive through new places that we've never been to before.
  2. Penny slept most of the way to Amarillo - so proud of her!!
  3. Our friends packed us some goodies to eat/use along the way and have kept us entertained.
  4. Matt gets to practice driving a stick-shift!
  5. Mostly the speed is 70 on the highways, making for a shorter trip each day (only took us about 9 hours and was supposed to take 10).
Here are some pictures from our drive today.  After driving from Houston to Amarillo, we realized that there really is NOTHING in-between the two cities except flat land!

This is the view that we saw for about 9 hours today!







We are at out hotel and ready to rest up for another long drive tomorrow!


Sunday, September 25, 2011

The Adventure Begins!

Matt and I are at our hotel for the night.  We leave Houston tomorrow and head to Amarillo, Texas!  We had a very hectic but awesome weekend.  Friday, we spent the day with the movers, packing up our entire lives and now our house is empty!  We headed to Galveston for the weekend for one last weekend with all of our close friends at KC and Tiffany's wedding.  Today, we cleaned our house and headed to our hotel for the night.  Tomorrow we will be leaving bright and early to begin the adventure to Calgary!

Saturday, September 17, 2011

Reality is setting in...

Matt and I had our going away party last night and it was so much fun!  We are really lucky to have such great friends and it really made us realize that we are going to miss everyone so much!  We woke up this morning and realized that this is our last weekend in our house for 2 years!  It's starting to sink in now that we really are leaving!  It's bitter-sweet because we will miss Houston, but we know that the Canada adventure is going to be lots of fun.  Here are a couple pics from the party last night...