Chapter 16

Well, it's definitely been a while. Almost half a year. My neglect of this blog has been on my mind lately. I've no idea where to even begin. Perhaps I'll give a month by month summary of news. Yeah, that should work.

June/July

Ciaran got a job in June. A Junior Engineering position. I'm not sure if I mentioned that in my last post and I'm too lazy to check so apologies for any repitition from here on in. I got plenty of days of admin work through the temping agency.

Mum and Alan came to Calgary in July. We went to Banff, Drumheller, the zoo and other places like that. That really seems like forever ago now but here's an ice-skating picture. Sampling the culture and all that.

It was actually slightly surreal having them over and it was sad to see them go.

August

August was house-hunting month. Our lease was up at the end of the month and although we could have stayed where we were living (and we were happy enough to do so) we decided to move a little south to shorten Ciaran's daily commute.

By this stage, I was working on a long assignment in SAIT (I think there were pictures in a previous post? Ah yes, this one.) and my commute was only 15 minutes whereas Ciaran's was an hour so we thought we'd even it up a little.

We found this amazing house just across the river from downtown but it was too expensive if we didn't find anyone else to move in with us. It even had a hot tub on the deck in the back garden. We put our names forward but I think we were a little too late. We were getting a bit panicky as it was coming to the end of August so we put our names down for this apartment on the 27th floor of a downtown high-rise. It actually worked out really well for us. We've been living here just over three months now and we're completely set up. It takes us half and hour each to get to our respective places of work.

September

The first weekend in September involved hiring a big-ass truck to fill our unfurnished apartment with the bare necessities.

Living the American dream

Our purchases included couches ($140 from Kijiji), table and chairs ($140 from Kijiji), bed and mattress (about $400 from Ikea), two bookcases ($20 each from Kijiji), cutlery, kettle, toaster, pots and pans, coffee tables, lamps and a host of other boring housey things which brought the subtotal up to about $1200. Not bad for a day's work.

The rest of the month involved letting our bank balances recover enough so we could book our flights home for Christmas.

October

Thanksgiving dinner, Halloween, work.

November

Our dollars had replenished to a level that we could drop another $1000 on a 43" plasma TV, a playstation and Modern Warfare 3. It has probably been one of our better investments.

November was also when winter really started to hit. Snow, -20 degree weather. The playstation served us well on the weekends where it was just too bloody cold to go out.

December

And now here we are in December. We decided last minute to go snowboarding. It was a painful but amazingly fun experience. We fell over millions of times and had unbelievably sore muscles for the next few days but as soon as we left the slope, we wanted to go back. Also, I got to drive for the first time since I left Ireland. First time driving on the opposite side of the road, first time driving an automatic, first time driving such a large car, first time driving in such snowy conditions but I have to say, I was fantastic ;).

I left the temping company to take a position with SAIT (the same admin position I was already doing). It's crazy busy in work at the moment but it's good fun with all of the Christmas cheer floating about the office.

Currently, I'm extremely excited about going home for Christmas. Leaving 9pm on Thursday the 20th. For a girl who doesn't normally squeal like a girl, I'm squealing like a girl over this. Dying for a fish and chips.

On the reading front, I've read the following books over the last few months:

• 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur Clarke (exactly the same as the film)
• Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip Dick (pretty good, I've still to watch Blade Runner)
• The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (amazing)
• The Road by Cormac McCarthy (pretty much the same film, good book but quite depressing)
• Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell (good book, meant to go and see it in the cinema too but never got around to it)
• The Help by Kathryn Stockett (also a good book and the film was fairly true to it)
• The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (so so so good, in fact it's that good that I've bought the book for someone at Christmas)
• Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (really good)
• 1984 by George Orwell (it's a classic for a reason, scary how much of the story has parallels with today's society)
• A Pixies Autobiography that I've been meaning to read for ages. The only physical book of this list; the rest having been read on my Kindle. It was actually really satisfying to physically turn a page. 

At the moment I'm slowly reading The Life of Pi by Yann Martel which I am enjoying but it's just taking a while to get through it. I think it's because I've been really busy lately.

