Scooby is legally Albertan!

The past week has been another learning curve where we discovered the difference between a BC car and a Albertan car – apparently a lot.

Within 90 days of arriving in Alberta a person must change their drivers license to an Alberta license by sacrificing their original one in a not-so-romantic ceremony, apply for a form to arrange a car inspection. Yes, you apply for the form to permit you to get your car checked. Then you get your car checked and if it passes you have 14 days to pay for an Alberta registration and ta-da!! You are now legally driving in Alberta.

Scooby of course passed with flying colours and survived this process while I made friends with the girls working in the Canmore Registry Office with my extensive visits!

You didn’t think I was out playing amongst the mountains the whole time did you?

Out and Aboot

I honestly don’t think Canadians say ‘aboot’. They have a lovely soft way of saying it and to me it sounds more like ‘abowt’. Anyway I digress!

We have been managing to explore a little more of the area on our weekends, whether it is from the comfort of our front door or jumping in Scooby and driving to Lake Louise.

On a random Sunday night we decided to jump in the car and drive to Lake Louise for sunset as we thought the light would be perfect over the water. The light was perfect however the water wasn’t water, it was still ice. We hadn’t realised that the lake would still be frozen in June. It was beautiful nonetheless. 

Slushy Lake Louise

The best part of this impromptu trip was the massive, spectacular, rambling, grizzly bear that we saw at the side of the road a mere 100m away. It was amazing!! They are huge and I honestly think I could sit on it and it wouldn’t notice. They are also ridiculously camouflage amongst the trees and bushes as Lewis could not see it until it wobbled a branch on a tree. Phenomenal Sunday evening!

We have also been taken by the perfect light and long days that we have been lucky to experience in ‘Monsoon June’.

Happy June all!

What you do for a good photograph

Bloomin’ Banking

Upon arriving in Canada we have quickly realised why there was no massive economic crash within the Canadian economy – the banks charge for everything. Simply to hold money for you costs anything upwards of $3 a month.

Furthermore, should you want to use your debit card (the piece of plastic that is created to make spending easier) to buy something as simple as food you can either pay an additional $1 per transaction or change your account to include a set number of transactions, but guess what? This rockets your monthly fees up too. I am paying the bank to keep, spend and receive my own money. Well played Canadian Banks, well played.

Coming from the UK this baffles me. The we-don’t-charge-you-UK, where the majority of bank accounts are free and you can go to any ATM with any bank and take your money out for free. How good you guys have it and you don’t realise.

Here, I feel like the little boy in Mary Poppins who just wants to keep his tuppence. Should it be so hard?

Image from brookschamber.ab.ca

Funnily enough this is not actually the main reason for this ramble. The cause in actual fact is related to cheques or ‘checks’ as they spell it here. Lewis receives his pay in the form of good old-fashioned cheques, which takes an astounding 4-5 business days to clear, causing significant grief in trying to survive particularly before I started working.

This past week has been exceptionally tough as we have been surviving on $35 and as of this moment I believe we have $3 between us, no milk and minimal food to eat today.

The delightful and very-friendly (the people are actually lovely at the branch)  Scotiabank has decided to hold his pay cheque for another day, just because they can. We put it in to the bank on Tuesday morning, a whole week ago, 7 days ago, and it will be EIGHT days by the time the money is released. That is if they choose to release it tomorrow.

(Please fill in at least a minutes worth of blasphemy here should you understand our plight)

I am in a rather bad mood and as of this afternoon, I am firing Scotiabank and their services and moving to a much more forward thinking bank. Sorry friendly bank workers, but your banking approach is a joke.

Who will it be? Toronto Dominion, CIBC, ATB, RBC, BMO?

1, 2, 3, 4, 5Peaks

I am unbelievably fortunate to work where I do. They are an amazing group of people and it is such a relaxed environment around the office.

As part of what we sell we get to work with so many great events and one of them is the 5Peaks challenge. These challenges take place all over Canada from BC to Quebec.

A couple of weekends ago I was setting up the BUFF® tent at Canmore Nordic Centre where I got to meet some crazily fit and enthusiastic people. It is definitely true what they say, people who exercise are unquestionably happier than most.

Anyway, I took some pretty pictures of the event and had a wonderful morning. Maybe next time I will join in with the race (avec bear spray!)