Sunday, October 30, 2011

Happy Halloween!!

Our first Halloween in Calgary!  It was fun, but of course didn't compare to last year, when we had a party and celebrated with all of our friends.  We didn't get a single trick-or-treater and now have plenty of candy to eat ourselves, but we did carve pumpkins and we did go to a costume party so overall if was a good time.
Our pumpkins





Cop and Robber

He is under arrest haha

And escaping...





Doc at the costume party

and Big Bird of course

haha

Matt and Jesus hand-cuffed together? That doesn't seem right....

Penny pen waited up for us!

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Top 10 Reasons You Know You're Not in the US

10.  If you order fries, they are most likely going to come "poudine" style (covered in cheese curds and brown gravy).

9.  You and everyone around you love Tim Horton's, and fast food restaurants do not have dollar menus, they have $1.99 menus.

8.  You take your shoes off whenever you go into anyone's house.

7.  Canned refried beans are not 89 cents each, they are two for $7 and a bag of shredded cheese is $8.

6.  A receipt is not called a receipt, it is a "till," and you pay for your "till" at a restaurant with a credit machine brought to your table, and you tip the waiter or waitress right in front of them...

5.  You are charged a fee for everything (banks, recycling...everything)!

4.  You cannot get a one dollar bill anywhere, they don't exist.

3.  Someone asks you to donate a "loonie" or "toonie" (one or two dollar coin).

2.  Everything you buy is in English and French.

1.  You try to order a half of a pound of American Cheese from the deli and they ask you two questions:  "What kind of cheese is American?"  and "How many grams would you like?"!!!

#1 was the one that really hit home for me...

Friday, October 21, 2011

Not Cool, Canada!

The transition to Canadian life has been a difficult one.  First, with crossing the border, then with the banking issues, and also with obtaining Canadian funds for a deposit for renting a house, we have really struggled getting settled in!  We finally now have our house and all of things were delivered this week and I am now in the process of finding places for everything.

Today, though, Canada struck again!  We were not able to get our Canadian driver's licenses because they would not accept the "certified drivers abstracts" that we had paid for before leaving Houston.  Apparently, they need the abstract faxed directly to them.  How we were supposed to know that, I have no idea.  So, I spent over an hour trying to talk to an actual person in TX with the DPS but was not able to get passed all of the automated options.  And, it is frustrating that if you push 0 for the operator, it hangs up on you.  Not sure how we are going to get all of that taken care of.

Anyway, we are trying to stay positive but it seems like Canada likes to make everything extra difficult for people coming from another country.  Hopefully, it will get easier...

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

We found a home!!

Matt and I finally signed a lease for a house to rent in Calgary!  It's a 4 bedroom/2.5 bath townhouse that is about 10 minutes outside of the downtown area.  Matt will be taking the bus to work each day.  Hopefully, tomorrow we will have our furniture delivered and will finally have a home here in Calgary.  It will be nice to feel settled and have more space than just one room!

Front of our new house!


Kitchen, Living and Dining Area

One of the 3 spare rooms

Roof deck off of master bedroom

Master bedroom

Master Bath

Master Bath

Monday, October 10, 2011

Happy Thanksgiving from Calgary!

Today is Canada's Thanksgiving.  It feels really weird to celebrate Thanksgiving in October but I am not going to complain about having another excuse to eat turkey, stuffing, apple sauce, cranberry, corn, and pie!  Matt and I found a neat place that offers Thanksgiving take-out, so we are going to have nice Thanksgiving dinner in our hotel room with Penny tonight!

We have made many discoveries in the last week about things that are interesting about Canada.

First, they have different wildlife than we do.  Black squirrels, magpies, and giant rabbits to name a few.  This rabbit was about the size of a cat that we saw walking home from dinner the other night...hard to tell from the picture, though.


Our second discovery has been Tim Hortons.  It's a breakfast place that Canadians are crazy about and I can see why!  They have really good breakfast sandwiches and bagels....so of course I am happy that I found a place with bagels.  We also found a few nice dinner places (Melrose Cafe, Fiore Cantina, and Brewsters).

Another discovery has been that it is much colder here than Houston!  This one was obvious but we did not plan very well with our clothing.  All of our winter clothes and coats are still on the air shipment which has arrived here but we cannot have it delivered until we have a place with more room.  So, Matt and I had to go shopping for some warmer clothes, and coats.  I'm not complaining, though...