Today, I'm going to bake cupcakes for this Dessert Smorgasbord we're having in work. This blog post was basically just procrastination from that.

Some more pictures from the last while as this post has been short on photos and long on text.

We went to see Crystal Castles. They were really good, it just sucked they played on a Sunday night. We had tickets to Grimes also but she got sick and cancelled.

Our bedroom on the 1st of September.

Brilliant sunset on Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving turkey.

Train ride back in July when Alan was here.

Winter's here.

Token video entry.

Chapter 15

So, it's been a while. I was thinking, seeing as today is our two month anniversary of being in Calgary, I thought I'd make this blog post a little bit different and give it a bit of structure instead of just my usual ramblings.

Things I like about Calgary.

• The weather. On the average day, it's much better than home. Yes, it sometimes rains but definitely not more frequently than Dublin. When it does rain though, it lashes, but so far most of the rain has happened during the night. I'd say about 6 out of 7 days here, the weather is awesome. (Keep in mind, I have not yet experienced Calgary in the winter).
• Cost of living. Yeah, you've guessed it, it's much cheaper.
• The availability of jobs. It's quite encouraging.
• My local off-licence ("Liquor Store") is open until 2am.
• The view in certain parts of the city. I saw the Rockies the other day from the train.
• The people are nice. There doesn't seem to be any of the scanger culture you get back home.
• It's nice watching the Euro crisis happen at home knowing all of my money is currently in the form of the stable Canadian dollar. It's also nice not being bombarded with doom and gloom and recession woes every day.
• I've met deadly Irish people from all over Ireland that I probably would have never met at home. Also, Australians (they're everywhere, you'd wonder if there are actually any still left in Australia).
• My apartment. It makes me feel grown-up. Phone bills, internet bills and credit cards make me feel that too but they're not as fun.
• H&M is cheaper here than at home.
• The food is better than I expected. I was expected the standard of food you get in America but I was pleasantly surprised by the quality.
• Free plastic bags.

Things I don't like about Calgary.

• Tax being added on to products at the till. It's only like 5% but it's annoying you can't get your money ready before you're at the till. (Obviously, this problem is not just Calgary specific but covers all of North America.)
• Having to get a credit card. People don't carry much cash around here. They pay for everything on credit. Having to build up a credit rating sucks too.
• ID. It's a serious thing around here. At home, I only get asked for ID now and again. Here's it's everywhere. Which is fine when they accept my Irish driver's licence, which is actually most places. We were caught out last Thursday when we went for steak day in our local. We've been there literally every Thursday since we got here where they have accepted my driver's licence and Ciaran's Garda Age Card no problem. Last Thursday, however, they decided to tighten up on IDs and the only foreign ID they take now is a passport. We weren't even going to have a drink, just steak and water, but they wouldn't serve us without the most important document we have over here with us.
• The bus stops don't have timetables on them. Maybe I'm a bit spoiled with the instalment of the Real Time Information on Dublin Bus but not having a little bit of a timetable at the stop seems backward.
• Tipping. It's expected pretty much whenever a service is provided. Which is fine, except for the fact that it's expected even when the service is shite. I've noticed here that servers in bars are in no rush to bring your drinks over, possibly because they know they're going to get a tip anyway, and have had to wait up to 15 minutes between ordering and receiving a drink. Next time I might just sit at the bar and tip the bartender instead.

Things I miss about home.

• The food. Although the food is good here, I miss good old Irish food. We had Ollie bring us over two bottles of Chef Brown Sauce.
• DRIVING! I miss it so much. This is probably the longest I've gone without driving since I started. Although I got to ride as a passenger in this thing going 160 km/h down the highway in this yoke which was deadly. I want one.

It's a Corvette.

• Of course, friends and family.
• Being in Ireland for the Euros. Although, if I was in Ireland for the Euros, I'd be moping around wishing I was in Poznan.
• My cat. I almost wish I brought her over. I might when I come back at Christmas.

Things I don't miss about home.

• Recession talk. Unemployment talk. Job losses talk.
• Scangers.
• Jedward.
• The price of stuff.
• Being bombarded with the Olympics hype.
• The weather.
• Mick Wallace.

