Our Canada Trip

So.... two months later I'm finally getting to post about our trip!!   Be impressed at how 'on the ball' I am.. ;-)

The purpose of the trip was two-fold:  Firstly we HAD to make our immigrant landing, and secondly, to get a good look at the two cities we've decided we'd like to live in, and well, see what we could see.

For those of you unfamiliar with emigration/immigration procedures, here's a run-down of our process:

May 2010  -  We sent in our Application for Permanent Residence to Central Intake Canada in Nova Scotia
October 2010  -  We received provisional acceptance.   (YEAH!!)
February 2011  -  We sent in our Application along with our entire pedigrees and supporting documents to the Canadian High Commission here in Pretoria.
January 2012  -  Just when we were beginning to despair we received our medical examination instructions.  (YAY!!!)
February 2012  -  Had our ordeal  examinations here in Pretoria.  The doctor's receptionist sent the reports to London.
July 2012  -  AT LAST!!  We received our passport requests from the High Commission, and I took them in the next day.
July 2012  -  We were finally in possession of our immigrant visas!!  

The immigrant visas were valid for 1 year from the date of the medical examinations.  Before they expired we had to land in Canada (anywhere) and get our Confirmation of Permanent Residence stamped and thereby apply for our PR cards.  Thereafter, you have you live in Canada for 24 months out of 5 years to retain it.  Some people just move over immediately, but we had Eden and Nathan enrolled for exams and Malcolm didn't have work.  We decided therefore to just go for two weeks, come back, and move over completely once they've finished their  final exams.  Which kind of made the trip a nice 'holiday'.

I did all the booking and planning, which was rather stressful, since I've never done this before.  Eight people is rather a large amount, and things get quite expensive!!   Hotels were the most difficult!  It's hard to know which areas to look for a hotel in.  We needed one that wouldn't cost the earth, but we didn't want to stay in a grotty area either.  I got a lot of conflicting advice too, albeit well-meant, so we decided to just go with what suited us.  After all, we were the ones staying there.

We eventually settled for a hotel near the airport in Vancouver, since it wasn't too expensive, offered a complimentary breakfast and had a shuttle-service to and from the airport.  Calgary was a bit harder somehow, the hotels were more expensive, but we did find one at last.  It wasn't near the airport, but we were arriving at midday, and I figured Malcolm would be used to driving on the right (wrong!) side of the road.

Packing was quite a nightmare too!!  We took 8 large suitcases, 4 small ones for hand luggage, plus 2 rucksacks.  Which is a total of 14 pieces of luggage to keep and eye on!!  Not forgetting 8 people with 8 passports and 8 boarding passes!!!

I was very worried about how to dress there!!  In retrospect I realise I stressed far too much about it!!  The reason I started worrying though, was that an ex-South African acquaintance tried to give me some advice, but landed up making me paranoid instead.  Maybe she just wanted to be a know-it-all, but she went on and on about South African clothing and shoes being unsuitable for the Canadian weather etc.  Sure, if you plan to spend a lot of time in the snow, or mountaineering or something, you need the right clothing and footwear. But for everyday wear, as long as you use common sense, I don't think you need a totally new wardrobe.  Thanks to Julie, for her practical advice!!  She took time to give examples of how her family dressed, and I really appreciated it.

Anyhow - the big day finally came!!  Friends of ours offered to drive us to the airport.  We drove in our car, and they took our luggage in their car.

They left us at the drop-off point, and drove our car home.  The kids were totally excited!!  Eden is the only one who's flown before, when she went to Italy.  Oh, and Jordan, but he was only 9 months old at the time, and can't remember anything.

We went through security without any problems, and then looked at the shops on the other side of Customs. We quickly got bored with that, so we went to a Steers and had a cooldrink each and some chips to prevent starvation.

Our flight is at the bottom of the left-hand column

At last we were ready to board!!  I had wanted to book window seats (even though it was a night flight), but they assigned us to the middle aisle, quite near the back.  We sat 4-4:  Malcolm, Keren, Jordan and me; and the four other kids behind us.  At least there's enough of us to fill rows so we don't have strangers sitting next to us!  :-)

The kids quickly learned about fastening seatbelts, and how to work the on-board entertainment!!!  The big moment finally arrived and we were ready for take-off!


                                                               ... to be continued