We also dabbled a bit in what Calgary has to offer as far as drinks are concerned.  Matt tried a Canadian beer and I tried a Canadian blueberry cider.  Matt was happy with his beer, but the cider tasted more like alcoholic watered-down cool-aide.  Not a huge fan....



Last night, Matt and I played Farkel for a while (thanks, Dusty, Jeff, and Mila!)...It's a been a fun adventure so far, and I am definitely enjoying it, but it does remind us that we miss our friends and family, and that we can't just call someone up to hang out.  So, plan your trips to Calgary ASAP...




Friday, October 7, 2011

Making Moves

We have officially been in Calgary for a week now!  A lot has happened in a week.  We have potentially found a place to live.  It's a really pretty, new townhouse in a nice area big enough to accommodate guests!  Hopefully, all of the paperwork goes through and we will be able to move in mid-October.  We also now have a canadian bank, which will be very helpful in renting a house.  We have explored the city a little bit and eaten out a few places.  We have found that the service here is very different from the US.  They don't seem too worried about pleasing the customers.  We are in the process of getting our health cards, canadian drivers licenses, car insurance, and renters insurance.  We were able to clear our truck and air shipments with Canadian customs, so now we are just waiting on an address in order to have our stuff delivered.  Penny passed her interview/test at a doggie day care so that she will be able to stay there while Matt and I are out of town for my sister's wedding.  She apparently did a great job and made lots of new friends so I feel ok about leaving her there while we are gone.  The weather has been mostly chilly and rainy this week, so boots and coats have been necessities (glad I brought those in the suitcases!).  Tonight, Matt and I plan to go out and have some fun in uptown!

Monday, October 3, 2011

Canada is confusing!

Our first days here have consisted of lots of running around.  We looked at about 8 houses to rent on Sunday and possibly found one BUT we cannot begin the application process until we have a bank here in Canada.  So, today, I looked at some more houses while Matt had his first day of work.  We met on his lunch break to try set up a bank account and ran into all kinds of trouble with that.  Apparently, all banks in Canada have tons of fees, including a standard monthly fee just have an account.  We were very annoyed and discouraged today but are going to attempt it again on Wednesday.  So, renting a house is on hold until we can set up our funds.  Hopefully the two houses we love will still be available!  Penny is becoming very comfortable in our temporary housing and is doing really well (see picture below).  Tomorrow, I am taking her to a boarding place for an interview and trial day to see how she does.  If she does well, then we can schedule to board her there for when leave to fly to PA next week for my sister's wedding.  Keep your fingers crossed that she behaves and plays nicely!  Tonight Matt and I went to dinner on 17th Ave (one of the popular streets in Calgary with lots of restaurants and bars and things to do).  It was a nice sports bar and we had a great time.  It was a good ending to Matt's first day of work!  Apparently, today is the birthday Alexander Keith, which is a famous beer in Canada.  I am not sure who he is, but it was fun anyway (see picture below).


Saturday, October 1, 2011

Tour of the City

Today Matt and I went with a relocation specialist to see Calgary and get some information about the city.  It was really great because she basically drove us around to all of the different parts of the city and showed us where things are, told us things we needed to know, and showed us some really neat spots to take visitors when they come (hint, hint).  I feel really good about the city now and understand more of how it is set up. One confusing part is that downtown, all of the north/south streets are numbered avenues and all of the east/west streets are numbered streets BUT there are 4 quadrants of the city (NW, SW, NE, SE) so each quadrant has the same streets/avenues (there is a 1st street in each quadrant).  SO, you have to know the quadrant to know where people are talking about.  Our tour guide even said that there are four of every intersection (there are four 2nd street and 12th ave but the quadrant tells you which one) so it's super confusing but now that we know that, it will be easier.

We saw some really neat places that will be great to live in.  Tomorrow, the same lady is taking us to about 10 different rental houses to see what we think.  They are in lots of different areas of the city so hopefully we find one that we like!  Penny stayed at the hotel today by herself while we went out and did a really good job.  I am pretty sure she slept the whole time we were gone so I feel better about leaving her tomorrow.  The weather has been pretty nice since we got here.  Yesterday, it was mid-70s and today it was in the 50s or even a little chillier since it was rainy in the morning.  I am so excited that we get to see fall (it's been a while!).  I am posting some of the pictures of the city that we saw today...

Sunrise from our balcony





City skyline view from Rosedale

Chilly enough for boots and sweatshirts!!

View from Nosehill Park



Skyline from Nosehill Park