Immigration was fun, I was funnelled off from everyone else and put into some sort of holding pen where all the special cases were waiting to put forward their case as to why they should be allowed into the country. I felt like a refugee or illegal immigrant. Fortunately, when it was my turn with the immigration officer (who was wearing body armour!) it was relatively painless. Although I was warned; "your work permit allows you to work in any profession, except the sex trade. No strip clubs or massage parlours." Well, on to plan B then.On Wednesday Megan had organised a whole day of errands; bank account, social security number and mobile phone. She had researched all the different options, found shops which were all close together, and even planned a route for how to get between them. It was all so easy it only took us a few hours to get everything sorted out. My bank account is with a super market chain called President's Choice. They had a strange alcove set into the wall by the checkouts which had one guy at a desk with a computer and printer. Canadian banking is very different to British banking. It's very unusual to get a no fee bank account, most of them have a monthly fee. On top of this you can only use the ATMs of that particular bank. If you use another banks ATM you get charged. Strangest of all, many accounts have a limited number of transactions that you can make a month. If you use your card more than your allocated transactions you get charged per transaction. I hadn't realised how free and flexible our banking is. The account I've got is free but only has a very limited debit card. No online purchases for me.
On Thursday I went wandering around Toronto. I really like it a lot, it's a big city but it doesn't feel too busy or crowded. There's a sort of laid back feel to it. I might change my mind when it's cold and covered in snow, but for now I'm a definite fan. It's really easy to get around, the subway is dead simple and so far hasn't been too busy and its easy to transfer onto a bus or street car. Which is probably my favourite part of the city, the streetcars are awesome. There's something remakably good fun about running into the middle of the street and jumping onto the street car, it feels quite old fashioned. In fact quite a lot of Toronto has a slightly old fashioned feel, lots of red brick buildings and old churches mixed in amongst the skyscrapers.I spent ages just wandering around the streets, drinking Tim Hortons coffee (the locals like to order it as a "double-double", that's 2 creams and 2 sugars) and browsing in all the cool hipster shops. (Toronto is full of hipsters; today Meg and I had breakfast at a Waffle place called "The Starving Artist", they had paintings based on comic books for sale up on the wall, had a large TV showing The Life Aquatic and the clientel had more tattoos and large black rimmed glasses than I've ever seen in one place).
