I seem to be spending much of my time on the phone to people in Canada at the moment. Each has a bunch of rules and regulations that they have to take you through, but each seems familiar with the rules and so rather than being frustrated at 'The leurrr" and the hoops you have to jump you end up kinda reassured/
For example... we want to take the car to Canada. First we drive to the border. They check out the car and give you Form 1-1.
You pay them $195
They then follow up with a list of modifications that need to be done to the car in order to make it road and registration legal in Canada. In our case we'll need to get the Odometer switched to Kms rather than Miles and fit a Canadian standard immobilizer. We have 45 days to do this.
Once done you go to a Canadian tire who inspect the work and then stamp your 1-1 form. You then go to a 3rd party who check that you didn't pay off the Canadian Tire guy and he stamps your 1-1 Form too.
After that it's down to the registration place and viola you have your car registered.
Hoping to get a jump on the process I called my car dealer here and asked whether the work could be done in advance. Much sucking of air through what looked like airtight teeth. "Can't be done, manufacture job, not possible"
So I called the Canadian dealer - "Sure they said, bring it in, we'll check out the date of manufacture, parts take 48 hrs, we'll do the work on the spot, is that okay?"
And so it has been throughout. The Canadians a model of bureaucratic efficiency, liberated by a system, the Americans too afraid to say 'Yes' to anything.
Same thing with work permit and Social Insurance Number. Work permit processed at the border / point of entry... SIN given to you once you show your passport and workpermit at any one of three places... the post office being one of them. Compare that to the US system and you realize why it is that the Canadians are socialist and the Americans aren't - the Canadians are organized enough to make socialism work.
What else? Took some pictures in the forest... that was nice,
Found out that I was owed some money... that was nice too.
Slowly packing things away... less nice
Diet and exercise kicking in.. very nice
Okay too much... ciao all