In other news:

I signed up to a recruitment company. They've got me a couple of days work so far and I've an interview coming up for another job with them.
Ollie, Ciaran's cousin, arrived two weeks ago. He's got himself a job in a bar already. He's living with us for the moment.
We went to see Piranha 3DD. I wouldn't advise it. Oh, and don't judge me, it was free. Prometheus on the other hand was deadly.
We've made friends (mostly Irish and mostly from the hostel we stayed in).
I played beer pong for the first time in my life with the lads upstairs. I seem to get better at it the drunker I am.
Ciaran had an Engineering interview last Thursday which went really well until the part where they sprung a test on him. It was on stuff we haven't studied in a year.
I bought a guitar. It's black. I'm learning from the internet.
I watched Six One on RTE Player on Saturday and saw Caoimhe on it.

There she is!

 

That's it really. For all of you back in Ireland, it is currently 18:38 and it's 21 degrees Celsius. Hahaha.

Chapter 14

We went to the Expo at the weekend. It was okay. The only way I'd go back to one of these really would be if I could afford the VIP passes which cuts the queueing times dramatically. So, on the Friday, we set off to go to the Expo. On the way, we stopped off at the hostel, which is literally across the road from where the Expo was held, to check our mail as we were waiting for our Social Insurance Number cards. They were there so we hung around for an hour or so just chatting and catching up with the people we knew there. Also, Moyne called me from Pav Friday, but I couldn't really hear him and felt quite self-conscious shouting down the phone to him in the quiet common area of the hostel. But it was nice.

We went into the Expo and there wasn't too many people around which was good. Of course, some of the people who were there were dressed up in costume. Some of them looked deadly but I couldn't really get pictures of them. Other costume-less people stopped them to take pictures of them which I thought was kind of weird. We went up to Aaron Douglas' desk to ask for an autograph (he plays Tyrol in Battlestar Galactica) and his agent was like yeah, it's $20. We just kind of went oh and Douglas was like ah here and took my little notebook and signed it for me. He was really nice. He asked us where we were from and we told him and when we mentioned that Ciaran was from Monaghan, he did the stereotypical American thing of oh, my great-great-great (to infinity) grandfather was the sheriff of Cork. Dunno how he linked Monaghan with Cork but there you go. He told us that he has his whistle.

This is him.

Then we went and had a look around all of the stands. There was some pretty cool stuff, all of which you had to pay for of course.

The Batmobile. Probably something $15 to sit in it and get your picture taken.

Lego city.

Some swords and shit that you could buy.

The DeLorean. Again, $15 to sit in it and get your picture taken.

Albino python. $5 to hold one of their reptiles and get your picture taken.

The amount of money being made at these things is ridiculous. Like in terms of autographs and photos, the likes of Stan Lee and Patrick Stewart were getting $75 per photo and autograph. If you wanted a photo with the whole The Next Generation cast it was $495. Riiiiight.

We also went to this Martial Arts presentation thing which was good enough. The four year old kid doing the tumbles and kicks was very cute.

I forgot to take a picture when they were doing something interesting.

So, that was Friday which was enjoyable. Saturday was a disaster. We got up and into the Expo by about quarter to eleven in order to make the 11 o'clock talk by Max Brooks, the guy who wrote World War Z and The Zombie Survival guide. It was the only thing Ciaran was really looking forward to. We walked straight in to the Expo arena flashing our passes we got the day before, skipping all the people who had yet to get their passes, walking straight to the room where the talk was and when we got there, it was full. Instead, we went to this talk on the Steampunk culture which was alright. Nothing amazing. After that, we went and queued up an hour in advance for the Sanctuary panel with Amanda Tapping and Christopher Heyerdahl. I never really watch Sanctuary but knew Amanda Tapping from Stargate, so I really wanted to go to this. The queue was pretty long by the time we got there but Ciaran walked up the line and estimated there were 250-350 people ahead so we were bound to get in to the 500 people capacity theatre. Nope. We got to the top of the line when they said it was full, we were literally about 10 people away. We figure that people who came out of the theatre next to it had skipped the queue. Also, apparently people had stayed in the theatre from the talk before. So, bollocks to that. We had nothing to do until four o'clock (it was one at this stage) so we got some food. I had bought a photo op with Amanda Tapping for $40. They asked if I wanted a digital copy for an extra $10. Eh, no thanks.

