Excess Baggage...

IT'S HERE! IT'S FINALLY HERE! My Canadian work permit is in hand! (Well I say that, I receive the real thing at immigration once I get there but I have my confirmation letter of introduction, its close enough!)

After only 10 days at the Immigration Office in London, my application was approved and emailed to me. Even though my other half had already received his, I was still a little shocked as to how fast the process was. I have frequently been on the Work Canada facebook group  which is a great forum for those moving abroad - full of like minded people who are either worried about the same issues as you (where will I live? How do I open a bank account? Where do I find the cheapest beer? How will I survive without Primark?) or answering them for you (It will be fine!), and was expecting a wait as some of the poor mites have for 14 weeks! I felt a bit guilty typing in my comment that my LOI arrived in 10 days flat.

So work permits are done. We can now work legally in Canada as soon as we like, we've just got to book our flights, get our medical insurance, sell our belongings, empty our flat, find somewhere to live in Vancouver, find a job, open a bank account, get a cell phone, get a SIN number (like NI number) and then REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELAX!

On the subject on flights - these airlines are driving me CRAZY! Please can someone explain to me how you are supposed to enjoy a 2 week holiday, let alone a complete move with a baggage allowance of 20 kilos?!

I'M LOOKING AT YOU CANADIAN AFFAIR

AND YOU AIR TRANSAT

AND DON'T THINK YOU'VE GOTTEN AWAY WITH IT THOMAS COOK!

It's all well and good advertising cheap prices, but if I cant actually take my belongings with me, its not much use really. British Airways were fantastic when we travelled to Vancouver with them in March. Their 30 kilo weight limit  with a £30 charge for an extra bag of the same weight was a god send for us to be able to transport our ski/snowboard equipment. However I just cant stretch to their £900 price range.

Thank God then for the little known Icelandair. They're "keeping it real" with their baggage allowance of two, yes TWO 23 kilo bags for international flights as standard plus a generous carry on allowance. Plus their fares are reasonable. They fly direct to Toronto and Seattle, with Connections in California and Vancouver - perfect!

So today I have pinged off an email to them, to the effect of "are my eyes deceiving me?!" and I hope they can help. It beats paying £250 to have our stuff shipped out any day!

Aimée L’amour x

www.twitter.com/aimeelamour

Application heaven!

Great News! No sooner had I clicked 'publish' on my last post than my phone started flashing like an old man at a bus stop. My other half has received his Letter of Introduction today - only two weeks after his application was forwarded to immigration (the expected wait is anything from 6 weeks up!)

This means that he could get a flight tomorrow, receive his work permit at immigration and start working straight away! Of course, this isn't our plan - but it's nice to know its in the bag. You have a year from the date of issue to enter Canada and receive your work permit so we have plenty of time to get everything in order.

I am still waiting for my LOI. As my application was forwarded to Immigration at the London Office a few days after his I am hopeful I wont be waiting too long!

Next job....flights and medical insurance.

Aimée L’amour x

www.twitter.com/aimeelamour

Application hell...

So today I find myself six weeks on from my last post and the pangs of guilt for not keeping it up to date have finally had effect. The last six weeks have been hectic for all kinds of reasons (nothing new there) and the next six dont seem to be slowing down either!

So whats been going on since my last post? Well the first thing that happened was that we recieved our police certificates back (no shaddy pasts here!) and I finaly got NatWest to sign my proof of funds form. That meant that all we had left to do was to make sure our application forms were complete and signed and send them off. Incomplete or incorrect applications are automatically denied - which meant an evening of obsesively checking applications for us. It didn't help that the IEC changed the forms mid way through us filling them in either! But such is life.

One Application

So we sent our applications of to the Canadian Embassy in Paris via Airsure at the Post Office which, we were assured, meant we could track our applications all the way to their destination. WRONG!

The estimated delivery time to France is 2-3 working days. By day 4, I was nervous. The online tracking on the Royal Mail website only told me that the package had been handed over to the French Postal Service and there was no other information. So I called Royal Mail to ask where my package was. The guy I spoke to told me that once it had been handed over to the French it couldnt be tracked at all and Royal Mail had no responsibility for it being delivered, the best I could do was put on my best French accent and pettit-pois my way through a conversation with La Poste.

Needless to say, I was less than impressed. Why did I just pay you £10 to track my item to Greater London, Royal Mail?hhhhhhmmmmmmmmm?
Luckily on 24th April, I recieved an email stating that my application had been received and I stopped harrassing Royal Mail.

Then on 3rd May I recieved another email stating that I had been accepted on the condition that I wire the visa fee of £90 into their French bank account within 10 days. Once again, NatWest failed me. I dont know why I was surprised, but surfice it to say that I am looking forward to taking my business and substantial overdraft elsewhere! Thank the Lord then for the lovely man in Barclays who rescued me with only a few days left to upload my proof of payment and not only asked why I was transfering the money and went through it all with me to make sure that I had included all of the mandatroy information on my reciept, but also waived the £25 fee because of the stress caused by other banks! What a lovely guy!

My proof of payment was recieved on 10th May and my application forwarded to the London High Commission for immigration to look at on 11th May. While all this has been going on my other half has been studying for exams and I have recently found out that I face redundancy. Although the last few weeks have shaken us up, made us question our initial plans and prompted me to start playing the lottery (so far I have won £5.70 - begginers luck) we are determined that we will make it on to that plane!

Aimée L’amour x

www.twitter.com/aimeelamour

First steps...

Yesterday we made the first step in obtaining our Candian work permits and officially started the ball rolling. After talking at length with my partner about how he  feels about all this and reading all of the available literature on the permit itself, costs involved and job prospects we decided to apply for our visa through BUNAC.

BUNAC are the UK’s leading non-profit travel club and, as the market leader in work and volunteer abroad programmes, has enabled hundreds of thousands of travellers to explore the world. You can find their website here.

It is possible to apply for your working visa directly through the Canadian High Commission usig the International Experience Canada program (details of which can be found here) however, we felt the BUNAC programme fee of £254 was worth the peace of mind that their step by step advice during the visa process and walk in resource and advice centre in Vancouver itself would provide.

There are a lot of costs that I was not immediately aware of when preparing for an experience such as this - for example, it is a visa criteria that you have both medical and repatriation insurance for the entire length of your stay - for a year this adds up and my initial quote with BUNAC's in house insurance team Endsleigh, who have a work abroad policy ready to go, was in the region of £550. This does not include ski or snowboard insurance, so it will also have to be topped up and leaves you with the question, "if I broke my leg on the mountain, could I not hop down for free?"

I am hoping to receive the confirmation that we are booked onto the programme in the next couple of days, after which the visa application, including police certificate and proof of funds ($1,000 a month for the first 3 months) will begin in haste. The application officially takes 8-12 weeks to process, but as the scheme has recently changed (from one 1 year visa to two 1 year visa's) the Canadian High Commission is dealing with a huge influx of applications and is currently outsourcing the processing of the applications to the High Commission in Paris in order to meet demand. Therefore it could take much longer to receive our letter of introduction - without which you should not book flights or travel. As we plan to leave at the end of August/beginning of September in theory we have plenty of time - lets hope it flies by!

Aimée L’amour x

www.twitter.com/aimeelamour