Canada - a model of personable efficiency?

Well so far the Canadians have proved a model of efficiency.

Take for instance our Social Insurance Number. In the US getting my Social Security Number was a palaver that took 11 weeks, saw me without a bank account, phoneless and unable to be paid in anything other than cash. It turned me into a 'kooky grandmother' in essence. Here we went down to the bright, airy and spacious Canada Center, filled in 6 questions and were given a number on the spot. Done. No having to carry cash for miles and miles, no suspicion, no distant processing centers with long wait times - just a big smile and a 'Welcome to Canada'

Flushed with success we headed to Ikea for a French Press, a Day Bed, a guest bed, a mattress and other 'sundry items'. We paid them at 2pm - at 5pm there was a man standing in our living room with a mattress perched atop his head asking where we wanted the stuff. And same day delivery was cheaper.

And finally the people at Bell called, in person, to check that we had a computer at home ahead of an internet install this morning. "We know that you've just moved in so we wanted to make sure we didn't have to bring a tester?"

As I said - efficient and personable. We'll see how the bank goes today and how the car goes on Monday

Looks like we made it

Berries, Atwater Market
Originally uploaded by Scorchez

So here we are in Montreal. The car is in, the work permits are huge but securely stapled, the dog has walked all the way along the canal (well a couple of miles anyway) and I'm stealing internet until mine arrives on Friday.

Journey was long and in parts treacherous with visibility down to almost nothing as the rain lashed down and the trucks sent up spray... but we kept plugging on and last night as we sat on the outside terrace of a local restaurant, munching on Saumon Xochih and crepas it all seemed very worth it.

Now off to the marche for petit dejeunais and then to get our Social Insurance numbers

Pack'd

So our stuff is packed and wending a slow way towards Montreal
We get it back on June 29th... until then it's the clothes we stand up in and an air mattress for us

packers were great
everything looks set

electricity turned off early... making it a bitch to clean the place
but if that's the worst thing that happens to us, I'm down with it

again a shitty post - but we're offline and on the run here

Image from this weekend's shoot

Dreary's Photo Casebook

Dreary's Photo Casebook
Originally uploaded by stevenjude

So with blogger down this morning and removal men no doubt downing sweet tea and bacon sandwiches in the diner around the corner prior to descending upon us I thought that I'd try a blog from Flickr.

We've packed what we need and stored it in a neighbor's place
We've arranged to take the cats to a friend
The dog is off to daycare at any second
And the computers are about to be stored as I remove the cable boxes

I guess we're finally on the move