We queued for the photo op at three. We were there until about five when they said that was the end of the photo op. So, we charged straight up to the desk where we got the ticket for the op to talk about refunds. They told us we could use that ticket for the 12 o'clock photo op the next day so we thought we'd give it a shot. We left straight away after that. Very disappointing day but we probably weren't the most disappointed people there. At about one o'clock that day, the Fire Marshall arrived to the Expo and said the place was over capacity so they stopped letting people in and if you left the Expo, you wouldn't get back in. So, there were people with weekend passes and Saturday passes in the queue outside who couldn't get in. Such a shame. They clearly over-sold the event.

Example of the crowd there. I saw two girls crying because they were claustrophobic.

They seemed a bit more organised on the Sunday though. When we got off the train at about 10.30, we were pretty disheartened by the queue to get in. It was about half a kilometre long and there was two of them. They made everyone queue up to get in, weekend passes or not. Despite that though, it was only a half an hour before we got in which was grand. We went straight to join another queue for the photo op. Surprisingly, we got the photo.

I cropped it so we don't look fat.

I went and bought two volumes of The Walking Dead comics and then left. When we were outside, we sold our passes to a tout for $10 each which wasn't bad as we paid $40 each for them and there was only half a day left on them.

So that was our experience with the Expo. As I said, I would only do it again if I had the VIP passes. They barely had to queue for anything.

Richard Hatch.

Wil Wheaton.

Stan Lee and some silly people who paid $75 for the autograph.

Wall-E.

Oh, also on Friday, we met up with a guy I know from home. We went to the Irish Cultural Society and had a few drinks. It was a fun night and it was nice to meet some of the Irish that are over here. Pain in the hole getting a taxi back though, it was in the middle of nowhere.

Thank you the Calgary subreddit who provided me with a way to retrieve a digital copy of the photo, even if I didn't pay for the digital version. Me Hacksta.

Chapter 13

Hello. Seeing as I put up a load of Facebook photos today, I thought I'd throw some up here too to give you a taste of what we've been doing (mostly nothing much) and a bit of an explanation of the pictures.

Ciaran carrying toilet roll bought from our local Safeway in the background. Also, notice the American-style school bus in the background. Canadians probably wouldn't like me saying this but Canada (well, Calgary anyway) is quite American. Large roads with multiple lanes, big cars, Starbucks on every corner. You get the idea.

Me walking through the neighbourhood on a lovely day. The weather reached 27 degrees the other day.

The Irish Stew in our local Irish bar, Jameson's. I think it's an Irish bar chain. In keeping with the North American style, food portions are large.

 I finally managed to capture one of these black squirrels on camera. Yeah, the squirrels are black. I didn't even know the existed in this colour. I want one.

Our new friend that I've named Kitty. It was so friendly. Just came up to us and started rolling around on the ground. There are about three cats who live two doors down. They help me not miss my own cat as much.

Halfway through our 10km walk, we stopped to get Starbuck's. Ciaran's drinking the very un-masculine looking Strawberries and Cream Frappucino.

Calgary's downtown skyline from SAIT (Southern Alberta Institute of Technology). It was a deadly view and the college itself seemed really nice.

Again, the skyline from SAIT.

The Heritage Building in SAIT. I thought it was pretty.

Astro-turf football pitch in SAIT. It was actually on the roof of a multi-storey car park. Awesome location with the skyline in the background.

This is the LRT or C-Train which is Calgary's version of the LUAS if the LUAS sped through the city at 80km/h and had two lines that actually linked up.

So, we're going to Calgary's version of Comic Con this weekend. Seriously looking forward to having something to do for three days in a row. Most of the time, we sit in the apartment and apply for jobs.

That pretty much sums up the last week. Expect more pictures from the Expo at the weekend.

