I ain't no Mary Poppins...

My! How things have moved on! Since my last post, life has included a lot of these... 

 and these can be found everywhere...

because we have a date!

and even more excitingly,

we've booked a flight!!!

Although life has thrown us some of it's curve balls of late, we have finally made some progress and committed to leaving the UK on Tuesday 6th September for a short holiday with friends in California, before boarding a Greyhound bus to take us over the border and up to Vancouver a few weeks later.

You may remember me mentioning on a previous post how happy I was to find Icelandair - and how useful ( and realistic!) I thought their baggage allowance was. This was a major factor for us as we will need to take summer/winter/ski and work wear with us in addition to our snowboards, for a reasonable price and as we wanted to fly to the US first, it really was hard to find an airline that would encompass all of this without breaking the bank. So after much debate, we decided a 2 hour layover in Reykjavik more than made up for all the money we would save trying to ship our stuff over or paying the extortionate excess baggage fees. On top of this everyone I have spoken to from the company in various departments have been so helpful and friendly - I would definitely recommend them to my friends!

So what's next? Well as you can see from our list -  a lot!

The pink lines are things that are done, and that's not many. Especially when extra items are getting added on a daily basis.

Most tasks are quite simple and wont take very long: ie: 'phone bank to tell them I will be overseas', however, these are followed on the irritate-o-meter by the median jobs such as 'fill out tax forms' , which are followed in turn by the jobs we really really don't want to do, like 'empty the garage' or the dreaded 'sort through the tupperware'

Unfortunately, it all has to be completed in some sort of order - with a lot being left until the last minute as we gradually palm things off to unsuspecting family members (my nan received 2 lovely Gothic black candelabras when she last visited, accompanied by the ever present warning of"careful - I might want that back in 12 months!") or as we sell what we can on eBay.

So, 9 weeks to go. Where are we at? Well, we have...

• informed the landlady of our intention to leave
• sold most of our furniture to the new tenant
• booked our flight and started looking at things we want to do in California
• sold ~ £300 worth of clothes and DVD's on eBay on our first attempt
• started moving non everyday items to the other half's mother's loft
• errrrrr....read books on Canada?!

So were not that organised, but we are getting there. Over the next 9 weeks I'll try and keep you all updated on how its going until....my first Canadian blog!

I cant tell if I'm excited or terrified!

Aimée L’amour x

www.twitter.com/aimeelamour

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

On a different note...

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

Print, complete, post, repeat...

Print, complete, post, repeat.
Since my last post this is pretty much how I've been spending my time. The International Experience Canada visa is a bit of a minefield to get your head around at first, but when it comes down to it the form itself isn't that hard to complete, it's the additional forms that go with it.

The first thing we needed to do was to each complete an ACPO Police Certificate form, which takes 10 days to be processed and the certificate to be returned to you, confirming your good character (naturally). The cost of the certificate is £35, but BUNAC recommends that you obtain a copy to show any potential employers once you arrive in Canada which is an extra £5 per copy. Again, the form itself was straight forward and self explanatory, with the only time consuming part being that you need to have a passport photo certified by a professional (from a list of occupations) who has known you for more than 2 years. More information on ACPO Police certificates can be found here.

While we're waiting for our police certificate we've got on with completing the other necessary parts of our visa - and therefore spent most of Saturday having passport photos taken (these need attaching to the visa application) and visiting both of our banks in order to get our all important 'Proof of funds' form signed. I was already a bit apprehensive about this as I had read on both the Work Canada facebook page and also the BUNAC twitter feed that it was notoriously hard to get your banking establishment to sign anything , and judging by my past experiences with banks - I knew that they are not renowned for their helpful nature!

The proof of funds form looks like this:

All that it requires a bank employee to do is check my bank balance before adding their name, my name, a signature and a bank stamp - taking all of 5 minutes. Unfortunately it took me 2 separate visits, a bit of a fuss and a 30 minute wait before my bank would consider signing my form! I, like many others I suspect, was told that "banks don't do things like this anymore" and that they were not permitted to put the banks stamp on any documents whatsoever. My argument that thousands of people take part in this scheme every year, therefore it must  be possible to complete the form fell on deaf ears...twice. Third time lucky and I managed to convince the lady who was helping me to seek advice. 5 minutes later I had a completed form in my hand. Simple when you know how, eh?!

So now my completed visa is sitting waiting for my Police Certificate so that it can be sent off. The Canadian High Commission reserves the right to implement a cut off date for applications at any point, so I hope it hurries up!

Aimée L’amour x

www.twitter.com/aimeelamour

A thousand trees...