Chapter 12

So, I've been guilted into updating my blog. Here's looking at you Jen and Caoi. Quite a lot has happened since the last post. Six days after the last post, Ciaran and I got our visas. We booked our flights and left Ireland on the 11th of April. The flight wasn't the best now. Ciaran had this stomach bug that I apparently gave him. What I thought was a really bad hangover on the Monday after our going away party actually was this 24 hour stomach bug thing which I also gave to my Mum. So, if I gave it to anybody else, I'm sorry. It's not pretty. So, we flew Dublin to Gatwick with Aer Lingus, who are shitheads. I booked an extra bag with them after I realised that I wasn't going to get everything in one bag. Got to check in and they were all like "Eh, you realise that if you book an extra bag, it doesn't mean you get extra weight." Well, fuck. They were going to charge €300 until I burst into tears, at which point they reduced it to €150. Still a rip-off.

Not well at all.

We got to Gatwick where we had to wait about 5 hours for our connecting flight. So we had three suitcases to lug around from bathroom to bathroom as Ciaran needed to take frequent trips (without going into too much detail). After we checked in our bags on the Air Transat flight to Calgary, we went through security and slept in the waiting area before the displayed our gate number. It was only an hour but we felt so much better after our little nap, which was especially good for Ciaran. One 9 hour flight and two meals later, we landed in Calgary and got a taxi to the hostel. Of course, our first port of call after we got our bags and stuff into our hostel room was an Irish pub. Just for food though.

Thursday and Friday consisted of viewing apartments, getting phones, getting Social Insurance Numbers and the like. We had our eye on one particular apartment on RentFaster but they only provided a phone number and not an email address so we had to wait until we got our phones at about 3 o'clock on Friday. We called the landlord at about 4, went to view it at about 5 and we'd signed the lease by 6. It was actually so lucky. And I love it. We only have the lease until 30th of August at which point we'll have to find somewhere else, but that's fine. Once we get jobs we might want to live closer to them or get a bigger place. This place is plenty big enough for the two of us though. Cue the apartment pictures.

Kitchen

Bathroom

Bedroom with unpacked suitcases

Living area

We're actually in a basement apartment hence the high windows.

As far as meeting people has been going, most of it was done in the hostel. The hostel was really nice and the people were deadly too. We had our own private room because we had laptops, Kindles, important documents etc. We went out on a pub crawl on Friday night for the hostel owner's birthday. It was fun but we left the last place early with this English guy because we were starving. We'd skipped dinner with the whole getting an apartment thing. Drink seems to be slightly cheaper at home, even when you include the tip and tax. Actually, nearly everything is slightly cheaper than home, not dramatically cheaper but just a nice amount that makes you go "Oh, that's not a bad price".

What else? Oh, the weather. It's quite changeable. I mean, it snows one day and you get sunburned the next. But even when it's snowing, it's doesn't feel as cold as it would be if it was snowing at home because the humidity isn't as high here. As far as the job search is going, I'm really only starting this week. The response from say the girl at the bank when we set up our accounts, the girl who gave us our SINs, people at the hostel seems to be good. People tell us we came to the right place when we say we are Civil Engineers. Oh and speaking of banks, before I started this post, I transferred my money from my Ulster Bank account to my TD account here using online banking. Fingers crossed it makes it. Basically all of my money is somewhere in electronic banking world, hopefully on it's way to my Canadian account. I won't find out for 1-2 working days. I seriously hope I don't have to follow it up if it gets lost, but anyway, stop worrying Hannah. It'll probably never happen, and if it does, I'll have plenty of writing material for my next blog post.

So, that's basically it. I'll post again with more pictures that I'll take with our brand spanking new camera that our fantastic friends at home got us before we left. Thanks guys!

Chapter 11

Actually, it did save it. Woop!

Warning: this is going to be a complaining post. You have been warned.

Basically, what I wanted to complain about is the whole IEC visa application process for Canada's year long work holiday visa. From the beginning, you should know that you can get the Australian working holiday visa in 48 hours. You could book a flight to Sydney for two days time and by the time you get there, you'd be able to enter and work legally for a whole year in the country. With Canada it's a completely different story.

I'll give you my progress timeline:

On the 9th of January, I sent my application pack to the High Commission in London which contained three completed forms, passport photos, CV, a copy of my passport amongst other things. Ciaran sent his on the 11th.
On the 7th of February, nearly a month later, I get an email notifying me that they have received my application. At this point, they hadn't even looked at it before this date. In this email, they said that they'd email me again within two weeks to request payment of €105 and to email them an electronic version of one of the forms I'd already sent. Ciaran got this email on the 14th.
On the 29th of February, I received this email. The eagle-eyed among you may have noticed that this was not within the promised two weeks. I sent my payment on the 1st of March and the form on the 2nd. I immediately got a reply saying they'd received my email. Ciaran got the payment requested email on the 6th.
On the 9th of March, I started to freak out. Ciaran got an email to say they'd received his payment and he has been moved on to the next stage. Seeing as he had paid a week after me (through the same bank branch and using the same method), I started to panic. I'd read enough horror stories on boards.ie of applications being sent back even though they'd paid where they had to start the whole drawn out process again. I emailed them right away but being 5 o'clock on a Friday evening, I didn't expect anything to be done. Luckily, I got the email that Ciaran got on the 12th.

So, it seems to be really unorganised. They don't seem to employ the first come first served process they promise on their website. They don't reply to emails. They seem to cancel people applications on a whim. They don't work as quick as they say they do on their website. People who applied last year, when it was organised by Paris, say the whole thing took them only six weeks.

This was all I had before it crashed and now I don't even feel like complaining anymore as this being saved here in cyberspace has put me in a good mood. But yeah, London office bad, getting visa soon good.

Now I've to think of another good video to end this.

Chapter 10

Well, bollocks. I had a lovely long complaining post about the whole application process for Canada's year long working holiday visa and my computer crashed and didn't save a thing...well...except for the title of the post but that's hardly useful.

I'm not going to even attempt to write another one. Not in the mood anymore. Long story short, my next email from Canada should be the visa.

I'm off now to back up everything on a hard drive in case my computer is fucked.

Next time, I'm buying a mac.

Chapter 9

After waiting four weeks without knowing if my application pack got to the Canadian High Commission in London, I got an email from them saying they're processing my application. I was unbelievably excited, way too excited from just a little email that essentially says hi. But yay, I'm on my way! It looks like it'll probably be mid March before I leave though. I JUST WANT TO BOOK MY FLIGHTS!!!

I gave my notice in to work which felt awesome. I'm leaving on the 24th of this month so I can have a few weeks of relaxation and so I can organise stuff. Only one more roster to go.

On the reading front, I finished The Hunger Games trilogy which has left me looking forward to the film on the 23rd of March. Hopefully I'll be seeing it in Calgary. I then re-read Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk which is a deadly book. If you like the film, read it. I'm currently on American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis. I haven't seen the film and I'm only like ten pages in so I can't tell what it's going to be like yet.

Wooo, new Walking Dead out tonight. It's the only thing keeping me going through the between Breaking Bad seasons break.

But seriously, I can't wait for Canada. This blog will probably become a million times more exciting. I might even take and upload pictures.

The Pixies when they all had hair:

Chapter 8

Well, hello again. I've no idea what to make this post about. I guess the reason why I suddenly felt like posting was because I've nothing else to do on the internet what with both Reddit and Wikipedia being down, protesting against SOPA/PIPA (I don't really understand either of these bills but apparently they're bad).

I've been reading on my Kindle a lot. I think I mentioned Sherlock Holmes before but since then I've read 1984 by George Orwell (very good book), The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo trilogy, the Millenium Series, by Steig Larsson (good books, fell in love with Salander), World War Z by Max Brooks (good, interested in how they'll make it into a film) and now I've started The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games was good, very Battle Royale). I was also excited to learn that Battle Royale is actually a book and not just only a film. So, yeah, reading has been taking up a lot of my time. Aren't I just the epitome of excitement?

Oooh, good news, I'm going to Canada! Calgary to be precise. I sent off my working holiday visa application pack last week so I'm just waiting to hear back from them and then hopefully I'll be able to set a date. I'm aiming for the end of February.

Still working loads of hours in the pub.

Christmas and New Years were uneventful enough. Drinking, eating and working pretty much sums it up.

Right, my laptop battery is about to die and I'm too lazy to run upstairs to grab my charger.

Have some of this: